Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (15 page)

“No,” I say, simply. “Let’s go race.” I try to push my way past him, but he’s blocking my way, holding on to the
doorframe
for support.

“Take it back,” he says again, like an idiotic automaton.
He gives me a push in the chest.

“Asshole, we’re on the same team. W
e’re probably supposed to be
up on the blocks.”

“You sure think you’re some hot shit. You think the team can’t do without you.” He gives me another push, harder this time, and I slip a little on the wet floor. But I regain my balance before falling.

“They call me Anchor because I’m
indispensible
, asshole,” I say, as
I swing my right arm around, turning my hips as I do so, to put all my weight behind my punch. I’ve had enough of this piece of shit, and I can’t contain my anger any longer.

The punch connects with the side of his face before he has
time
to do anything.

I’ve just climbed the last stair, and I take a moment to pat down my hair and adjust my glasses before pushing open the door to the balcony area.

“You get some good notes?” says Dave, smiling at me in a way that doesn’t immediately tell me whether he knows what happened or not.

But I’m just being paranoid. After all, he can suspect and insinuate all he wants, but there’s no way he could
really
know what happened. And if he does find
out
, what the hell do I care?

“I got some
good quotes for the article,” I say. “Any developments in the race?”

“I’m glad you’re meeting with some of th
e individual swimmers, but also trying to get an overall picture of the team by coming to one of the games. I think you’re going about this right way, Allison.”

“Thanks, Professor
Beaumont
.”

“Hey Prof, they’re
called
meets, not games,” says Dave.

“Well, that’s why she’s writing the article, and not me. I’ve never been a sports guy.”

“That’s
clear
enough.”

“Show him a little respect, Dave,” I say,
giving him a light whack on his
head with my
journalist
pad, which I pulled out of my bag as I was coming up the stairs, to make it look like I actually was taking notes, rather than fucking Anchor’s brains out.

Dave and
Beaumont
leave me alone for a
moment
. Both seem to be interested enough in the meet that they’re not paying me much attention right
now
, which is good, because it’s hard to keep this secret inside me while trying to have a normal conversation. I’m j
ust glad they didn’t
seem to catch on that I just had the hottest sex of my life minutes ago.

I don’t know wha
t happened to me, but I felt more
free
than I ever have before down
there
in the
locker room
. The last time Anchor and I had sex, I felt
somewhat
shy and reserved, but this time I was nothing like that at all. I was a new me, the kind of person I’ve always
secretly
wanted to be, the kind of person who gets w
hat she wants, and takes it without
apologizing
.

Despite
feeling pretty good, not to mention satisfied,
I immediately start second-
guessing what just happened. No, there’s no way I’m
second-
guessing
the sex, but what about the whole “I love you thing?” This is typical me, since I can be a nervous wreck, at least in my head. No one else might ever notice it, but I sure as hell do. Does Anchor really love me, or was he just saying that to get laid, or, rather, to continue getting laid? Is that something he tells all the girls he’s slept with?

Dave’s
obnoxious
voice cuts through my little anxious
daydream
. “What the hell’s happening? Spellman is supposed
to
be racing. Where is he?
And where’s Anchor?
Shit!”

“The coach appears to be yelling at one of the team members,” says
Beaumont
, pointing down to the deck.

Sure enough, the coach is yelling at someone. I sure heard him grumble a lot the time we met in his office, but he had such a tired air about him, that of a poorly-aging jock, that I would never have thought it possible for him to actually raise his
v
oice
so much
. But he sure is raising it. Even with all the normal sounds
of a swim meet, he would have been quite
audible
all the way up here.

But as it happens, everyone on deck by the pool is completely silent. They’re in between events right now, and even the guys running the show, with t
he starter guns, have completely
paused, just t
o stare at the coach.

He’s yelling
so
loud. Who’s he yelling at?

“You fucking idiot
! How could you do it?
I don’t
give a shit if you don’t like him. You can’t
injure
your own fuckin
g teammate. You know what? I’ve never liked you or your fucking
face or your stupid fucking nickname, but I haven’t ever punched you, right?
Although I really want
to
right now.
Fucking idiot!”

Someone in the row in fron
t
of
me shifts to get a better look, and it opens up a better view for me.

I can see
who
the coach is screaming at.

It’s Anchor.

Of course it’s
Anchor. Who else would it be? But
w
ho
did he punch out?

I catch
a glimpse of something else. It’s EMTs carrying someone on a stretcher.

“No way!” says Dave, practically yelling in
excitement
. “It’s Spellman! He’s knocked out Spellman. Jesus Christ, and their relay
is
next.”

The coach is still yelling at Anchor.

