Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (7 page)

“I know you’re brilliant, Allison, and I know you have a good hold on yourself. But aside from this Anchor thing, I’ve been thinking the project over, and perhaps I was a little too enthusiastic. I mean
,
we’re going to be essentially taking on the whole
college, and th
e whole sports establishment. It
’s not going
to
be easy.
There’s
going to be a lot of pressure, and you’ve got to worry about graduating, after all. You have to know that I’m going to write you a great recommendation letter anyway, and I’m sure you’ll end up working at a great newspaper, even if
it’s not The Journal
, necessarily.”

“I appreciate your concern,
Professor
Beaumont
,” I say, my tone
of voice curt and
professional
. “But I’m going ahead with the project. There’s nothing you can say now to
convince
me otherwise.”

We say goodbye and I hang up.

I’m feeling nervous.
Beaumont
sure seems to be taking this very
seriously
. Maybe I’ve gotten in over my head with this article? After all, as I look around the room, there is normal classwork that needs to be done. However easy it is for me,
I still have to do it, and it’s going to take time.

But I’m determine
d
.

For one thing, I want to get back at these stupid jocks. Just their mere presence on campus has bothered me since my first day as a freshman. I’ve had to put up with them getting passing grades in classes just because they’re swimmers, even when they’re total idiots.

But am I being honest with myself?

The image of Anchor’s
muscles
comes back to me for a moment, before I shake it off.

Do I want to do this
to secure my place at The Journal
, to prove I can be a real
investigate
reporter, to get back at the jocks, or to get closer to Anchor? After all, even though he’s plenty
obnoxious
, I wouldn’t
mind being close to him.

I’m meeting Allison this afternoon in half an hour.

I find myself checking my
appearance
in the mirror, once, twice, then again. I’m trying to flatten out my pool-bleached hair but it’s useless. It sticks up at odd angles no matter what I do. The chlorine has made the texture strange, thick, and frayed, and impossible to work with. Then again, none of the twenty or so chicks I’ve slept with this year have
had
a problem with it.

“Where you head
ed
?” says Dave, who’s in the middle of shoving a microwaved burrito into his face.

“Meeting Allison, that
reporter
chick,” I say. I’ve already told
Dave about the whole deal with Coach. What I haven’t told him is that I think I have a bit of a thing for Allison.
Despite
what coach says, I know I’m going to have to have her, one way or the other. As I know plenty well, there’s always a
way around the rules.

“Ah, the hot one,” says Dave. He’s leaning back in his student desk chair, with
his laptop balanced precariously
on his knees. He’s watching a porn video with the volume turned all the way up.

“Dude, can
’t you watch that once I’m gone
?”

“What’s the big deal?” says Dave, firing up the microwave again, another two burritos already loaded in.

“Never mind,” I say, shaking my head.

“You need me to leave the room… You know, give you s
ome time alone before the big d
ate with the reporter?” says Dave, eyeing me with one of those smiles Dave wears when he thinks he’s being real clever. Although with Dave you can never quite tell whether he’s being sincere or saying something tongue-in-cheek.

“It’s not a date, dude,” I say.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Dave, not buying a word of it. “But don’t you think it’s a good idea to clean the pipes before you meet her
? If things get hot, you don’t
want to blow your load too soon, right?”

Dave’s referring to a traditi
onal swim practice, or at least
it is in our swim house, where a guy’s roommate knows to give him space before a date, so that he can masturbate himself silly, so as not to be too excited before the date.

“It’s not a date,” I say, making sure my words sound final.

As I’m leaving,
Dave calls out to me, just to be
obnoxious
. “I’ll jack off to her for you, then, dude.”

Normally, this would just be regular ban
ter between us, and it wouldn’t
mean anything to me. But fo
r
som
e
reason, the thought of Dave jerking off to Allison makes me mad. My face is red, and I can’t contain
my anger, which feels lik
e
it’s boiling up through my stomach and into my chest.

“Not cool,” I say, turning around, so that Dave can see m
y face, which I’m sure doesn’t
look the least bit pleased.

“Whatever, dude,” says Dave, cow
er
ing a little bit with his posture. It looks like he wants to curl himself into
a little ball. After all, we already know who wins in
a
fight between us, even if he pretends not to remember me tripping him and knocking him out. “It was just a joke.”

“It better have been,” I say, and leave.

Allison’s
waiting
for me outside the pool building when I get there.
She looks hot. I think she’s wearing something different than normal. Her shirt is a little
tighter
, and seems to be cut a little lower than what I’ve seen her in earlier. Ins
tead of having her hair up, she’s wearing it down. It gives her a sexier, more mysterious look. I have to peel my eyes away from her, to make it not too obvious. But the way her hair hangs over her breasts—it’s stuck in my mind.

“
You’re
late,” she says. Her whole
posture reads no nonsense, like
she’s trying very hard to say, “I’m not taking a
ny
shit.”

“I was off stealing another statue,” I say, making it clear that I’m joking with my smile.

