Rival Love (21 page)

“If you say so.” She sucks in a breath.

We both get into the pool. The water is chilly, but it feels nice. Right. Wow, I missed this. I push off the wall and start my warm-up. Lap number three I swim around Kayla and we race to the wall. She pauses at the wall, and I do too. “Maybe I should watch your technique,” I offer.

“Nah, I’m just still tired. Go ahead.”

I drop it and go ahead of her again. By lap ten, I pass her again and this time I can’t ignore it. “Kayla, I want you to go ahead of me and start swimming.”

“Oh, okay,” she says a little timidly.

I smile. “It’s okay. If we’re going to work with each other, I need to know if there is anything I can help you with. Technique, pull, kicking, little things can make a big difference in the end.”

She nods. “Okay.” She pushes off into a streamline. I make a mental note that it could be a little tighter. She breaks the surface and starts to pull her right arm out of the water, 1-2-3 strokes and then she breathes. Her kick is weak, but it’s an easy fix just like her streamline—however, her stroke is not. That’s going to be more hands-on. She does a flip-turn at the wall and swims her way back.

Once she reaches the wall, I stop her. “You did good. There are a few simple things that will help you out a lot. One is your streamline needs to be as tight as possible. Press your arms to your ears and hold it there. Keep your fingers closed too.”

“All right. What are the other things?” I smile at her eagerness to learn.

“Next thing is your kick. We’ll throw in some kicking drills so we can improve that quickly. But last thing is your stroke. This one I’m going to have to get a little hands-on with you, in order to show you what you need to do.” I chew on my lower lip because I don’t really like getting all hands-on with people, especially girls. It just makes me super uncomfortable.

I hop back into the water and we swim to the shallow end of the pool. As soon as we get there, I tell Kayla to swim while I walk beside her. When her arm pops out of the water, I grab it and bend it how it should be, then guide it back into the water where I release it. I do this for a full fifty yards.

I let her practice correcting her stroke by herself in lane one while I move into lane two and finish the workout I made up for us. Hour and a half later, Kayla and I are pretty much finished up.

Kayla is panting a little and I smile. “You okay?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever swam this hard before.”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a rush, huh?”

She laughs and nods. It’s six fifty in the morning and we’ve gotta get out of the pool. Not only do we have class soon, public swim hours start in ten minutes. In an attempt to make some extra cash, our school opened the pool up to the public from seven to nine or something like that.

Kayla and I enter the locker room, and a few old women eye us up like we’re delinquents or something. Old people usually don’t freak me out, but there’s one who’s just walking around buck-naked and chatting to everyone. I give Kayla an eerie look, hug my towel a little tighter to myself, and bite down on my lip. Kayla looks as if she’s about to burst into a fit of laughter. She practically runs to her locker near the front exit, pulls out her shower caddy, and rushes back to the showers.

Little old streaker suddenly makes her debut in my locker area. I’m frozen and at a loss for words. How do you tell some elderly person her whole nudist act is bothering you? She stares at me with crazy beady eyes and says, “Don’t I know you?”

I choke out, “I don’t believe so.” I try to bolt with my own shower caddy but the woman has me cornered. I try not to cringe, but jeez it’s almost impossible. If I could rip my eyeballs out of my head in order to stop seeing her wrinkly skin all up close and in my personal space, I would. “Um…may I please go to the showers?”

“Just a minute, honey. I really think I know you. What’s your name?”

“Skylar Fletcher.”

“Ah-ha. I knew I know you. You’re that state winner, aren’t you?”

I nod and send a silent prayer that this conversation will end right now.

“You’re so much prettier in person.”

I know I should thank her but I’m scared she will continue talking to me while being so exposed. “I really must get my shower now.”

“Sure, sure.” She shoos me away like I was the one holding her up from something. I move around her and hurry into a shower. As soon as I start my water, my curtain opens and Kayla giggles.

“Dude!” I’m still in my suit, but I don’t want people in my shower.

She’s still in her suit, thank goodness, because one naked person was quite enough for one morning. Kayla throws up her hands and winces. “Sorry.” She starts to leave.

“It’s cool. I just like showering alone.”

