Page 51 of Remade

“No problem. In other news, your grand order of pizza will be here in an hour,” Green added.

Perfect. “Great, thanks. They should’ve surrendered by then.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Poor recruits.”

Eh, we’d all been there.

On the other side of the pool, Coach blew his own whistle and declared a ten-minute break—but the recruits weren’t allowed to leave the water, nor could they touch the edge or swim to the shallow end.

Once Green left again, I returned to the short end and Coach’s side, and the recruits did their best to float while they caught their breaths.

Careful.

I winced as the ache flared in my thigh. The crutches were gone, but it’d be a while before I could walk without a limp. My arm was healing a lot quicker.

Coach opened our cooler and made a show of enjoying a bottle of icy cold water.

I grabbed what was left of my potato chips and walked over to the edge.

“Just remember, you can quit whenever you want,” I said. “There’s water, soda, and snacks for everyone.” I stuck a couple chips in my mouth and made an appreciative sound. They were admittedly delicious.

“I’m too exhausted to flip you off, man,” Tanner said, out of breath. “Can someone do it for me?”

“Hold on,” Leighton panted. He actually managed to stay afloat, despite heavy clothes. “Am I doing it?”

I grinned. He wasalmostlifting his middle finger. Almost.

“It’s the thought that counts,” I said with my mouth full. “By the way, I have something for you. Operator Green just delivered it.” I pointed toward the other side of the deep end. “If you swim over there, I can show you what it is.”

He huffed a breath, cute and red-faced. Frustrated, exhausted, maybe a little annoyed too.

“Christ, sir,” Gabriella panted. “We appreciate you not showing favoritism, but you don’t gotta make shit harder for him.”

“Thank you!” Leighton exclaimed.

Whoa, what the hell? “It was just an offer. We can do it later too. Calm down.”

“I’mtryingto stay calm!” My boy’s voice echoed. “But in case you haven’t noticed, we’ve been in here for over three hours now, we’ve missed lunch, we’ve held our breaths, you said jump, we didn’t even ask how high before we leaped?—”

“Don’t forget the laps,” Miguel grunted. “Fucking laps.”

“The damn laps—we’ve probably done two million of them,” Leighton grated out. “And diving for goddamn nickels…”

Coach and I exchanged an amused glance.

“Breathe more, talk less, Leighton,” I advised. “I’ll show you later.”

“No, I wanna know now,” he scoffed. He splashed around until he was on his stomach, and he started swimming toward the other side.

I grinned and shook my head?—

“I’ve reached my limit, goddammit! Are you sure I won’t fail if I stop now?” Shawn choked out between heavy breaths.

“Of course you won’t fail,” Coach replied. “It’ll just tell us what kind of training you need.”

Such as more endurance training.

“Fuck it,” he wheezed out and swam over to the edge. “Throw me a damn energy bar, please. I’m done.”

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