“
Hmmph
,” is all she says. “You sure are funny.” It’s meant as sarcasm, but I think I can already see her demeanor cracking a little.

“Come on,” I say. “I’ll show you some of the basic stuff about the pool.”

“I think I already
know what a
pool is.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know anything about swimming as a
sport
, do you?”

She
shakes
her head.
“I used to be a swimmer when I was a kid, though.”

“Another swimmer, t
hen!” I say, my hand instinctively
moving around her waist, in order to guide her into the pool building. But I stop myself just in time, and merely take her hand in what I hope is a platonic gesture.

I take her around, showing her the blackboard with the practice diagrams, and relay team plans. I explain everything to her, down to the last detail. She has a little notebook with her that makes her look like a real journalist when she writes in it with a stubby little pencil. She seems intent on taking down every single detail, although it also seems like she’s writing other things in that little notebook. Is she writing about me? Even once I’m long done explaining the relay teams, she’s still scribbling away. What is she writing?

I show her the trophy cases in the hallway. We haven’t done too
bad
for a college swim team. The
last four years in row we’ve won
nationals. We’ve already competed this year, and I brought the team to victory, b
y breaking a national record, not
to mention a personal record.

I show her the record board, on the pool deck, right by the door to the
locker room
.

“Wow,” she says. “You’re name’s all over the place, isn’t it?”

I’ve never been good at acting humble. I just nod my head and smile.

We’re the only ones in the pool now, but the guys will be coming in in about fifteen minutes.

“So,” she says. “This is all great stuff.” She’s still scribbling away in her little notebook. “You don’t mind if I record this do you?” It might be my imagination, but it seems like she sweeps her hair back around
her shoulders in an elegant gesture as she says this. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think she’s trying to get on my good side with her looks.

“No,” I say. “Not at all. I cho
o
se my words very carefully, after all, and I’d rather have direct quotes appearing in the story then some
kind
of paraphrasing.”

“Great,” she says, pulling out a professional-looking voice recorder, pressing the red record button. The thing is tiny, b
ut has a big
microphone built into it. She holds the thing somewhat
surreptitiously
at her side.

“
So where were we?
“
I say,
distracted for a moment by the way she’s still moving her hair.

“I was just about to ask you what it’s like to be the best swimmer the college has had in years.” S
he smiles at me like sh
e hasn’t
smiled at me before. Her
icy
demeanor
from earlier is completely gone.

Is it my imagination, or is she starting to like me? It sure feels like she’s about to come onto me? After all, I’m good at reading the signs. I usually don’t even have to chase the girls. They just come to me.

“It doesn’t
feel too bad at all,” I say, growing a little
self-conscious
for the first time in a
long
while. It isn’t normal for me to feel this way. For some reason, the positive vibes Allison is putting out make me a little nervous.

I can now hear the swim team in the
hallways
. They’re just now entering the locker room. They’re shoutin
g and goofing off as usual,
making a hell of a lot of noise
. There’s only one d
oor separating
Allison and I between the
rest
of the swim team. I should be excusing
myself and going to get change
d
myself, but something is holding me there. It feels
almost
like an electrical charge that’s pulling me towards Allison.

I take another look
at her, and she seems to
be shining with some kind of ethereal brilliance.

“What does that number mean up there?” says Allison, pushing her body closer to me, as she reaches up high with her hand to point. Her hair is falling in my face, and her breasts are rubbing against my chest.

I can feel the desire rising inside me. My cock is starting to fill with blood, growing erect. Will she notice? After all, she’s
pressed
right up against me.

There’s some kind of spark between us.

I know I shouldn’t, but I start to lean in to kiss her.

The timing couldn’t
be worse. After all, the swim team is about
to
start pouring
through
the locker room door, and we’re right in their path.

Coach likes me, but I al
so know he’s a grumpy so
n of a bitch who thinks he’s better than everyone else. And he thinks I think I’m better than everyone else. And that’s true, to an extent, but only because it’s true. After all, it’s my name that has all those records on the board, not
coach’s
.

But the straight deal is that if coach finds me kissing Allison, right here in the pool, to top it off, I’m not going to be on the Olympic team. There’s no way.

But I can’t
help myself.

I feel like some kind of animal trapped in a spider’s web.

She’s pulling me closer and closer with her invisible strings, like I’m a
marionette
.

Suddenly, she pulls away, moving her body away from me. Instantly, I feel a strong aching. I want to be closer to her. I need to be next to her body again. She feels like a drug that I need to
take to
stay
stable,
a drug that I never even knew existed until today.

She pulls away right as the guys
sprint
through the locker room
door, clad only in their swim briefs
and goggles, telling the raunchiest jokes
imaginable
.

I give Allison a look, partly to try to gauge her emotional state, and partly to
let her know I felt something, even though I’m pretty sure it’s a better idea to keep my desires hidden from her. But I know she must have at least fel
t something… Even if she didn’t
feel something herself, she must have been aware of ho
w I was feeling. There’s just no
way a human can experience emotions so powerful and have it not be recognized by someone in such close
proximity
.