Page 54 of Depths of Desire
He held me like I was a reward, not a burden. I didn’t know which god I’d sucked off in my previous life to deserve this, but I must have given a damn good head.
Other times were quieter. Sunday mornings, slow and golden. We’d sit at his tiny kitchen table, both shirtless, hair amess, bare feet tangled beneath the table legs. He made eggs that were always too runny, even though he tried to act like it was intentional. I toasted bagels. We drank terrible coffee and watched the sunlight crawl across the floor like it was performing just for us.
He had a toothbrush waiting for me in his bathroom. A spare hoodie hanging next to his own. A chipped ceramic mug with a fox on it that he never used, except when I was over.
I never asked about any of it. I didn’t need to.
Sometimes I’d find little things in his apartment—my beanie folded on the windowsill, a movie cued up on his TV that we’d joked about watching weeks earlier. One night, I caught him doing dishes while humming a song I didn’t think anyone remembered, and I realized it had been stuck in my head when I left his place three nights before. Somehow, he’d caught it. Held on to it. Played it back.
I started to recognize a new kind of ache. Not the lonely kind I’d known before. This one was quieter, sharper. The kind that hit you in the chest when you got back to your own room and it was just you again. The kind that made the dorm feel too small, too quiet, too cold.
I’d lie in bed staring at the ceiling, scrolling through photos I didn’t even remember taking, just to feel close to him again. One of us laughing. One of our hands, fingers curled together on his sheets. A blurry one of him brushing his teeth, hair wild, eyes on me in the mirror.
One night, during a national swim meet, I watched him on TV. The commentators were analyzing his technique, his potential comeback after last year’s Nationals. They listed stats. Talked about pressure. Mental blocks. Redemption arcs.
I just stared at the screen, heart pounding, and whispered, “Come on, baby,” like it might somehow carry across the miles and land in his chest.
And when he touched the wall, turned to find the scoreboard, and grinned—that grin—I felt like the world stopped spinning for a second. I wanted to be the first person he saw. I wanted to be the reason behind that smile.
I didn’t know when it happened.
Somewhere between late-night kisses and him pressing warm leftovers into my hands…
Somewhere between his laugh echoing in his apartment and the way he always made room for me in his bed…
But I’d stopped wondering if he’d call.
I just knew he would.
And I’d answer, always.
FIFTEEN
OLIVER
Spring was happeningall at once.
Like someone had snapped their fingers and turned the world technicolor. The wind still had bite in it, sharp and teasing like it hadn’t quite made up its mind, but the trees lining the campus sidewalks had started to bud anyway, stubborn little fists of green determined to exist. There were crocuses in the cracks between pavement stones, pale and purple and soft against the grit. Light that used to slant cold now arrived warmer, lazier, like it had time to linger on your shoulder, your jawline, the back of your neck.
It made the whole world feel slower.
Except me.
Time didn’t linger for me. Not anymore. It came and went in hard edges and precision. Stopwatch clicks. Stroke counts. Intake and output. Seconds measured like gold dust. I didn’t live in seasons. I lived in splits, recovery percentages, data, and pushing until something gave out.
Days blurred the same way water blurs over skin, fast and forgettable, unless you stopped to feel it. Practice. Class. Gym. Recovery. Repeat. I tracked my life in intervals, heartbeats, seconds shaved off the clock. Except now…there were gaps in therhythm. Bright ones. Disruptive, glorious breaks in the pattern I’d fought to maintain for years.
Texts. Sleepy voice notes. A picture of a half-eaten bagel captionedYour fault, too runnyagain. Memes I had to stifle laughter at in the locker room. One-liner messages that didn’t say much but said everything.
Sometimes I’d open a message from Lennox mid-training and not even read it—just see his name on my screen and close the app again, no reply, no need. Just the sight of it was enough. It steadied me. Made my world feel less like a race I was about to lose and more like something I might actually enjoy running.
That was what I was thinking about when my phone buzzed during cooldown. I was on the bench, chest still rising from the last lap, legs aching, arms loose with the good kind of soreness. The kind that came from doing something right.
It was Lena.
I answered as I laced my sneakers, one thumb pushing the knot into place.
“You’re a little hard to catch lately,” she said. No hello, just that sharp, observant tone she always used when she was already halfway to figuring something out.
