Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance (9 page)

The guy who’s half out the window lets out a w
hoop and goes falling. I don’t
know what he’s thinking, but he plummets like a rock. Fortunately, he lands in a huge overgrown bush that hasn’t been trimmed in a couple decades.

The
swimmers
rush over to him, and pull him out, all laughing and yelling raucously.
He seems fine, except for a lot of
scratch
marks where the branches hit him.

It’s a strange feeling, standing by myself, completely apart from the par
ty atmosphere. I feel nervous a
nd shy, totally
separate
.

Su
ddenly someone is putting his
arm around me. “There she is.” It’s Anchor. I mean Matt.

“Hi, Matt,” I say. “Thanks for telling me about the party.” My instinct is to push his arm off of me. Or at least I think it’s my instinct. I’m not so sure now, seeing him shirtless again. He is quite attractive, and his chiseled face has never looked more alive and inviting.

I let his arm stay there. After all, I’m supposed to be flirting with him.

“What happened to calling me Anchor, like everyone else?” he says, pretending to be insulted.

“It’s a stupid n
ame, isn’t it?” I say, but I ba
t my eyelashes a little bit at him. Even though I’m out of practice, or never have been in practice, with flirting, I think it still works, and has the desired effect. It seems like I can say anything I want, however ha
rsh, as
long
as I accompany it with the right body gestures. Maybe this is a way to stay in character while still saying some of what I want to say.

“I’ll show you around, come on,” says Anchor, leading me by the hand into the party.

The house is completely
overwhelming
. I think the last time
I’ve
been to a frat style party, I was a freshman, and
I had
convinced myself that I needed to explore, at least once, everything tha
t the campus life had to offer. I soon realized parties
aren’t
for me, though.

The music is so loud I can barely hea
r anyone. There are swimmers
all over, accompanied by one or two sorority type girls
each
, their faces completely covered with makeup.

Matt gets me a drink from
somewhere. It’s some kind of cheap gin mixed with
fruit punch, probably just so they can get all the girls drunk.

Matt is yelling something in my ear, but I can’t hear what it is he’s saying.

People are playing beer pong all
a
round. The rest are cheering, and dancing wildly. The lights are low, mostly off, leaving the darkness illuminated almost entirely by strobe lights of all different colors.

“What’s that they’re taking?” I say, pointing to a shady looking guy who’s
distributing
pills to a group of swimmers and their girls.

“
Ecstasy
,” yells Matt. It’s the first word he’s said that I
understood
since coming inside.

I make a mental note about the
ecstasy
. I know it’s illegal, and, in a situation like this, with dancing, and
alcohol
use, possibly very dangerous, causing
serious
dehydration. This is a little gem of a juicy detail, exactly the
kind
I’m looking for.

Trying
to
act casual, I take a survey of the house, or at least what I can see, given the lights. The place is in really horrible shape, and practically everything I see is a real safety hazard, not to mention some sort of health code or zoning regulation violation.

“Can we go somewhere private?” I yell to Anchor, I mean Matt. It seems t
o
o weird to call him Matt. Anchor seems to be his natural name. I really should be observing the party
more
, taking mental notes (because I know my voice recorder isn’t going to get anything salvageable with all the background noise), but I’m overwhelmed and really can’t take any more of this.

I turn to look for Matt, who hasn’t
yet
responded.

Somehow, in just a few seconds
,
he’s become the center of everyone’s attention. He’s hanging off a
chandelier
, that
looks like it might fall down any second, as it creaks under his weight. It’s little glass bulbs are breaking, being crushed by his
wildly-moving
hands which are moving like he’s on the
monkey
bars.

I can’t help but admiring the agility with which he moves. His body is so big, and his chest is so bulky, but he moves just like a gymnast, doing little tricks with his hands and body.

The crowd is equally impressed, and for a moment, all the beer pong games and dancing have stopped, so that everyone can cheer him on.

He’s cle
arly the king of the party, not to mention the swim team, and
he’s
loving
every second of it.

I’m loving
the party. Aside from the feeling I get during a swim race, this is one of the best feelings in the world. I feel like I’m at the top of the heap, king of everything. Everyone loves me,
that’s
for sure.

I haven’t even had
to fight anyone this time. That’s just because no one’s been looking for trouble tonight.

“You want to get out of here?” Allison asks me. “Somewhere more private?”

I give her a big grin. “Sure,” I say.

Sure, there are plenty of other girls here I could hook up with easily enough. Hell, the last
time
we had a party this big, about a month ago, I slept with one girl, came back down to the party from my room, and then took another o
ne up
.
Two in a row, not bad.
There was nothing to it.
At least not for me.
Even Dave got laid that night, so it was a good night for everyone.

But there’s something… special about this Allison. I like the way she’s shy as hell. I like how she’s not like the
sorority
girls that always flock to our swim parties.

