Page 47 of Deep End

The music starts, and so do some questionable body rolls. Laughter. Nearly everyone takes their phones out, and I do the same. Except, I’m not filming. I’m not even watching. Instead I pull up an old email, type three words, and hit reply.

When and where?

Devin and Dale gyrate their hips. Lukas’s phone lights up on the coffee table. I see him glance at it once, distractedly. Then again when the message registers.

He doesn’t even have to search the crowd. His eyes lift up to meet mine, and when he nods, I finally manage a true, genuine smile.

CHAPTER 21

MONDAY MORNINGS AT THE POOL ARE USUALLY RELAXED,full of athletes slowly rebooting after their day off.ThisMonday morning, however, the atmosphere around the aquatics center is thicker than the fog.

“Cuts for the swim team,” Bree tells me, pale face scrunched together as she wraps tape around her wrist. “They’re finalizing the roster.”

“Already?”

“Creeps up on me every year, too.”

In the locker room, the swimmers’ cheerfulness feels forced, and I wonder how they cope. Am I the only one who cries in the shower, and can never find enough air to properly breathe, and opens the fridge hoping to discover a magic portal leading to a Narnia-like society in which competitive sports have been banned?

German, too.

On my way to breakfast, I hear, “Scarlett. A minute?”

It’s Lukas—of course it is. No one else calls me by my name. I pause in the Avery lobby and try not to blush, or to remember how many times I checked my phone, email, and physical mailboxyesterday, waiting for him to contact me. Maryam asked me if I was high on glue, which led to a twenty-minute fight over whether the USA Anti-Doping Agency would find that objectionable.

Icouldpretend that in the twenty-four hours he spent ignoring me I changed my mind, but it would probably just give him a chuckle. “Sure.” I walk over. Take in his hair, still wet from practice. The freckles hugging his nose and cheekbones. The compression shirt he’s wearing does great things for his thick arms, and even more for his chest. “Everything okay?”

“Have you met Johan?” He points at the guy next to him, whom I recognize as The Other Swede. He looks like he could be Lukas’s cousin, just blond.

“I’m Scarlett, nice to meet you.” I smile and hold out my hand.

Which he takes, even as he says, “It’s also very nice to see you, but we already met.”

Shit. “Oh. Um, right, of course, I—”

“Don’t take it personally, Johan. She didn’t remember meeting me, either.” Lukas’s smile, somewhere between teasing and tender, has me flushing. He and Johan have a brief Swedish conversation that ends with Johan nodding, and then smiling at me like we’re more than one—no,two-time acquaintances. Like he knowsthingsabout me.

I look up at them, neck craning. They could be talking about the stock market economies, their favorite dactylic pentameters, or the size of my boobs—I have no way of telling. Did I hear the wordtroll?

“What was that?” I ask Lukas after Johan leaves.

“He asked me if we’re together.”

Does he know Lukas broke up with Pen? “And what did you say?”

“The truth.”

“Which is?”

I’m beginning to suspect that a conversation is over when LukasBlomqvist decides he’s had enough, because he doesn’t reply. Instead he reaches into his pocket and hands me a sheet of paper, folded once and then again. I open it out, and—

Oh my god.

Cheeks on fire, I hug it to my chest. Where my heart isracingagainst my ribs.

“You know what that is?” he asks casually, like he’s talking about calculating a molecular orbital and not—

“Bye, Luk!” A small group of swimmers walks by us. “See you later, Sweedy,” another adds, trailing behind them.

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