Page 143 of Deep End

Lukas.

With whom, I fear, I might be a little bit in love.

It’s a gut-punching realization. I’m ready to panic, but Lukas stops me with a single word.

“Yeah?” His voice is hesitant, a little rough. Like my words grated against his vocal cords.

Lie, I order myself.Swallow it back. But I can’t. I don’twantto. “Yeah.”

And maybe it’s fine. Because he kisses me, something never-ending and supple and so,sosweet, it feels like being in the air. Hovering above the water. Running off a platform with the certainty that a good dive is there, ready to spring out of my muscles.

“Except.” He pulls back, more composed. “You’re a junior. In this scenario, I’m ahead and you’re shamelessly using me for tutoring.”

I press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Firstly, I do not need the tutoring of someone whose neural network has chance-level accuracy.”

“Savage.” His smile swells under my lips.

“And, Pen told me you’re going to defer your acceptance, which means that . . .”

I stop. Lukas is shaking his head. “I’m not.”

“You’re . . . not?”

He folds a lock of hair behind my ear. “I’m starting med school this fall.”

“Oh. Maybe I misunderstood.”

“I’m sure that’s what she told you. But I have no intention of postponing.”

I nod. “Well, you have great time-management skills. M1 workload is tough, and you’ll have little time for caribou watching and other famed Swedish pastimes, but if anyone can keep up with a training program while learning how to dissect cadavers—”

“I won’t.”

“Lukas.” I cup his cheek, not wanting to break his heart. “Corpse stuff is mandatory in US med schools.”

He laughs. “I’ll be fine withcorpse stuff. It’s the swimming that I’ll avoid.”

My hand drops in his lap. “What?”

“These Olympics are my last.”

“You’re joking, right?” But he’s not. It’s in his eyes, the confident air of someone who has made peace with his choices. “You’re one of the best swimmers of the century. Everyone agrees.”

“Eh, centuryjuststarted.”

“You hold severalcurrentrecords.” He shrugs. The movement vibrates in my bones and tendons. “You probably have adecadeahead of you.”

“A decade of what?”

“Of . . . becoming faster. Winning.”

“And then? Three, five, ten years from now, there’ll be better tech suits, better nutrition, better and smarter training. A bunch of talented kids will show up and wipe the ground with us and . . .” He shakes his head. Not bitter, just accepting. “I can’t find it in me to give a fuck, Scarlett. The idea of being faster than them doesn’t motivate me to swim repeat one hundreds, or to endlessly debate one up versus two downs. There’s no endgame.”

“But . . . what about the glory?”

“What about it?”

“I don’t know. You have fans. People love you. Thekingloves you!”

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