Page 44 of Teach Me To Sin

My mouth feels as dry as paper, and my numb fingers fumble to undress myself, get my swim cap on, and hang my goggles around my neck. I can feel a few confused eyes on me, but no one says anything on my way to the pool deck.

There are so many people in the seats that I can’t find Colson, no matter how hard I look. Alek catches up to me as I stretch, but I pretend to work on a muscle cramp so I don’t have to make eye contact. It’s cooler here than in the lockers, but my whole body is slick with sweat.

“Just do your best,” Alek offers helpfully, fidgeting with the paperwork in his hand. Are there four more uninspiring words in the English language?

I mumble something incoherent and head for my lane. Usually the sight of a pool gets me energized, but today it looks blurry and about three hundred meters longer than it ought to be. It’s getting longer every second that I stare at it, so I focus on my feet instead.

My body goes into autopilot when the whistle sounds and I climb onto the block. I slide my goggles on, then bend down and curl the tips of my shaky fingers under the edge. My dive looks a lot prettier than it did at the fundraiser meet, but it’s way too slow. As I try to find my cadence, my brain gives me so many conflicting messages that I’m second-guessing the most basic fundamentals. It’s not until the end of the first length that I pull myself together, so I’m not exactly surprised when I hit the wall and see my name at the bottom of the board.

I rest my face against the edge of the pool, gulping in air like a loser. My throat has gone tight and my head hurts a little, but I don’t feel as shitty as I expected. I swam a bad race, and I lost. If I swim a good race in the 200m, where I have more time to catch up, I can still place high.

Alek follows me into the locker room this time, watching me pull off my goggles and wrap a towel around my shoulders. He waits until I settle on a bench in the corner with my phone, then sits down next to me. The man is a mix of sexy and adorable in his fitted polo, with his hair carefully brushed back and his chin dusted with stubble because he didn’t have time to shave. “You did great!”

I slouch further down against the wall and eye him. “Did I? Really?”

He shoots me a warning look. “For your first time, yes. Try to anticipate the starting whistle more, rather than reacting to it after the fact. And don’t second guess your rhythm. Trust your body. But I’m really proud of you.”

“Was it my best time?” I eye the papers in his hand, suddenly scared that it might be.

A sigh of relief slips out of me when he shakes his head. “Not even close.”

“Good. So I’ll get it this time.”

He sighs and reaches for my leg, then catches himself. “I feel like you’re not listening to anything I say.”

When I glance at my phone, I see just one text, from a number that makes my stomach cramp. I drop it face down in my lap and force myself to focus on Alek. “Huh?”

I’m half kidding and half serious, but at least it makes him roll his eyes and smile a little. “Last night was a mistake if you don’t respect me as your coach anymore. I’ve done this swim meet thing a couple million times, believe it or not.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” I say quickly, sitting up. “Don’t say that. I’m listening.”

His face softens, and his hand slides over until his fingers are resting on mine. “I know it wasn’t a mistake. I didn’t mean that. Just remember that you’re the least experienced person here and it’s not your job to win. All I want is–”

“For me to do my best,” I sing-song, pulling a face at him.

Before he can answer, a noisy group of guys comes in and we jerk our hands apart. Alek slides away from me on the bench, just to be extra safe, and I hate it. He glances at his phone, so I dare to tilt mine up and check the barrage of questions from my father.

Why haven’t you texted me since yesterday morning? When is he back? What day is the fundraiser gala next week?

I don’t fucking know. Please leave me alone, I type back as fast as I can.

It buzzes again before I can even put it down.Come straight back after you land in Seattle. And never say ‘I don’t know’ to me.

I don’t answer this time, just delete the messages and throw my phone down. Trying not to hyperventilate, I study Alek’s strong profile as he rereads his notes. After his speech aired on TV, I went to the news site and rewatched his closing statement every night as I fell asleep. Alek acts like me and my swimming career are the only things that matter, but that’s not true. I’m his redemption, his way of taking back everything his dad stole. And he doesn’t know it, but he’s the light at the end of my tunnel, a promise that I’m not just careening into an endless dark hole. That we’ll both be happy once it’s all over.

Do your bestisn’t enough to change Alek’s past, and it’s not enough to save my future. I need to be good enough.

My next race is in fifteen minutes, so I pat Alek on the head and go back to the pool deck to stretch some more. After eight minutes of looking, I finally find Colson in the crowd. He’s looking down when I spot his dark hair, but he glances up like he senses me. I’m not sure if this is allowed in the complicated web of rules where we’re pretending we didn’t fuck, but I offer him a tiny wave. He doesn’t wave back, but he tilts his chin up in acknowledgement before going back to his phone. I wonder if he’s watching Hamlet and Triss rampage around his kitchen some more.

When I step up to my lane the second time, it feels like everyone in the building is staring straight at me. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, looking for my center or whatever crap fancy athletes talk about. Instead, I just find a hidden memory that fell in the cracks between all my panic and determination.

Last night at around three in the morning, I woke up with my heart pounding from a nightmare of swimming and swimming with all my strength for hours and never moving an inch, while the water got so dark I couldn’t see anything.

Alek’s arms were around me, his breath tickling the back of my neck. Colson rolled over, still half asleep, and blinked at me through bleary eyes. He was completely unguarded and soft, nothing like his normal self. His fingers brushed my cheek, and his thumb stroked my lower lip.

“Go to sleep, little fish,” he mumbled, his low rumble almost impossible to understand.

“What’s happening to us? What are we doing?” I think that’s what I said, but I can’t quite remember.

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