Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (22 page)

It’s not that I haven’t been on top before, but we’ve just done that position for a couple minutes, before Anchor wanted
to
try doggy style. So far, though,
we’ve
mostly done missionary and nothing else, since we both find it’s the absolute
closest we can get to
each other.

But right no
w I’m just thinking Anchor can’t
really
get any closer to me if he’s already inside me. Right?

Finally
, I get on top of him. We’re
s
till close. We roll over so th
at he’s still deep inside of me during the transition, his cock never coming out of me even for a moment.

It
actually
feels better to have more control with the sex. I can do all the thrusting and rocking and riding I want, at whatever speed I feel like.

“That feels really good,” says Anchor, his breath getting heavy.

“You going to come?”

“Not yet,” he says, a look of complete concentration creeping over his face.

He reaches up and begins massaging my
breasts,
in just the same way he was before, paying special attention to my nipples.

Finally, we’re both ready to come.

I ride him
harder
and faster, increasing the pace.

We come together,
almost
completely simultaneou
sly. I let out a series of moans
that I couldn’t
control even if I wanted to.

Anchor lets out a couple very manly groans and grunts, as he comes, filling the condom inside of me.

Just as we’re untangling ourselves from each other, and Anchor is dealing with the used condom, his cell phone rings.

“Probably more bad news,” he says. “It can only get worse with the team at this point, right?”

“You never know,” I say. “That’s what my Mom always said. She said if it’s good news, you’re going to want to know what it is, and if it’s bad news, you’re also going to want to know. It’s better just to pick it up.”

“I guess you’re right,” says Anchor, fishing his phone out of his jean’s pocket.

“How does that thing work after spending all that time in the river?” I say.

“Some special model for swimmers and water people
like me,” he says. “
Rubberized
, gaskets,
totally
waterproof.”

He pull
s
it out of his pocket,
and it looks like a real brick of a phone. It looks more like a military
walkie-talkie
, something the coast guard might use.

He opens it up and answers it.

“Hello?” he says. Apparently th
e phone doesn’t have caller id
.

“Who is it?” I mouth, but Anchor puts his finger up for me to hold on.

He
looks
like he’s concentrating hard on the words bei
ng spoken, but his expression is
unreadable.

Meanwhile, I fish my own phone out of my wet pants. It’s
completely
broken, completely water logged. The screen’s also broken, just showing a black broken digital static. It’s a cheap phone anyway, although I don’t have any money left over
to
buy a new one right now. The end of a semester is always a financial crunch for me, and I’ve been banking on getting a real salary soon after graduation.

“Thanks so much for letting me know,” says Anchor, his voice grave and
serious
. He hangs up the phone.

“
Who
was it?” I say
,
my voice riddled with anxiety.

I can’t help but thinking it’s probably bad news. After all, I don’t see how the Olympics could want Anchor after he’s
been
kicked off the
t
eam. Yeah, I know what I said to Anchor, but I was just trying to make him feel bet
t
er. I didn’t
really believe what I was saying, unfortunately.

“It was the Olympic coach,” he says.

“The scout, you mean?”

“No,” he says, a smile starting to brighten his face. “It was the actual coach.
The head coach.
He wanted to let me know that he’d heard about what happ
ened, but that he’s also seen the video of the race, and that he’d never seen such a promising swimmer in all his years as coach.”

“Wow,” I say, breaking out in a big
grin
myself. “That’s amazing, Anchor! So you’re on the team, or what?”

“Not quite,” he says. “They still need to make their final decision. But he wanted to let me know that while I’m not yet a sure thing, I can be pretty confident that I’m going to be on the Olympic team next year. He said not to pack my bags
just
yet, though. I mean
,
he had to make it sound like he wasn’t
giving me an official offer and all that.”

“Wow,” I say, running towards him and giving him a huge hug.

This is amazing news, and we decide to celebrate tonig
ht by getting off campus
a bit tonight for a nice dinner, Anchor’s treat.

I can’t help it though—I have this little nagging doubt in the back of my head. I’m sure Anchor’s telling me what he
believes
to be true, but he does…well, he does have quite a big ego when it comes to swimming. Could it be that he’s
misinterpreted
the coach’s words somewhat? Maybe the coach was just calling to
express his sympathies about what happened, and say that, if
things
had gone differently, he would have liked
to
have Anchor on the team, given that he is an outstanding swimmer—I
wouldn’t
put it completely
past
Anchor to take all this in the best light possible, to the point of completely
misinterpreting
the message.

But I don’t share my feelings. How could I, when we’ve never felt closer?

We take the bus from campus to the city, and we enjoy
immensely
walking
around
somewhere that
isn’t
the campus, or the river.

“The lights look so
beautiful
,” I say.

“I know,” says Anchor, looking at me, instead. “But not as
beautiful
as you.”

