Page 11 of Deep End

I do. I have to.

“You can keep doing your emotional support dives, yes. But we have other issues we need to be focusing on.” He taps the spot between my eyes with his knuckles, like he’s inspecting coconuts at the grocery store. “You have to work on what’s in here.”

“I know.”

“Then do as I say, and don’t change the damn dive when you’re up there.” He sighs and shakes his head. “It’s okay, kid. We got time. Go get changed. Y’all are coming over tonight.” The cookout. Yearly team-building tradition. He winks at me, crow’s feet multiplying by a factor of ten. “Ain’t no party like a Coach Sima party.”

Tragically true. Because a Coach Sima party is compulsory.

I head for the locker room, sparing one last glance at the forward tuck the twins are practicing together on the springboard. I used to do synchronized diving, too, back in St. Louis, but there’s only five of us in the Stanford team, which makes me the odd girl out. Bella and Bree compete together (two athletes who simultaneously perform the exact same diveandlook identical? Judges eat that shit up). Pen and Victoria have been partners for three years, and have a good thing going on. Maybe next year a new recruit will pair up with me. Or maybe I’ll die alone in a vale of tears, clutching German present perfect flash cards. Who can say?

I catch a ride to the Simas’ with Victoria, who spends it updating me on a recently confirmed human case of the bubonic plague. We’re the last to get there, and the only two losers to show up without a plus-one. “Love this taste of what my Thanksgivings are gonna be like for the next fifty years,” she grumbles, pasting a smile on her face and reaching out to hug Mrs. Sima.

I chat with Leo, Coach’s thirteen-year-old son, who’s about as awkward as I am, until he pretends to remember outstanding homework and ducks back into the house. Then I go in search of something to drink—and run into a wall.

And by wall I mean, Lukas Blomqvist.

When it comes to DI college swimmers, he’s not too much of a standout. Most of them are tall. Most of them are muscular. Lots of them are handsome. His proportions—broad shoulders, long arms and torso, huge hands and feet—are basically an instructional drawing. That is to say: it’s not because of hislooksthat my thoughts swerve to a halt.

“Sorry.” I am physically unable to produce a smile. Temporary cranial nerve VII paresis. It’s okay, though, because he doesn’t smile, either.

His eyes pin me in place. “No problem.”

He has a nice voice, deep and resonant. Familiar, but only vaguely, like an ad in the middle of a podcast: heard it before, but tuned it out. Must be a by-product of his orbiting the periphery of my life for the past two years, since the pool where the swimmers train is across from the diving well.

“Where did you get that?” I point at a sports drink that looks oddly kid-sized in his hand. He gestures with his chin to a cooler that I could have easily located on my own. If only I wasn’t an idiot. “Right. Thanks.”

Lukas nods, only once. I wonder if he came with Pen, if they ended up solving their issues, but she’s nowhere in sight. He and I are, kind of hilariously, both wearing jeans and the same gray Stanford Swimming and Diving tees—except, he’sbarefoot.Whyis he barefoot in my coach’s backyard? Also, why is he staring at me? Why am I staring back?

I can’t tear my gaze away, and I think it’s because of his eyes. They’re studious. Focused. Dialed in. Preternaturally blue. Somewhere in the Baltic Sea, a cod splashes through a patch of water that precise color, and—

Did Pen tell him aboutme? Did Pen tell him that she toldmeabouthim? Is that why Lukas looks so . . . I don’t know. Curious? Absorbed?Something.

“What were you saying about the Swedish Open, dear?” Mrs. Sima asks. Lukas turns back to her, and I realize that I crashed right in the middle of their conversation. Or, most likely, her interrogation of Lukas. I’ve been on the receiving end of a few of those through the years, and they’re no picnic. “When is that happening?”

“Next year. The week after the NCAAs.”

“Oh my goodness. And you’ll need to attend to qualify for the Melbourne Olympics, right?”

“Not after the world championship.” He has an accent, in thatfaint, northern European way. I’m not even sure what letters it coats, but I occasionally pick up on it.

“Right, earlier this year. And you won that, so you’re officially going to Australia next year?”

He nods, indifferent, like being an Olympian is not a big deal. His face is . . . that jaw has me thinking of diving cliffs, and the cleft in his chin—textbook movie-star shit. He could be Captain America.

Captain Sweden. Whatever.

“That is fantastic, dear. Now, here’s hoping that Penelope qualifies, too. Shewasbronze at the Pan Am games last summer, but with so many mistakes.” Typical Mrs. Sima jab. She loves to imply that the diving team is an untalented bunch, chronically unworthy of her husband’s coaching skills. I’d challenge her on this, but when it comes to me, I’m not sure she’s wrong.

Lukas, thankfully, has no such qualms. “She was still recovering from injury.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course.” A nervous laugh. “Well, still.Youwon all your races, didn’t you?”

His reply is a noncommittal grunt.

“I bet your mother’ssoproud of you.”

No reply at all, but the ink on Lukas’s skin shifts, like he’s flexing his muscles. Maybe his relationship with his mom is as lovely and uncontentious as mine with Dad?

---