She smiles. “No problem. I just wanted to waste some time so my conditioner can set.” She peeks her head out of my shower and then pops back in with a long sigh. “That lady was Mrs. Appleton. She’s kind of famous for, you know.” She does a little cat-like walk.

“And not using a towel?” I flinch at my own words.

Kayla covers her mouth and giggles. Then she whispers, “I should have warned you. Sorry. The other girls told me all about her but I thought they were messing with me.”

I squirted some shampoo into my palm with a permanent wrinkle in my nose. “She does realize this isn’t a nudist colony, doesn’t she? And there are laws against all that.” I shiver.

Kayla laughs. “Oh, I thought you were going to hit her with your shower caddy. I know I was thinking about it if she started talking to me without covering up.”

I laugh at the idea of Kayla hitting an old woman with a plastic basket filled with shampoo, body wash, and conditioner. “All right, my conditioner has set for about three minutes, time to rinse.” She slips out of my shower and returns to her own beside mine.

I can see this being a start of a great new friendship. To be honest, it’s kind of nice.

Chapter 36

Caleb

The championship game is tonight. Then next weekend is Thanksgiving break. I would have thought by now Skylar might have come around and talked to me, but she hasn’t. Hell, I barely see the girl. Besides the few nights she’s home for dinner and the classes we share, it’s almost like she doesn’t exist.

I hate it. I really hate how it’s messing with me, like in class there are times I need to stop myself from staring at her. Especially in English. Civics is a little more difficult because I sit in front of her, but every once in a while I can sneak in a glance here and there. Problem is she’s never looking at me. She doesn’t even acknowledge me when I ask a question; she just ignores me.

Can’t she see what she’s doing to me? Does she enjoy torturing me like this?

It’s three-thirty in the morning. I can’t sleep. My mind and body are too wound up. Conceding, I get up and take a shower. After returning to my room, the sound of an alarm going off causes my attention to revert from my boxer drawer to the hallway. I slip on my clothes quickly and step out into the hall just in time to catch Skylar exiting her room.

“Sky? Do you have a second?”

She glances over at me and her face is full of surprise; it’s beyond adorable too. “What are you doing?” she stammers.

“Couldn’t sleep.” Walking with her I say, “Anyway, I was wondering if you were coming to the game tonight?” Why in the hell did I ask her that? The last thing she wants to see is a football game that I’m playing in.
Idiot.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I’d like you to be there.” I almost smack myself. I can’t believe I just admitted that. I better shut the hell up before any more shit comes out.

“Oh, um…okay.”

“Really?”

“Sure. I’ve gone to almost all your games so far.”

“No you haven’t.”

She nods. “Um…yeah, I have. I’ve gotta go.”

I don’t want this conversation to end. “Where are you going?”

She quirks an eyebrow. “Practice?” I snatch my coat off the rack and slip my feet into my shoes. “What are you doing?”

“Going with you. Is that okay?”

She shrugs and goes out the door. I’m following in silence. Sliding into her Mini Cooper I glance down and notice her car is a standard. “What the hell, you can drive a stick?”

She gives me a dirty look. “Where’ve you been? Of course I can drive a stick.”

“You’re amazing. You know that, don’t you?”

Sky laughs. “Oh, I’m sure Danielle and her Pepto-Bismol fashion sense made the Caleb’s List of Amazing Girls cut too.”

I frown at her joke. Danielle is nothing like her. And tonight I can finally be rid of Danielle and her bubble-gum-pink fetish. I can’t handle another week of her clinginess. As soon as I cut the cord on that little train wreck, I’m going to have to find another tutor. I’m also going to have three months to make sure the baseball team will still let me play.

A song on the radio comes on, Crossfade’s “So Far Away.” I cut my eyes over in her direction and smile. “You’ve got a good collection of music.”

“Yeah. When did…never mind, I know when.”

I smile at the memory of her wrapped in a towel and me looking through her music collection on her iPod. I rest my head while listening to the lyrics and hum the song softly. A few minutes later, we pull up in a driveway and she looks over at me. “Kayla will need to get in.”

“Wait, you and Kayla have been training together?”

She nods. “Yup. Now scooch, she’s at your door.”

I get out of the car and let Kayla into the back. She eyes me and then looks over at Skylar while slipping into the back. “Am I going crazy?” she asks.

