Page 130 of Deep End

LUKAS:Why? I like watching you.

It’s not normal, the speed of my heartbeat even though I’m lying down. I’m an athlete in peak physical condition, goddamn it.

SCARLETT:He probably thinks we’re dating. We should set the record straight.

LUKAS:Or maybe we should just start dating.

I stop breathing. Freeze. Did he really—

LUKAS:I checked. This year Midsommar overlaps with the US Olympic trials, and as much as I want you in Sweden, I want you to come to Melbourne with me more.

I force my heart to slow down. My head to stop spinning.

SCARLETT:You’re optimistic, huh?

LUKAS:I’ve just seen you dive, Scarlett.

LUKAS:Come after the trials. Taper here. You’ll love the quiet. And the hikes.

I fall asleep with my phone in my hand, and dream of the midnight sun.

CHAPTER 51

IN JANUARY, LUKAS IS ACCEPTED TO STANFORD MED.

My reaction is . . . complicated, but only because he tells me while we’re in the middle of fucking.

He and I have done some irresponsible stuff since our arrangement started, but this tops it all. I blame it on how busy we’ve been with travel and meets, and on the fact that the extent of our January encounters amounts to passing each other in one of the hallways at Avery, the always crowded one right outside of the PT room.

I don’t say hi.

He doesn’t smile.

His fingers brush against the back of my hand, though, and for the next twenty minutes I feel like the air is thinner than on a Tibetan plateau.

In those weeks, our closest interaction is a plastic bag I discover outside my locker, full of the green sweets I mentioned to him before the holidays.

For real fika, the note reads. I devour them, thinking of him during every bite.

At the end of the month, both the University of Arizona andArizona State teams come to Avery for a four-day invite. The after-party is at Kyle’s house—which is, shockingly, also Lukas’s.

“I’d heard rumors,” Victoria says, walking up the driveway. “But I dared not believe them. Thought my sickbed was playing tricks on me. But no—Scarlett Vandermeer actually goes out. Color me shockedandpleased.”

“Vandylikesparties,” Pen tells her. “She just . . .”

“Likes her bed more,” I finish.

“I’m just making an appearance,” Pen whispers in my ear a minute later. “And then I’m skedaddling to Hot Teacher’s place.”

They’ve been inseparable for all of January. I even met him, with Pen introducing me as “one of my closest friends, Theo,” which had mesohappy. We had lunch together, and they couldn’t keep their eyes, and hands, off each other. Meanwhile, I couldn’t stop thinking about Lukas.

What if he and Ireallystarted dating?

Would it be against girl code?

Would you even mind?

Most of the crowd, and it’s abigcrowd, is out in the garden. Victoria disappears into her flirtation with a Montenegrin swimmer who looks uncannily like Michelangelo’sDavid. Pen is best friends with everyone, and is seamlessly absorbed by gaggle after gaggle. I wander around, am polite when a male U of A diver chats me up, but I’m looking for . . .

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