“You’re so swee
t,” I say, as Anchor leans into kiss me, right unde
rneath one of the streets light
that’s
emitting
its soft yellow glow. The lights here look so much better than the stark florescent lights on the campus. Maybe this is a sign that my
life
will be better once I finally get off campus and graduate. Maybe I’m more
suitable
to the outside world. Maybe it’
s
going
to
be a better fit for me.

But what about Anchor?

I’ve never felt closer to anyone in my life, and I’m almost positive he feels exactly the same way. It’s like we’re connected in a kind of
spiritual
way. But what about when we graduate? If Anchor makes the Olympic team, I don’t see ho
w my career is going to c
oincide at all
with his.
And if he doesn’t?
What’s he going
to
be doing, working at a gas station? From what I can tell, he’s never been a very serious student.

“You worried at all about graduating?” I say, over our Thai food. We’ve both ordered delicious soups that arrive to the table piping hot, with
steam
coming off their surfaces.

Somehow, the hot soup is comforting even though the weather is warming up. It
isn’t
yet summer. It isn’t yet too hot for soup.

“Not at all
,” says Anchor. “Why would I be
? It sounds like I’m really going
to
be on the team this time.”

“Yeah,” I say. “I know, but I mean… I was thinking about the two of us. You do want to continue our relationship after we graduate, right? This isn’t just another fling for you, or something like that?”

Anchor looks horrified, which makes me feel happy.

“Of course it’s
not just
another fling,” he says. “I
mean, Allison, I feel things for you I’ve
never
felt for anyone else. I guess I just haven’t given graduation a lot of thought, you know? I mean
,
I figure that we’re meant to be together, and that if we’re meant to be together, then everything’s
going
to work out fine.”

“What if you go to the
Olympic
training camp, and I end up going to w
ork for The Journal
, and they send me to some crazy place?”

“Why can’t you just cover the Olympics
then
?” says Anchor. He looks
so
innocent and
well meaning
.

“It doesn’t just work like that,” I say. “Unless I write something really impressive for them, I’ll be lucky enough just to get the job. There ar
e a thousand other heads of u
niversity newspaper
s
, anyway, so that alone doesn’t guarantee me any special
privileges
.”

“Well, I can just fly to meet you in New York, and you can meet in
Arizona
at the training camp. A lot of couples do that.”

“Yeah, I guess we can do that,” I say, but inside I’m worried.

I decide to change the subject. After all, there’s still
almost a month left of
school. What’s the point of worrying about all this now, when I could be enjoying my time here on c
ampus with Anchor?
Somehow being
with Anchor has made the
stress of running the paper, along with the stress of final exams and
term
papers—all the stress has faded into the background, and I’m able to go about everything more logically, with more self-
assuredness
.

“So I’m writing an article
about
the swim team,” I say, tryin
g to untangle my chopsticks from
a mess of noodles.

“Yeah,” says Anchor. “How’s that going, anyway? I
haven’t
seen you working on it much.”

“Well, it was going to be about the swim te
a
m as a whole, but well, we’ve gotten
to
know each other a lot better.”

“You
c
an say that again,” says Anchor, leaning in to kiss me, both our mouths full of noodles.

I giggle,
then
continue. “So I think the thing to do really is to write the article with you as the centerpiece.”

“Isn’t that a conflict of interest?” says Anchor.

“Yeah, I guess it is, considering our relationship.
But I’ve realized that everything in life doesn’t need to be so cut and dry. It’s just unrealistic to think that all
journalists
are the epitome of
professionalism
, as I once thought. Even
Beaumont
admitted to me that he got a little involved with one of his
sources at one point back when he was a journalist.”

“So it’s about me then?” says Anchor, seeming more pleased than anything else.

“Yeah,” I say, and I start telling him about the really nice article I started to write in my email window. I don’t mention the one I wrote
when I was mad at him, the one in which I wrote all those terrible things about the
swim team. Back then, my intention
was to bring the team to its knees, and to cripple any chance of a career Anchor might ever have. I can’t believe I ever wrote
that article now. I feel so different about Anchor now. He really feels like a part of me, a part of myself.

The weeks are passi
ng quickly. I’m still on the team but not racing. There’s only two big meets left. It’s frustrating sitting on the sidelines, but at least I know that I’m, most likely, headed to the Olympic training camp after graduation. And, plus, I have Dave to amuse me on the sidelines. He’s not going to recover from his broken ankle in time to race again. This is going to be the end of his swimming career, since there’s no chance he’s going to race after college. He doesn’t
seem to mind, though, and although we try to keep our behavior on the calmer side, we still have a shit
load
of good laughs.

Coach and I are still butting heads, over just about everything possible, every time we interact. Allison suggested I
simply
apologize
to the coach. As much as I love Allison, she can still be naïve about some things like this. She’s never been on a college sports team, for instance, and doesn’t understand the way our egos
interact
and clash. It’s just natural, especially among guys.