Page 99 of Deep End

Whatever. I’m allowed to think that the guy with whom I’mhaving power-exchange sex iscute. It’s fully within my rights. “I want to go to the aquatic center.”

He frowns. Lets me go long enough to retrieve his phone from his pocket, which lights up with more unread notifications than I’ve had all month. He ignores them, unalarmed, and instead squints at the numbers.

“It’s one twenty-three a.m.”

“Oh.” I deflate—then reinflate when I remember: “You have keys, though. Right?”

His skeptical “Yes” is more question than reply.

“Can you let me in?”

He slow blinks at me. “Scarlett—”

“I never get to—you’re right. It’s for other people. It’s always for others—Coach Sima, all the trainers I’ve had since I was a child, Pen. I feel guilty about disappointing them when I fail a dive. And it’s hard to shut them out, because they’realwaysaround when I’m practicing.” They have to be—it’s regulation. Unsupervised training is forbidden. The risk of injury and drowning is too high. “What you said about doing it for yourself, about having to prove something—”

“I’mnotgoing to let you dive alone, Scarlett.”

“You can be there.”

“I’m serious. If we get to Avery and you decide you don’t want me around, I’m not leaving.”

“It’s fine. You can stay, because you don’t count.”

“I don’t count,” he repeats. Stony faced.

“No, because you don’t care.”

“I don’t care.” He sounds like the worddispleasedwas invented for him and only him, and I don’t understand why—until it occurs to me how he’s interpreting my words.

“Not because—not in that sense!” I’m hot with frustration and embarrassment. “What I meant is, you care about me beingwellmore than about me beinggoodat something—anything. And when you’re around I don’t feel as anxious or scrutinized as I do with—”

He interrupts me with a hard, quick, somehowencompassingkiss. When he pulls back, his mouth twitches into that little smile that makes my heart gallop, and orders, “Grab your parka. Nights can get cold.”

Lukas wraps an arm around my shoulder, and even wearing a jacket, I still freeze my ass off as we walk through campus, shocked by thermal excursion following a perfectly nice fall day. In a T-shirt, he shakes his head in his most SwedishI just caught you setting fire to a children’s hospitaldisappointment, and says, “Americans are so weak,” before pulling me even closer.

Avery is well lit throughout the night (good), but when I dip my toe into the water, I find it so chilly, it belongs to Lukas’s BDSM list (bad). I forgot to put on a swimsuit, but my sports bra will do. I take my clothes off and prep with a shower, setting the temperature several degrees hotter than usual to warm my muscles. I turn on the pool sprayers. I stretch a little, but I’m not stalling, or trying to put distance between me and the dive. I’m eager to climb the steps of the tower, and keep my surprise to myself when I realize that Lukas has taken off his shoes and is coming up with me, a tall, reassuring presence at my side.

“Springboard or platform?”

“Platform,” I reply. It’s how it started. First love, first heartbreak.

“Don’t you have to put that thing on your body before diving?”

“The what?”

“That stuff you guys are always putting on your legs?”

“You mean, the stripper pole wax?”

He stops to give me a wide-eyed look. “You put stripper pole wax on your shins?”

“It’s a grip aid. Divers use it to hold on to their legs, strippers use it to hold on to their poles. Have you ever seen strippers do their thing?”

“This feels like a trick question.”

“They’reelite athletes. In great shape.” I plant my hands on my waist. “Did you really not know what it was?”

“Pen uses tape spray.”

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