Treading Water, page 2
She holds onto Val as she stands. My little sister wraps her arms and legs around our mother as we all head into the kitchen. “I’m on call.”
I run a hand through my hair, my chest hurting at the deep dark circles under my mom’s eyes. “Leave your phone with me and go rest. I’ll wake you up if it goes off.”
Val whines. “No, Mommy! You promised you would do my homework with me.”
My mom flinches, guilt hollowing her face. I grab Val from her and tickle my sister’s side. “Hey. What about me, Squirt? Am I not good enough to help with your homework?”
Val laughs as I try to avoid looking at where our mother is sliding past us to retreat to her room.
Chapter Four
Fallon
I thank the bartender as he sets the bottle down and walks away. Taking a sip of the cold beer, I glance around the small sports pub, impressed by the clean floor and booths.
“Fuck. I am so glad to see you,” Conor says, collapsing onto the stool next to me and waving the bartender over to order a beer for himself. I smirk at my old college roommate, watching in amusement.
“You good?” I ask when he sighs for the second time. I’m not one for small talk, but I can pick up when someone has something to say.
He pulls at the collar of his shirt, nodding. “Yeah, yeah. It’s just weird to not be doing the kids' bedtime routine.”
“We can do this another day if you need to go play with some rubber ducks and read a princess story.” I hide my smile behind the beer bottle as I sip.
Conor laughs. “You’ll understand when you’re a dad. Well, maybe. None of the other husbands get it.”
“Other husbands?” I ask, confused.
He leans forward, glancing around ominously. “Yeah, I swear having kids is like starting a tiny cult. You get to know all the local moms and dads, but since Britt makes the big bucks, I stay home. Lemme tell you buddy, that blows their mind.”
“What does?”
“Staying home with the kids while she works.” Conor takes a long gulp of the beer and winces, looking at the glass bottle. “It’s been a long time since I had one of these. I think I’ve lost the taste for it.”
I snicker. “You take your drinks with little bendy straws now?”
“Don’t knock the straw. You can get them notched in the hole so those smart fucks can’t get it out. I thought I was proud of my accomplishments in life till the first time I out-tricked a toddler. A whole different level of feat, man.”
I grin in amazement. “You love staying home with them, don’t you?”
Conor takes another sip before turning to face me. “Fucking love it. It’s stressful, and they test my patience all day. But watching how their little minds work, it’s amazing. Though I will say I got the simple part since Britt says I don’t clean well enough for her, so we pay someone to come by once a week.”
“You don’t miss working?”
He shakes his head before saying, “No, not at all. I miss adult conversations sometimes. The other night Britt had to tell me she didn’t give a rat’s ass what happened on whatever episode of Bluey we watched that day. And that was kind of upsetting, which made me realize how out of touch with the world I was.”
Conor chuckles before pausing at my confused face. “You don’t even know who Bluey is, do you?”
“No, I don’t. I barely watch TV,” I say.
“Or go on your socials. Your Instagram is a graveyard.”
I grimace. “The messages from people were getting weird. I deleted all the apps off my phone. Sometimes I watch some videos on YouTube.”
“Don’t blame you then. I was stunned to hear about you accepting the coaching position here, but I’m glad to have a friend in town again.”
Downing the rest of my beer, I wave for another and sigh. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Conor pats my back. “Already regretting it?”
I think about it. I think about her, the way her brown eyes flashed with anger. And I shake my head. “Not yet, but I don’t know. There’s this player, she has a ton of potential. This morning was the first practice, and she showed up late.”
“Ahh,” Conor says. “You’re getting college flashbacks from when our coach put you in your place for acting like an egotistical asshole.”
Embarrassment has my ears burning, and I sip on my new beer so I don’t have to answer right away and he snickers.
“To be fair, you had the cred to back up your ego. But–wait, that reminds me…” He scoots off the stool, digging for something in his pocket before dropping a yellow bag onto the wooden counter.
A laugh escapes my throat as I pick up the candy. “Lemonheads. I can’t believe you remember this.”
Conor snorts. “How could I forget? I swear you were going to burn a hole in your tongue from them.”
I pull one out and wince as soon as I suck it into my mouth before I’m hit with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. My third year of college was right after my second Olympics, and I thought I was untouchable. I partied like I didn’t have a body to take care of. If my coach hadn’t knocked me upside my head for almost pissing my dreams away, I don’t know where I would have ended up.
Instead of a beer bottle or shot glass, I ate some Lemonheads. Instead of a smoke or a quick hit of the nose, I devoured the candy. These sour fucks became my lifeline as I purely focused on water polo. I even turned down easy pussy for my hand.
“As good as you remember?” Conor asks.
I shrug. “It was never about them being good.”
He laughs. “So tell me about this girl?”
Leaning back onto the stool, I stretch my shoulder, the familiar ache of my injury tearing through me as I do. I drop my arm with a sigh. “She’s good. She could be phenomenal with the right resources and coach.”
“And you think that’s you?”
