Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (23 page)

Things have never been better between Alison and me. I haven’t
though
t
too much about the practicalities, but I know we’re going to be
together
after college. I just can’t see us being apart, no matter how I look at it.

“So you going
to
marry her or something?” say
s Dave, one day, when we are
bore
d
out of our minds, watching the team practice. Pretty much all the swimmers suck. Well, they’re not Olympian material, like I am. I’m s
till mad I can’t race. Why can’t
coach
just let me get into the pool during
practices
? Who’s it going
to
hurt?

“I think s
he’s the one, man,” I say.

“Wow, man, that’s crazy.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know man, I ju
s
t never saw you getting married,
that’s
all.”

“Sooner or lat
er that one girl comes along for
everyone,” I say. “Don’t worry, Dave. I’m sure she’s out there somewhere, waiting for you.”

Dave just laughs. “I don’t think it’s my style, man.”

“You’ll find
her,” I say. “Someday. It may take you a hell of a long time, because I think you’re even more of an asshole than I am.”

“
Anchor
! Get your ass over here.” It’s coach, yelling at me.

“He sounds pissed,” says Dave. “And we didn’t even do anything.”

I get up slowly and walk over to where coach is standing by the side of the pool.

He’s got everyone on the team doing a brutal set.

“What the hell is this?” says coach, still practically yelling, even though I’m standing right next to him.

“A newspaper?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, you fucking prick,” says coach.

Wow, I’m kind of surprised
. Sure, coach can be a bit rough
with his words, but he’s never called me something like that to my face before
, right, except during the last meet
.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, coach,” I say. “If you’re getting that mad about a newspaper, I don’t know how to help you.”

“Asshole,” says coach, pushing the paper into my face.

“I can’t read it when you’re pushing it in my face like that,” I say.

“Your girlfriend wrote an article about us. You mean you don’t know anything about this?”

“Oh, sure. Yeah, I haven’t read it yet, but Allison told me all about it. I bet it makes us look pretty good, right?”

“Good? Are you fucking kidding me, Anchor? And you know what, this is all
your
fault!
”

“My fault, what the hell are you talking about?” I’m getting mad. Why i
s coach talking to m
e like this? After all, Allison
told me all about the article, and it sounded fucking great. She was going to make me out like a real star. She even said she put the coach in a positive light, like he was some kind of
tireless
crusading
hero or something.

I grab
the paper from the coach, and, holding
it
at
a more
comfortable
distance from my face, I begin reading.

Meanwhile, coach is still yelling at me. The
volume
of his voice is actually increasing. “This is
your
fault, A
nchor! There’s no way she’
d
know all this stuff if you
hadn’t
told her. She makes the
whole
t
eam look like a bunch of fucking
criminals, and I guess that’s what you all are.”

Everyone has stopped swimming. Some of the guys are hanging out around by the side of the pool. Others have gotten out, and are standing around us, dripping wet, trying to read the article. But I pull away from them, and read as
quickly
as I possibly can.

This doesn’t look like it’s the article Allison described to me.
Not at all.
Not in the least bit!

There isn’t a single good thing about us in the article.

Instead, the article
details
every single thing I ever told Allison about the swim team—every bad thing, that is.

She paints a picture of us, using some, I have to admit, very impressiv
e vocabulary and writing skills…what she about our ‘exploits’
would make
even
the most hardened criminal shudder.

She writes about all the shit Dave and I have gotten into on our own. The statue is just the beginning of it. She writes about how the guys used
ecstasy
at the party. She writes about the steroids Dave got the guys taking… Shit! The steroids. This is a big fucking deal. This kind of stuff can’t get out to the public, or we’re in serious fucking trouble. But here it is, in black and white on the campus paper.

What the fuck?

How could Allison do this? How could she do this to me?

Everything
has been go
i
ng so well between us. I can’t believe she would do this, but here’s
the evidence right in front of
me. So her career is really that important to her? She re
ally wants to work for The Journal
so much that she’ll throw me under the fucking bus just to write her killer article?

“You OK, man?” says Dave, from behind me. He’s been reading the article over my shoulder.

Someone grabs the paper from me. Whatever, I’ve already read it. I’ve seen what I need to see. Everyone else now is huddle
d
around Thompson, who is reading the article
out loud
.

Coach is still
screaming
. I haven’t been
catching
his words, though.

Now I do. “Anchor, you’re off the team. Dave, you too!”

“What did I do?
” screams Dave, indignantly
.

“Doesn’t fucking matter,
man.
You’re not going to be racing again,
anyway
.”

“Guess you’re right,” says Dave, shrugging. He’s always been an
easy going
guy in some ways.

“I knew she’d get us into trouble,” says Spellman.

