Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (24 page)

I’m getting frantic, and
Beaumont
can tell. I’m
practically
pu
l
ling my hair out
while
simultaneously
searching
through my
backpack
for my cellphone. Where the hell is that damn thing? Why can’t I just keep it in my pocket like everyone else?

“Slow down, Allison. First
things
first, we’ve got to figure out what happened. I believe you. You’ve never lied to me before, and I don’t
know why
you’d
start now. Also, you don’t have the motivation.”

“You would have made a good
reporter
,” I say, trying to make a joke, but it falls completely flat.

“Where do you save the drafts of your articles?” says
Beaumont
.

“What do you mean?”

“Where do you write them?”

“I just write them in my email window. It’s easier for me to concentrate like that. I can pretend I’m writing to a friend. When I open up the
regular
writing
program, I just go into a cold sweat. It looks so… blank.”

“Well,” says
Beaumont
. “There’s a valuable lesson in this. And it is: never
do that
. Do you realize what happened?”

“I…” I really don’t know. I’m too
frantic
right now to think straight. I’m still
searching
for my cell phone, pulling various items out of my backpack and throwing them onto the ground.

“Did you put an
email
address in the
recipient
field?”

I pause for a moment.

“Did you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I put the newspaper
address
.”

“Well, shit, Allison. You should neve
r do that. But it’s too late now
.
Obviously
, you
accidentally
sent the article, and they
published
it.”

“But I’m the head of the newspaper. How could I not know about this?”’

“How much time have you been spending at the newspaper lately?”

“Well…” In truth, I’ve barely shown my face there since Anchor and I started spending so much
time
together. He’s been sleeping at my dorm practically every night, and with school work and everything,
along
with trying to write the article for the paper, I really have been slacking on my editorial duties. I guess being in a
relationship
sucks up more time than I’d thought.

“You haven’t been spending any
time
there at all. I warned you about getting involved with the subjects of your articles, Allison.”

“I know, I know. But, the same thing would have happened if I
had been in a relationship with anyone else. It doesn’t matter that he’s on the swim team…that has nothing to do with my slacking so much
on my duties at the paper. Shit, Sally must have gotten the email and published it. I’m
sure she would
n’t
have
if
had I
stepped
into the office once in the last couple weeks. I guess it seemed like a
good
article, so she published it. I can’t blame her. It’s
all my
fault, Professor
Beaumont
. What am I going to do?”

“Well, for one, you should be proud.”

“Proud? For what?”

“
If what you said is true, and I
believe
it is, then this is
your
first draft. Yet it reads like some
serious
ly
professional copy from one of the best papers.”

“You really think so?”

“Yes,” says
Beaumont
, giving me a
serious
look. “You’re very talented, Allison.”

“Shit, does this mean the article will get picked up by a regular paper?”

Beaumont
gives me a little laugh. “I don’t think we have to worry about
that
, Allison.”

“Why not?” I say, getting a little mad. My pride is boiling up inside of me, despite the situation. After all, I really don’t want the article picked up by anyone else. It could seriously ruin Anchor’s chances for the Olympics.

“It’s a great article in that
it’s very well written. But it reads like a grudge letter.
Someone with a
personal grudge.
I don’t think the other papers are going
to
be
interested
in something like that.”

“Well…good,” I manage to say. But now I think of Anchor again. Shit, what am I going to do?

“First thing’s first, Allison, you need to go find your boyfriend and explain this to him. If you’re serious about him, and want to keep him, you need to explain yourself fully. It’s going to ta
ke some
serious
convincing
, but use your
obviously
strong verbal skills… And as for the article, you need to write another one. Take that draft you’ve been working on and beef it up. Make it the best article you’
ve ever written. Make it so good that it’ll go national, and the Olympics
coaches
will have no choice but to bring him onto the team.”

“Thanks, Professor
Beaumont
,” I say. “Thanks, I couldn’t
have
gone through this with out you.” I really mean it.

“Get going,” he says,
shooing
me away with his arm, giving me a little half smile.

I turn around and start running, completely having
forgotten
about finding my cell phone. My only thought is to find Anchor in person, and as fast as possible.

Oh yeah, my cell phone is broken, anyway. It’s sitting in a landfill somewhere, still soaked through with water from the river I almost drowned in.

Is he going
to
be at the
pool?

Somehow, my intuition
tells me
,
“
no
.
”

I head to the swim house, running full speed across campus.

When I get to the
house, I’m completely out o
f
breath.