Conor didn’t ask that maliciously, but the small doubt lingering inside me flares up. I’m not sure if it is me, but something is compelling me to try. I’ve been watching her stats for the past year, hearing murmurs and whispers through the grapevine. I was offered multiple coaching positions with clubs and clinics, but a college team was different.
“I’m going to do what I can,” I say finally with a shrug.
“But?”
“But what?”
Conor rolls his eyes. “Something has you rattled, otherwise you wouldn’t have brought her up.”
“Nothing has me rattled,” I scoff and then take a swig of the beer.
He watches me with a smug smirk before I roll my eyes.
“Yeah, I guess I see some of myself in her. I can see the want in her eyes, I just hope she has the drive to get there,” I say.
“Make sure she does.”
I look at him, my eyebrows furrowing. “What do you mean?”
“Push her, never let up. Some coaches would take it easy on you because they knew you were good for it. I mean you were a two time Olympian, what was there to coach?”
Conor wasn’t wrong, but he hadn’t met Sage Peters. There was something alluring about her that equally irritated and fascinated me. When I confronted her about her late arrival, I hadn’t expected to be met with a fiery temper. It stirred something in me and I wasn’t sure I liked it.
He clears his throat. “So is she hot?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say, pushing his shoulder as my lips curl.
Chapter Five
Sage
When I arrive on the pool deck this morning, Coach Amber waves me and a handful of other girls straight to the gym. She says to stretch until Coach Harris joins us and he’ll give us our circuits for the day. It excites me to build muscle; it wasn’t something we worked on a lot at high school considering the gym was permanently taken over by the football and wrestling teams. And whenever I had the chance to train in the camps with local clubs and the national team, they focused more on water skills and drills. Dryland exercise seemed to be something to do on your own time, if you had access to the gym.
Two of the senior girls approach me and my stomach turns in apprehension. They smile as they stand before me. The one with longer dark hair and a tan complexion sticks out her hand.
“I’m Anna. I’ve been captain the past two years, and this is Gwen, our primary goalie.” She points to the pixie redhead next to her.
I grasp her hand. “Sage.”
Gwen snorts, giving me a playful smile. “We know. Everyone knows who you are. Though we thought we would have seen you over the summer.”
Grimacing, I pull my hand back and shrug, knowing it won’t score me any points to say where I was. “Look, I just want to play. I’m not looking to take anyone’s spot.”
Anna tilts her head to the side, confused. “You’re not. Our last center graduated, not that she was all that great. But I know there’s going to be a lot of pressure on you.”
I nod and pinch the inner side of my elbow, wanting to get out of this conversation. “Well, I’ll do the best I can.”
“The other new girl from your school, Emma? She’s a goalie too, right?” Gwen asks.
“Emily,” I correct. “And yeah she is.”
Gwen nods with a smile. “Good, I have my own little prodigy to train to take over.”
I smile back, the previous tension easing away. During high school, I had to deal with some serious jealousy and hazing issues that never seemed to resolve, even after multiple girls were recruited with me. I never got why; I may have been one of the better players at the time but it’s not like I was competing above high school level or taking their scholarships at the same colleges.
“She would appreciate that,” I mumble.
Anna claps her hands together. “Alright, girls. Let’s get those arms and back all loose.”
I watch impressively as she leads us through a series of stretches. Fallon comes in when we’re halfway through, observing us silently. Our gazes lock more than a few times and I tell myself to stop gawking at my coach, that I can go more than a minute before looking at him again. It doesn’t matter if I’ve watched countless videos of his gameplay, if I have an unhealthy amount of memorabilia of the one time he was in a Calvin Klein campaign. That I might have had one or two inappropriate dreams, not that I can control that, but of course they come front and center in my head now, playing on repeat. I turn away from where he’s perched on a pile of foam mats, hiding my burning face.
“With a show of hands, how many of you have experience with weight lifting?” he finally asks, when Anna finishes the last stretch. I glance around as most of the upperclassmen raise their arms. The few other freshmen with me stand there idly. I look up at Fallon to see him already watching me with knitted eyebrows before his gaze moves on.
He waves over the guy who walked in with him. “This is Scott. He’s a close friend of mine and an incredible athletic trainer. He’s going to go over some basic exercises for our newbies. The older girls are with me.”
I try to ignore the disappointment that swells in me when I realize I won’t be in his group. Instead, I focus on the man to his right and have the slightest relief that I can focus on a practice without the stupid fog of an inappropriate crush. Nor do I acknowledge the flare of annoyance when he walks to the other group without another glance at me.
Scott walks over to the handful of us, a warm smile stretched across his tan skin. He looks like a Ken doll, with this slicked back blonde cut and pastel blue polo shirt and white shorts.
“Good morning, ladies. I’m going to go over a few exercises and then we’re going to rotate through as a group, okay? Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I would rather teach you as often as you need instead of you getting injured.”
“What are you doing?”
My fingers tighten on the bar before I place it on the rack and I glance at him through the mirror in front of me. “Squatting with weights?”
Fallon’s scowl deepens, and he steps behind me. His foot kicks at mine, tapping the inner sole of my shoe. “Widen your stance. They should be wider than your shoulders.”