I can see Anchor talking
calmly
with the coach, but I can’t hear what he’s saying, since it seems like he’s talking in a normal
tone of voice. His body language reads
neutral
.
He doesn’t
seem upset at all, even with the coach now yelling directly into his face. The coach’s own face is a shade of deep red, and his cheeks are swollen as he uses them to draw in air for his next round of insults.

“What’s going to happen?” I say, leaning over to Dave.

“
Dunno
,” says Dave, shrugging his shoulders. He’s laughing his head off at the whole thing.

“Isn’t this
serious
?” I say
,
careful to keep my voice down a little, in case the Olympic scout a couple rows in front of us overhears me. Although there’s no way in the w
orld that the scout can possibly have
miss
ed
the scene unfolding down below.

Dave stops laughing for just a moment to answer me. “Been in trouble before,” he says, now stuffing his face with some chips he’s brought out of his backpack.

Anchor
calmly
walks away from the coach, who’s still yelling at him.

==

I can
hear the coach’s words drifting
up here to the balcony. “You’re off the fucking team. You
hear that
,
Anchor
? And there’s no way in hell you’re racing this re
lay. I don’t give a shit if the
scout is here just for you. You’re nothing but a spoiled brat with a huge ego.”

I feel the anger rising inside me. I feel myself siding with Anchor, no matter what he did. I don’t care what he did. He
could
do anything and I would still be on his side, no matter what. That’s how close I feel to him right now. No doubt, it has a lot to do with him taking me like that in the locker room. There’s some kind of special connection between us now, even if he is kind of a cocky arrogant prick
…sometimes, at least. Not all
the time.
No, not all the time.

Anchor’s
talking
to someone else on the swim team, and this new guy follows Anchor to the blocks at the end of the swimming pool.

Everyone is watching the scene unfold with a morbid kind of silent fascination.

The coach is still screaming at Anchor.

“Don’t you dare get on that
block!
I
absolutely
forbid you from racing in this
relay
. I don’t give a shit if we lose the fucking meet. You can’t knock out other swimmers, let alone
your
own teammates,
whether
or not you like them. Spellman is the only one around here who has any kind of
conscience
. He’s the only one who ever gave a shit about the team, and you obviously don
’t. You just care about yourself
.”

Coach is still red in the face, but Anchor’s talking
calmly
to the
officials
, who are nodding their heads, ignoring, for the moment, the screaming coach.

“Are they going to let him race?” I say,

“Looks like it,” says Dave. “Anchor has a
w
ay of convincing people to do what he wants, no matter what the situation. I’ve never seen anything
like
this, though.”

“Who does he have there on the relay team to replace Spellman?”

“It’s
Chucky,” says Dave. “He’s just a freshman, and he’s not too good. It’s a real shame Anchor knocked out Spellman, since even Spellman is faster than Chucky. But I guess no one else wants to go against the coach.
Chucky’s
always had a kind of rebel st
r
eak in him though, from what I can tell. To tell the truth, I’ve never talked to him too much. He’s always at the parties though. Good guy, from what I can tell.”

“
You think they have a chance? You think the coach is really going to kick Anchor off the team?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But if Anchor goes ahead
with
this and races, defying the coach in
front of everyone, then I can’t
see him staying on the team.”

“That’s not good for his potential Olympic career, right?” I say.

Dave just
shakes
his head.

He actually looks worried now.

“You getting al
l this, Allison?” says Beaumont
, gesturing to my pad.

“Yeah, yea
h,” I say, hastily flipping open my pad of paper, to make it at least look like I’m interested in this just for the article, rather than for very personal reasons.

The race is going to go ahead. The coach is stil
l
standing there, yelling, still furious. He’s yelling now at the
officials
, and finally one of them comes over and escorts him over to the other side of the pool, away from the relay team.

Anchor’s
standing there at the end of the line of the four guys. The first one is the freshman, Chucky, and he’s up on the blocks. He looks a little clumsy there, like he’s a bit unbalanced, and doesn’t even know how to handle himself on a block yet. He’s even
skinnier
than Spellman, and a lot
ganglier
. He hasn’t yet had the four years of colle
ge swim team practice that the
other
s have, that helped them build u
p the massive musculature most of
them
have.

Anchor looks immensely calm. Even though we just fucked, I can’t help but feeling my desire growing again for him, as I watch him there, standing like he’s so sure of himself, with his big back and shoulder
muscles
moving just right during the stretches.

“Looks like they’re going ahead with the race,” says D
a
ve, settling down into a hunched posture, with his neck craning forward, intent on seeing everything that’s happening.

The gun goes off, and the swimmers all dive into the water.

It doesn’t
look good for our team right from the start.

Chucky the
f
reshman
is many feet behind
by the time he hits the water.

He looks even clumsier in the wa
ter than on land, if that’s even
possible. He does
n’t
even seem to have mastered the basics of swimming competitively, let alone swimming for fun. It’s
amazing he’s even on the team,
I think.