Page 1 of Dire Straights

MADDOX

DIVING INTO THEwater zapped my skin with a jolt of brief cold, but like always, the moment I was under, my instincts took over. I darted through the pool, my body twisting to push off from the wall with my legs for another lap. When I was done, rising up over the surface with a deep breath, I yanked off my goggles.

Coach Larson stood at the end of the pool, staring down at me with a pleased expression. He barked out my time, a time that was just a little bit better than everyone else’s that morning, before giving me some generic congratulations and encouragement.

“Way to hustle, Holmes.” Like every team I’d ever been on, we were all referred to by our last names only. He gave my bare shoulder an optimistic slap as I dragged myself up and out of the pool. He reminded me of my dad, and not in a complimentary way. The only time I could recall him being proud of me was when I was excelling in a sport.

“Good time, Holmes.”

“Nice one, Holmes.”

The guys on the team gave similarly generic praise for my performance, though most of it was not as sincere as Coach’s. I couldn’t really blame them for being less than enthusiastic toward me. Most of them had attended swim clubs and practiced for this all their lives. I’d bounced around whatever sport my dad had forced me to play since childhood and had kind of arbitrarily landed on swimming for college. I didn’t like it any more than I’dliked baseball or football or soccer, but at least it wasn’t quite so team-oriented.

Add on the fact that I was a freshman, and most of them were juniors and seniors, and the bitterness was pretty understandable. I might have felt bad for them, but we were only a few weeks into the fall semester and I’d already decided most of the other guys on the team were pretty annoying. I couldn’t see myself hanging out with them outside of practice, despite the fact that we were heavily encouraged to do so.

Then again, whocouldI see myself hanging out with? I’d had lots of friends in high school, on and off the various teams, but I was finding university to be a whole different experience. It made me wonder if the friends I’d had were only circumstantial, convenient because we’d gone to the same schools for 12 years. Well, whatever. I probably needed to focus on my classes anyway. I wasn’t a moron but I wasn’t exactly an academic prodigy either.

After practice was over and I’d showered off the chlorine, I toweled off in the locker room. All the lockers had a sticker depicting our team’s mascot, a cartoon barracuda. According to Google, barracudas were highly intelligent. The majority of guys on the team were definitely not living up to that lofty praise.

Conversation from the main little clique of guys on the team floated over to me as I pulled my clothes on.

“Did you see what he had on today?” I recognized Garrison’s voice without even looking over because he was always running his trap. It was already burned into my brain, despite the short time we’d known each other, along with the voices of his two bumbling henchmen. They were like two-dimensional bullies in a Disney Channel original movie; not very smart, not very funny, and not very likable.

I heard a snicker, followed by Ahmet’s response. “Yeah, I saw it. I wanted to bleach my eyes.”

O’Conner joined in shortly after, contributing a string of homophobic slurs to the conversation. Only the classiest here at Byron Bay University.

I already knew who they were talking about, some effeminate makeup-wearing twink with varying shades of colorful hair I’d seen around campus a couple times, usually surrounded by cute girls. You’d think they’d try to make friends with the guy who all the girls seemed to flock around and adore, especially because he was pretty clearly not going to be any kind of competition when it came to hooking up with them. But like I said, they weren’t that smart.

When I came around the corner after finishing getting dressed, I saw that Coach Larson was snickering along with them. He was shaking his head, almost like he was disapproving, but his smirk made it clear he didn’t really have a problem with their observations.

I’d never cared for locker room talk. I wasn’t exactly sure what the phenomenon was called that occurred when someone passed through the doors to a locker room, but whatever it was amplified any and all asshole tendencies by tenfold. But that was their prerogative. Not my problem or concern.

I wolfed down breakfast in the cafeteria along with the other guys, like I did every morning we had practice. When the talk shifted to football, I joined in. The season had just started, but I’d at least caught the highlights for every game so far. Part of that was because I genuinely liked football, but part of it was because my dad’s texts almost always revolved around whatever sport was in season. If I missed a game, I’d have nothing to reply back with.

I headed back home once breakfast was wrapped up because I didn’t have classes that day until the afternoon. My house was only a short walk from campus anyway, barely five minutes.

Byron Bay University, or BBU, had already filled up on dorm housing by the time my application had gotten approved, so I lived off campus, just down the street. I’d considered myself extremely lucky to stumble upon a listing for a place where I could split rent with two other guys who went to the school.

I didn’t know either of my housemates all that well yet, but my early opinion on each of them was pretty different. One was friendly and easy to get along with, and one was already irritating me with his annoying, snotty attitude.

In my room, I set my bag down and pulled out a few textbooks. On my way over to the bed, I caught sight of myself in my mirror. I’d been in good shape pretty much my whole life, since my dad had forced me into sports before I’d even turned 8. But swimming was doing things for my body that I liked more than the bulkier muscles I’d had in football. Lifting the hem of my shirt up to expose my navel, I studied my abs. They were more defined than they’d ever been. When I realized I was checking myself out like a douchebag gym rat tracking his gains, I let my shirt drop back down and flopped onto my bed to study.

I was going for a degree in sports medicine, but because I wanted to get most of my gen ed credits out of the way freshman year, my first class of the day was creative writing. I was already acutely aware I’d made a mistake choosing it because grades were heavily based on participation and the professor expected us to read our stuff out loud a lot of the time, something I would have rather taken a bullet than do. Not to mention the time we weren’t writing our own stories, we were supposed to critique someone else’s. What the hell did I know about good writing?

I subtly scrolled down my Instagram feed, half listening to her explanation of what kind of feedback was more helpful for your critique partner. When she announced that instead of writing a story that would be due in a week like we’d been doing,this time we’d be partnering up with someone to collaborate on a story due in two weeks, I had to suppress a groan.

Placing my phone down on the desk, I didn’t bother hiding my grimace, though I couldn’t help but notice several girls glance hopefully in my direction. At least I wouldn’t struggle finding someone to work with.

“Partners have been randomly assigned, so come check the sheet here to see who you’ll be working with,” she explained, before going on about the expected word count and other parameters. Okay, never mind about that whole finding a partner thing. The class was mostly women, so I’d probably end up getting lucky on that front anyway.

Most of the students shuffled up out of their seats to go read the sheet, but before I could even get up from my desk, I heard someone eagerly calling out my name. And the voice definitely did not belong to a cute girl. When I turned to see who’d called for me, I was met with the sight of another guy. He was smiling and waving, way too enthusiastically in my opinion. We weren’t being called down to the Price is Right stage. It was just a lame ass writing assignment.

“Hi!” He greeted me before he was even done making his way over to me. “I’m Ren Suzuki. We’re partners. I already checked,” he added, as if to discourage me from challenging his statement.

“Okay.”

“You are Maddox Holmes, right?” He asked.

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