She doesn’t look like them either. There’s something different about her body. Normally she dresses in a really boring way, though, but tonight she’s dressed like I’ve never seen her before. She’s really showing o
ff all her assets. Shit, I can’t
take my eyes o
f
f her. And I think she wants me, too. She’s doing this kind of secret flirting thing. She keeps accidentally brushing her body up against mine, and then holding it there for a second, before pul
l
ing away, to show me
she doesn’t mind in the least
bit.

I lead her by the hand out the back entrance and we walk through the night, with the stars sparkling overhead.

I didn’t take any
ecstasy
tonight, although I bet half the
swim team
is flying. It’s not that I have a problem with drugs, but I just don’t normally need them. Being th
e king, I pretty much feel like
I’m on
ecstasy
whether
or not I’ve taken any. I am a little buzzed though, and I barely even notice when I put my arm around her waist as we walk away.

“Where do you want
to
go?” I say.

“What about the pool?” she says, giving me a special look.

I was thinking she might suggest we go back to her
dorm room, and I’m a little disappointed
at first. But then I think about it for a second, and realize the pool where I’m the absolute best. Hell, my name’s written
on
over half the walls there, and
I’ve
got more than a dozen trophies in the cases. How can she
resist
me there?

“We’re not supposed to go there,” I say, giving her a wink.

“But don’t you guys do stuff like this all the time, breaking into places you’re not supposed
to
?”

“Pretty much,” I say.

I talk my usual talk, on our way there, telling he
r
about some of the records that were hardest for me to break. It’s hard to contain myself,
because
of the beers gurgling in my stomach, and I can’t resist telling her some of the stuff we’ve gotten up to over the years.

She really seems intereste
d
in all
t
he
mischief
we’ve
caused
around campus, and all the pranks we’ve never gotten caught for. I figure she just really likes a bad boy, being shy and all.

I really want her. I want her
tonight
. I love the feel of her hips under my arm, moving in a tantalizing wa
y
with
each step she takes. I keep finding myself checking out her ass as she walks. Her skirt is tight and short, just the way I like them.

Well, if she wants a bad boy, I’ll give her a bad boy. I find myself telling her practically everything. I tell her about the time Dave and I broke into our math professor’s office and stole the
answers
to the final. I tell her how Dave bought a bunch of anabolic steroids online and how he and a quarter of the swim team used them during the summer months to add mass, and about how I researched how to pass the urine tests, so they wouldn’t get kicked off the
t
eam. I make it clear, however, that I don’t need the steroids, and never used them myself. In short, I tell her everything, every
detail
, and
she
’s
all ears
.

Before I know it, we’re outside the
swim
building.

“It’s locked,” she says, trying the door, but there’s a twinkle in her eye. I know she’s just waiting for me to explain how we sneak in.

And she’s not going to be disappointed.

“I’ve done this a thousand times,” I say, taking a key out that I have stashed in my wallet. “
Coach lent me his key ring once, to grab something from his office, and I
couldn’t
help myself. I made a copy of this
beauty
, and it’s gotten me out of some
tough situations
, when I had to hide from campus security.”

“I bet you’ve taken a lot of girls up here, too, right?” she says, with an
innocent
look in her eyes that just makes me want to fuck her right then and there.
I want to push her against th
e brick wall and fuck her from behind, but I contain myself, and just unlock the door.

I wonder if she’s noticed the erection growing in my pants. At least I threw a long polo shirt on before leaving the swim house,
and it hangs low enough that it partially covers my crotch and my growing bulge.

I take her up to the balcony. I know where the light box is, and turn on the lights to the pool, so that we can gaze into the water that sloshes gently inside the pool, even though no one’s in it.

“We have the whole place to ourselves,” I say.

“That’s just the way I like it,” she says, sliding her body closer to mine, so
that
she’s sitting on the bench right next to me. I can feel her body against mine.

She seems so different tonight than my first impression of her, when I
thought
she was a shy nerdy girl, that night when Dave was hitting on her.

I would think she’s a
different
girl altogether, except for the fact that I can feel her body trembling against mine. I know she’s nervous. She’s probably never been with a top
athlete
before. I can imagine the kind of guys she’s hooked up with during college—the nerdy, bookish guys who want to be “nice,” to her, above all else, even when it means sacrificing all that makes them men,
sacrificing
all their sex appeal.

I vaguely remember that this girl is completely off limits. Coach said so. And he said my
Olympic
career is on the line
. If I hook up with her, I’m off the team.

But then again, to get kicked off the team, coach would have to find out. And how’s he going to find out?

I can’t resist her any longer, and lean in for the kiss.

Our lips meet.

It feels way more intense than a regular hook up. It’s not one of those sloppy drunk kisses the sorority girls give. There’s meaning behind this one. Something powerful. Something deep.

I shouldn’t be
kissing him. First of all, he’s
a dumb jock. I hate him, in a way, and everything he represents.