Page 63 of Warrior's Walk

“Good, I’ll meet you in the pool in an hour.”

I try not to laugh at his otherworldly glow and get back to the business of helping people help themselves.

At twelve-thirty, I cut through the locker room to grab some towels on my way to the pool. No matter how many times they clean this place, it always smells like sweaty jockstraps.

When I round a bank of lockers, I see Nash with his head in his locker, searching through his bag. He pops two pills in his mouth and slams the locker shut. Red flags freeze me in my tracks, making goosebumps rise along my skin. I watched Nash struggle through the end of his addiction and the beginning of his recovery, and if he’s entertaining the idea of revisiting that hellish nightmare, I might just have something to say about it.

I plant my feet in front of him, arms crossed over my chest. He startles when he turns.

“What?” he asks. The look on my face tells him everything I’m not saying with words. “Oh, that? Ibuprofen, I swear.” Nash reaches into his bag and pulls out the bottle to show me.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I’m always going to worry about you.” Last year, he was badly tortured in captivity and shot in the leg. After the bullet shattered his femur, he suffered fifteen more days without getting it treated. He walks with a slight limp now, but at least he walks.

“I know. I overdid it earlier in the gym.”

“Well, the pool will be the perfect cool down for you. When you get home, ice your leg.”

“I will. I promise. So, I heard Rhett’s joining us today. Nice to have a new addition to the swim team.”

“He’s just starting out in his therapy, and though he needs to push himself to stay motivated, don’t let him try to keep up with you. He’s not there yet.”

“I’ll keep an eye on the little tyke,” Nash teases.

When I walk out into the enclosed pool area, the humidity slaps me in the face and I breathe in the chlorine scented air, letting the steam open up my chest and sinuses. Nash is the first one in the pool, followed by West, and then McCormick. They sit on the edge of the pool, removing their prosthetic legs before jumping in the deep end. Today I have two other vets joining us for the first time, but they’re further along in their recovery than Rhett.

When Rhett walks out of the locker room, wearing a very short and very tight pair of black swim trunks, I do a double take, failing to school my expression before he catches me. He’s the second one who fails to hide his surprise.

“What’s this? I thought you invited me to swim with you.”

Nash cracks up and splashes him with water. “I fell for that once, thinking I was meeting Brewer here. Boy, was I wrong.”

“This is aquatic therapy. The water acts as a resistant force without any of the impact on your body that the machines in the gym cause. Jump in,” I add, eyeing his shorts once more. Jesus, what will they look like when they’re sopping wet and stuck to his skin?

“Also known as the ‘Bitches’ synchronized swim team,’” McCormick jokes.

“This better not be stupid,” he grumbles, gingerly climbing down the ladder.

“For everyone but Rhett, take two full laps back and forth.” When I blow my whistle, they take off, kicking and splashing across the pool.

“What about me?” he asks.

“I want you to hold on to the side of the pool and just kick your legs out behind you like you’re swimming.”

He does as instructed, and the move makes his butt breach the surface, popping out of the water. Because his bathing suit is wet, the thin fabric molds to his cheeks, highlighting the crack between them. My mouth waters for a taste of that crease. If we do this, if we go ahead with this relationship and get naked at some point, the first thing I’m going to do is drag my tongue through his ass and taste his hole.

By the time the rest of them finish their laps, Rhett is almost out of steam. “I’m fuckin’ sweating in the pool! That’s gotta be a first for me.”

West swims up to him and grabs the wall. “It’s harder than it looks, isn’t it? But that’s the point. Riggs says that when you find new ways to use your muscles, you use new muscles. The pool does for our bodies what the gym can’t.”

You have to love it when your patients start quoting you. It means they’re listening. “Are you angling for my job, Wardell?”

“Hell no. I refuse to carry around that stupid clipboard all day.”

“Move to the shallow end. Thirty jumping jacks, and then running in place until I blow the whistle.”

They grumble and groan as they swim over to the shallow side of the pool. “Rhett, you can join them. But don’t try for thirty. Just stop when you feel like you’ve reached your limit.” I know for a fact, he’ll push himself past what he thinks his limit is, which is fine with me. It’s what he needs to do.

For thirty more minutes, they continue to push their bodies past what they think they can handle at the sound of my whistle.“Nash and Rhett, stick around and do a cooldown before you get out. Everyone else hit the shower.” They’re both experiencing inflammation today, and the least I can do is encourage them to treat their bodies right. The cooldown exercises followed by a cold shower and some ice packs will do the trick.

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