Skylar laughs. “Nope. Caleb is coming to our practice.”

“Next time, you should bring Lance with you,” Kayla suggests.

“I’ll make a note of that.”

Not much time passes and we’re at school. We all get out and head to one of the side doors near the pool. Sky pulls out a key and I look at her with wide eyes. “No way. They trusted you with a key?”

“I guess.” She shrugs like it’s no big deal, but she and I know better. She leans in close and hisses, “I’m not stupid. I know exactly what you’re thinking and yes, I thought about it. But again, I’m not stupid—I’d be the first person everyone would accuse.”

Kayla is already a good three feet ahead of us, and as I stare into Sky’s eyes, which hold so much challenge, I feel myself leaning toward her. “I’m impressed, Bulldog.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. If I was positive there was a way to do it without being blamed, you’re damn straight I’d tag this place in a heartbeat.”

I smile at her fiery statement and follow her into the pool area. Before she and Kayla head to the locker room, Sky hands me a sheet of paper with a bunch of numbers and stuff like Fly, Free, Finger drag—whatever the hell that is—on it. She asks me to copy whatever is on the paper onto the chalkboard for her, while she’s getting dressed. I figure it’s the least I can do.

I copy everything down then walk over to the side bench and lie down. My sights are on the ceiling when a dark curtain of hair and crazy, wild orange eyes block my view. It takes everything in me to restrain myself from grabbing the back of her head and pulling her lips down to mine. “Hey, since you’re here, I could use your help with something.”

“What’s that?” I ask, trying to sound casual.

She pulls back as I start to sit up. Skylar twirls a stopwatch in front of me. “Do you know how to work one of these?”

I smile. “Yeah. You want me to time you then?”

“Please. I need to see how much time Kayla and I need to drop for our events.”

I grab the watch and walk with her to the starting block. Kayla eyes us with a smile. I have a feeling she knows something that I don’t. “All right, so, how am I…” Before I finish, my body is shoved forward. I try to grab onto something but miss and tumble into the icy water. I emerge, letting out a gasp, and glare at Skylar who’s bent over laughing. Kayla is on the floor laughing as well and saying, “Oh my God, did you see his face?
Price
-less!”

“Ha. Ha. Laugh it up.” I swim to the side. My clothes feel like a million pounds on me as I try to pull myself out of the water. I take off my shoes and socks, and rip off my t-shirt. I hear a gasp beside me, which means it came from Skylar.
Good, I hope you enjoy all of what you’re about to see.

I undo my jeans and Skylar clears her throat, “Um…what do you think you’re doing?”

“I think I’m going to take off my pants and let them dry. Don’t get your panties in a twist, I’m leaving my boxers on.”

Before I stand up to yank off my jeans, I can’t help but sneak a peek at Skylar to see if she’s watching me undress. She is, and from the look of her chewing on her lower lip, it’s like she’s secretly enjoying this little show as much as me. After I yank off my jeans and toss them in the same area where my t-shirt is, I start to walk over to the bench.

“In all seriousness, I really do want you to time us. I just couldn’t resist not getting you back for gluing my shoes to my closet floor.”

I snort at her. “What? That was like a month ago.”

“Exactly. I told you I’d get you back.” She waves the stopwatch out to me and I shake my head.

“Fine. When am I stopping?” I grab the watch from her. My gaze drops from her eyes and skims the rest of her body. Damn she looks sexy as hell, even if she’s just sporting a one-piece. She clears her throat and I redirect my stare to her eyes again.

Sky smiles while Kayla takes the large red covers off the white blocks. “Well, I won’t make you time my five hundred just yet,” Sky says with a wink. “But you can time my two hundred and my backstroke that’s only a hundred.” Again all of this makes no sense to me.

I sigh. “So…”

“It’s a yard pool. Starting from the blocks and going to the wall is twenty-five yards, coming back is fifty yards. Is this making sense yet?”

“Fifty means someone going down and coming back. Wall to wall is one lap. Four laps equals a hundred. Eight laps is a two hundred. Twenty laps is a five hundred,” Kayla says while she puts her goggles on.

I nod. “Okay. I’m getting it. So what are you starting off with?”