“Shut the fuck up,
Spellman
,” I say, spinning around to face him. “
Or I’ll knock you out again.”

Spellman shuts his mouth. Fucking right!

“All
right, everyone,” I say, my voice loud,
echoing
around the swimming pool.

Everyone’s
standing around me. Coach has even shut up. That’s what my
presence
can do to a crowd.
My real presence.
They know I’m the boss here. They’re waiting to see how I’ll respond.

My mind is rushing with anger and thoughts of Allison. How could she do this to me? I thought we had some
thing
real. Fuck, I was just talking about marrying her.

“
All right
, team.”

“You’re not even on the team anymore, Anchor. Get out of the building, now.” Coach says this in a calmer voice. I guess now that he’s kicked me off the team for good he doesn’t feel the need to yell at me.

“I’ll leave. I’m headed to the swim house. And you’re all going to follow me.”

“You’re all staying here,” interjects coach. “You have to finish practice.”

“L
isten,” I say. Everyone is star
ing at me with rapt attention, eyes wide, from the freshman to the seniors. Even
Spellman is l
ooking at me like I’m the savior
. I guess I have more of a reputation than I’d even realized. But, after all, my exploits have been barely short of legendary. “We’re going to get in a shit load of trouble for this shit we’ve pulled. It’s all here, and everyone’s going to read it.”

“It’s just the campus paper,” says
someone.

“Knowing this bitch, the article will be picked up by every
paper in the country. They won’t
miss a scandal like this. I mean steroids and
ecstasy
, wild parties! It’s a huge fucking deal.”

“Dude,” says Dave. “Don’t
call her a bitch.”

“What the fuck do you know?” I say, turning to Dave. I approach him, getting right into his face. “You got a fucking problem with how I’m talking?”

“It’s just
that
she’s your
girlfriend
,” he says.

“Not anymore,” I say. “Now you still got a problem? Just because you’re my best friend doesn’t mean I won’t knock you down like I knocked down Spellman.”

“No problem, man,” says Dave, quietly.

“Good,” I say. “Now we can bend over and let them paddle our
asses
. They’ll slap us with all kinds of
punishments
. You know the fucking deal.
We can either take it the
way they want us to. Or we can take it like the fucking men that we are! We can either go quietly, or we can go out raging. Who’s fucking with me? We’re going to throw the biggest and most
degenerated
fucking party the campus has e
ver seen in its entire fucking
existence!”

“Allison, I saw your article. What the hell were you thinking?” It’s
Beaumont
. He’s just
run up to me on campus. His
corduroy
sport coat looks
disheveled
, as does his hair.

“My article? You mean the one I wrote last week about the use of hand sanitizer?”

“No. God no!
The article on the swim team.
What the hell were you thinking, Allison? Do you think this is y
our ticket to The Journal
?
Because this is underhanded.
I know we talked about making it devastating,
but
this
is
beyond devast
at
ing. Don’t you have a
relationship
with this Anchor character? What does he think about all this?”

“What the hell are you talking about, Professor
Beaumont
? I’m still writing my article.”

“Well, it’s already published. How do you explain that?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I grab the campus newspaper from his hands. I’m expecting just to see my article on hand
sanitizers
and its possible uses and dangers, but instead the front page is covered with… my writing
, my article..
.

But it’s not the article I’m
sti
l
l
in the process
of writing, the article that shows Anchor, the coach, Dave, Spellman, just about everybody, as complete
heroes
.

The article has my name on it. It’s titled “Criminal Enterprise Masquerading as
Swim Team
on Campus.”

I definitely didn’t write the title. But I start reading the article, and they are
definitely
my words.

To my
absolute
horror, the article is the draft I wrote a month ago when I was angry at Anchor, and
decided
to
t
ake it o
ut by writing the worst stuff
I could
about him and the team
.

“The members of the
swim team
,” the article reads, “pretend to be upstanding citizens, and they have the full support of the University administration, but in reality they are nothing more than common criminals, willing
to
do whatever necessary, by whatever means, to win, and to have the best possible time while doing so…”

“Oh shit,” I say.

“How do you explain this?” says
Beaumont
, giving me a stern look. “Did you write this?”

“Yeah,” I say. “I wrote it.” My voice becomes quieter. “But, Professor
Beaumont
, I wrote it, but I never
published
it. I never even sent it in. The only copy that
I have is on my computer.”

“Then how the hell did it get into the newspaper like this?”

“I have no id
ea, honestly, Professor Beaumont
. The last thing I w
ant to do now is hurt Anchor. It
’s true, we’re going out, and it’s really been getting
serious
. Shit, what if he sees this? What’s he going
to
think? I’ve got to call him right now and find him. I’ve got to explain that this was just a horrible accident.”