I stand outside a moment, almost dou
bled over from running, with a
stich in my side. It’s been years since I’ve run at all. Shit, I’ve got to get back into shape. But that’s not what’s on my mind right now. It’s only Anchor. Anchor, Anchor, Anchor! Poor Anchor. He must think I’m the worst person in the world. I can only imagine what must be going on in his head? He probably thinks I’m just with him to get an article that will make me a professional. After all, everything I put in the article is stuff he told me in confidence.

I look up, and suddenly realize something is going on in the
swim
house. Something that’s not normal for a
school day morning.

It
appears
to be a party. The bigges
t party I’ve ever seen, judging
just from
the outside of the house.

The entire
house
is shaking on its foundations with the rumblings of what must be about three different songs playing
simultaneously
.

The last time I was here for a party, there was a guy hanging out the window, if I remember right. This time, there are no less than three guys hanging out of
various
windows. God only knows what they’re doing!

There are people rushing all around me, rushing into the house.

“Party!” yells someone. He looks like a sophomore who I
TA’d
once in a writing class.

I grab his sleeve as he runs by me.

“What the hell’s happening in there?” I say.

“Oh, hey, Allison. You here for the party?”

“What party?”

“The best party the campus has
ever seen!”

“In the morning? What the hell’s going on?”

“Anchor got kicked off the
team
. You know Anchor? He’s the captain, the best
swimmer
they ever had. He got the whole team to cut practice, and they’ve invited practically the entire campus.”

Oh shit, I think. This has got to have something to do with me. There’s just no way it can’t have something to do with me.

It’s the best
party
the campus has every seen. There are more people packed into the swim house than ever in its entire history.

I can barely tell what’s going on. There are so many people around, most of them already wasted, and it’s still well before noon. The music’s so loud no one can hear anything except super strong bass lines. I convinced one of the rich kids to rig up some kind of super
stereo
, and the window
s
are rattling, threatening to shatter.

“Best fucking party ever man,” yells Dave,
dire
ct
ly into m
y ear. He’s somehow holding at least three beers, in addition to his crutches.

I was pretty proud of myself at first, for being able to get the entire swim team, even Spellman, behind me…getting them to leave practice when I got kicked off the team, and getting them to help me throw the biggest fucking party ever.

But now that the party’s actually raging, and I’ve had one or two beers, the excitement is draining from me completely.

After all, I just found out I’m off the team. No matter what, no matter how I try to spin it to myself, there’s just no way I’
m going to be
on the
Olympic
team next year. Sure, getting benched is one thing, but getting kicked off? I just don’t see how they could accept me after this.

But that’s only
a
shadow of my most
serious
problem: Allison. How could
she do this to me? I just can’t
wrap my head around it. I mean, I guess
s
he was just using me all along to get dirt on the swim team. Either that, or she decided that while fucking me was nice, it just wasn’t as good as trying
to
ensure her place at
The Journal
by writing a vicious and
cutthroat
article about me and the entire swim team.

I have the
college
paper crumpled up in my back pocket, and I take it out now, and try to read it, but people are dancing and jumping around wildly, jostling me every couple seconds.

I take the paper and walk into the kitchen, hoping to get a little solace there, but it’s almost as packed as the rest of th
e house, despite the fact that it’s
beyond all normal health code violations—it’
s been described as an absolute
pit of despair. That’
s how fucking
dirty and disgusting it is. That’s what you get when no one cleans it for a few decades. I don’t even know if it’s useable, and it smells strongly of natural gas. There’s probably been a leak here for years, but no one’s bothered to fix it, or even locate it. And it smells like mold, too, that strong kind of black mold that you don’t want
to
mess with, no matter who you are.

The music is a little
quieter
in her
e
. And I mean just a little. It’s
still
already hurting my ears.

I’m really not in the mood to party right now. I hope no one
tries
to drag me into a dance or anything. The thoughts of Allison are just
completely
ruining my mood.

I take out my cell phone to see if she’s called. But there’s no call. Not even a text. So she’s just going to stop talking to me after the article? Is that her plan?

Someone’s bumping up
against
me, with big breasts that feel soft against my side. Is it
Allison
? My heart
starts
beating faster. I realize now I’m excited to see her. I’m not mad any more. I just want to be with her, and I want her to explain to me what happened. For some reason, I’ve calmed down. I know there
must
be some kind of explanation that makes sense.

Knowing the connection we have, I know Allison wouldn’t do something like this on purpose. It must have been some kind of accident. I don’t know what kind.

I
recognize
that this is some
kind
of personality shift for me. I’m not sure exactly how to describe it, but I’m pretty sure it’s a big deal.