I look down at my feet, scooting them apart. When his fingers grip my hips, twisting them straight, my head snaps up. My breath catches, trying to keep my heartbeat steady as he keeps one hand in place while the other skims up my back.
“You need to keep your posture straight. Power through with your hips, not your knees. You’re bending too far forward every time.”
My face burns as I struggle to comprehend his instructions while he’s touching me. His fingers glide to my stomach, and we lock eyes through the mirror.
“Squeeze your glutes and flex your abdomen as you squat. Do it now.”
I blink, slowly processing what he’s saying. “Do what?”
“Flex your abs.”
Inhaling, I harden my stomach, but Fallon shakes his head. His hand drags up to my sternum and I’m thankful for my black sports bra hiding the pointed tips of my breasts.
“When you engage your core, this shouldn’t be expanding and your shoulders shouldn’t be moving back. Take a breath through your stomach.”
I lick my lips, looking up at him again. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Fallon steps closer and I can feel the heat of his chest on my back. His fingers trail down and back to my navel. “When you go to flex, imagine pulling your stomach down towards your belly button. It doesn’t have to be a big breath, you’ll be more inclined to expand your chest if it is.”
My skin is on fire, an inferno at every swipe of his fingers. It’s making me sweat in all the wrong places and I have to suppress the urge to rub my thighs together. He is just my coach and correcting my form, but why does it feel like more than that? Like he couldn’t lift his hands if he tried. Or maybe it’s all my dream, a crush that never seems to die, like a buried ember just waiting for the fuel.
“Good. Now grab the bar, I think I saw you leaning it on your wrists.” He moves behind me, far enough away so I can squat and not brush against him. The coldness from the loss of his touch is jarring and I blink for a second before nodding.
My knuckles are white from gripping the textured metal so hard. I avoid looking in the mirror as I squat, feeling his eyes on me the entire time. It’s dumb to think he’s doing anything but observing to ensure I’m following the form he instructed me to take, but a flush spreads through my chest and face anyway.
“Good,” Fallon praises. “Again.”
I bite my lip, cursing the heat that races through me at his words. There’s nothing to them but professional encouragement, but they twist in my head.
He’s just my coach.
He’s just my coach.
He’s just my coach.
“Watch yourself,” Fallon says, and I catch his eyes in the mirror before looking down at my hips. I need him to go help another one of the girls so I can catch my breath. His presence is overwhelming me and embarrassment is rendering me silent.
“I think I got it,” I say, not bothering to look at him as I continue to squat slowly. I only have a few more left before I’m going to rest for a few minutes.
Fallon lingers for a moment before clearing his throat. “I was surprised to see you have had no weight training previously.”
I put the bar on the rack again, turning to face him as the condescension in his tone kindles a different fire inside me. “Why’s that?”
His stormy green eyes narrow as he takes in my stance. “It’s astonishing what you’ve accomplished. Imagine what you can achieve with proper guidance.”
Exhaling out my irritation, I step away from the equipment, my heart jumping when he doesn’t move and my crossed arms brush his chest. “Well, not all of us were blessed to be put into private clubs from the age of five.”
He grins devilishly, ignoring my blatant insult. “You looked me up?”
I jerk my head back, mortified. “N-no. It was just a saying.”
Fallon steps closer, everything around us melting away. “It’s true. I was blessed. I was very fortunate that my parents paid for it. That’s why it’s impressive what you’ve done without everything I was given. I meant that honestly, but talent only gets you so far. I want you in the gym with me at least once a day when we have practice. We need to build your core.”
My heart pounds in my chest as he moves on to the next girl, leaving me stunned at the sort of compliment he paid me. And the extra time he just forced us to spend together.
Chapter Six
Sage
“Holy shit,” Emily hisses, her wide eyes taking in the tan and toned bodies of the men’s water polo team. Most of them are wearing dark blue speedos with the school’s mascot on the back, giving away which ones aren’t freshman. It also gives us a very real glimpse of which ones are show-ers, not grow-ers, since some of them have very impressive bulges.
I nod slowly, agreeing with her as I tilt my head to the side to get a full perspective.
Holy shit is right.
While a few of the guys at my high school’s team took good care of themselves, there is no comparison to the men standing before us. Each of them proudly display ripped muscles, glistening as they wait by the shallow pool they just hopped out of.
Fallon breaks my gawking as he walks onto the pool deck with the men’s coach. They whisper hurriedly with each other before Fallon grins. His smile makes me catch my breath. It’s like the soft warmth of sunshine after a long thunderstorm, overtaking the heavy gloom.
He taps the men’s coach on the back before turning to us, but his smile drops when his gaze meets mine, and my stomach dips. I want to be the source of his smile, not the disdain that bleeds into his green eyes.
I shift, moving closer to Emily and nudging her shoulder. Her head snaps away from the men’s team and focuses on our coach with flushed cheeks.
Fallon clears his throat. “Start stretching, ladies. We’re going to scrimmage the boys.”
The men standing behind Fallon start whooping and hollering with wide grins. I can’t stop the smile that spreads in agreement with their excitement. If it’s anything like the scrimmages we had at my high school, we are in for an afternoon of pure fun.
