Chapter 15

15

Coach (Emmett)

Three days.

This little shit had been avoiding me for three days. Letting my calls go to voicemail. Leaving my texts on read. Not showing up for practice.

Phweeeeee!

Phweeeeeeeee!

“Knox, did you grow a third limb?” I roared. “Do better!”

“Sanchez, you might as well just go to the nursing home down the street for water aerobics because that’s all you’re good for!”

“I got a cramp, Coach!”

“Bullshit! The lane lines have better form than you!”

Phweeee—

The whistle was plucked out of my mouth, the stream of air I expelled going nowhere. I whipped around, ready to blister whoever dared touch my whistle, and met the green eyes of my daughter.

“Landry.” I was gruff. “You should be watching the lanes.”

“Kinda hard to do when you’re over here madder than a mosquito in a mannequin factory.”

“Good one, L!”

I glanced down at Kruger’s goggle-covered face as he congratulated Landry from the water. “If zombies ate your brain, they’d starve.”

“Harsh,” Kruger quipped.

“Start swimming!”

He hesitated.

“What’s the problem?” I barked.

“Kinda afraid to leave you alone with her, Coach. You might make her cry.”

“I’m not gonna make my daughter cry!”

Rush appeared, dripping wet with a swim cap on his head and goggles perched on top. Landry squealed when his arms snaked around her from behind and pulled her in. “Jason! You’re getting me wet.”

“You okay over here, baby?”

I belched. These kids gave me acid reflux. “Rush, what did I tell you about PDA with my daughter at the pool?”

“You don’t have to keep reminding us she’s your daughter, Coach. We know.”

I swung to glare at Kruger. “Less breathing, more swimming.”

Grimacing, he went underwater and swam away.

When I turned back, Rush was still hugging my daughter. I gave them a little mood music. With my whistle.

“Dad, seriously,” Landry said, rubbing her ear. “What is wrong with you?”

“Why would you think something is wrong?” I questioned.

“Because you’re sweatier than a nun in a cucumber patch?” Jamie mused, pulling himself out of the pool. Water rained off his wide frame and splattered the tiles as he lifted the goggles off his eyes.

“That was inappropriate, Owens. Five extra laps.”

“Funny, though.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“Making jokes at the expense of ladies of the Lord is not funny.”

Jamie blinked. “Ladies of the Lord?”

Landry giggled.

“Is that what nuns are called?” Jamie asked.

I should retire. Move to the Bahamas. Buy a boat. I could live in the middle of the ocean and never see a soul.

“Ryan!” Jamie bellowed.

“This is not bro time, Owens. Back in the pool.”

Walsh appeared, hoisting himself out of the water the same way Jamie had just moments before. In the lane beside him, Wes followed suit, and the two swimmers shook their arms out as they came over.

“What’s up, bro?” Walsh asked Jamie.

“Bros,” Jamie said, turning to the other two. The three of them were joined at the hip. Made me crave vodka.

“Did you know that nuns are called ladies of the Lord?”

Wes laughed, and Ryan shook his head. “Bro. That’s not a thing.”

“Coach just said!”

All eyes turned to me.

“For shit’s sake, go swim.” Over their shoulders, I saw Bowen’s form fall out. Blowing the whistle, I pushed through the land dwellers and approached him. “Your form is off. Do it again.”

“My arms are like jelly, Coach.”

“Do it again,” I demanded.

He groaned and went to it while I stood there and watched. Intense attention from the side made me look over. The rest were all still standing there, staring.

“Finish your laps and then stretch out,” I ordered.

“Go on. Let’s finish this,” Landry said, finally backing me up.

Rush went to kiss her, and I blew my whistle. Handsy asshole.

I waited until Bowen came back and slapped his hand on the tile.

“Good job. Go stretch out. See you tomorrow.”

He pulled himself over the edge and lay there like a floppy fish. I shook my head and walked away. My footsteps stuttered when I saw Ryan there waiting. He had pulled off his swim cap, his dark hair mussed around his head. Blue eyes studied me seriously, and inwardly, I sighed.

Elite treated him like some sort of alpha swimming god, and it put it in his head he was the team captain. Sometimes it really burned my britches that he acted like he was some sort of honorary coach around here.

I acknowledged his presence by asking, “What’s the problem, Walsh?”

“Where’s Bodhi?”

Just the mention of his name set my teeth on edge. “Why are you asking?”

“Because you told us he’s Elite, but he hasn’t been here for three days.”

“I was giving him a little time to settle into his new dorm and classes.”

“You never gave the rest of us time to settle in.”

I turned my head and met his stare full on. “You got a problem with the way I run my pool?”

“No, but I thought maybe it would help if I talked to him. See if he wants to swim with me, like one on one. Maybe it would help get him comfortable with the pool.”

He did that with Wes a few semesters ago. Really helped him get his time up. I exhaled, tension leaving my shoulders and making me feel like an ass.

I’d never tell anyone that, though.

“Yeah, son. That’d be a good idea. I appreciate the offer.”

“Do you think that the way me and Jamie threw him in traumatized him?”

I rotated to face the Speedo-clad swimmer fully. “Nothing you did is the reason he’s not here,” I told him sincerely.

That’s all on me. And I’m too chicken shit to hunt him down and apologize.

Because you won’t apologize. You’ll kiss him.

“There is trauma, though,” Ryan said, his voice a little lower than before.

What the ever-loving fuck was wrong with me? My swimmer was trying to talk to me, hoping for guidance and reassurance, and what was I doing? Daydreaming about kissing someone half my age.

I was depraved.

Clearing my throat, I nodded once. “I think that could be the case.”

“It’s probably Brynne.”

Walsh and I turned to see Rush standing nearby, clearly listening to our conversation. By the look on his face, I’d say he didn’t really want to join in, but it was as though he couldn’t help himself.

I understand more than he knows.

“His sister,” Walsh said.

Rush nodded and reluctantly came closer. “She was found in the campus pool at Pembrook.” He reminded us. “At first, everyone thought she’d just drowned.”

“But she really hit her head and then fell into the pool,” Walsh amended.

“Yeah. Dead before she was tossed in the water.” Rush’s voice was subdued.

“We don’t have to talk about this, son,” I told him.

He nodded. “I know. I’m just saying. He quit swimming when she died. Sometimes…” He went silent.

Walsh and I stood there quietly and waited him out. “I used to see her body when I swam afterward too. For months.”

Ryan laid his hand on Rush’s shoulder. “I think anyone would.”

Rush nodded. “I thought maybe, for me, it was because they forced me to look at all the photos. Of her body.” He cleared his throat. “But a person’s imagination could supply that image. Especially if it’s someone you literally were born with.”

All death was hard. But unexpected and traumatic death seemed even more cruel. Look at how irrevocably my life had changed… and that wasn’t my twin.

“Were they, ah, close?” I asked.

Rush nodded. “Very. We were like the three musketeers.”

“I’ll talk to him. He’s living in our dorm, right?” Ryan asked.

I rattled off his dorm room number.

Silence greeted me, and I looked up. They were staring. I made a face. “I know all your room numbers, morons. I’m the one they call when you mouth breathers get in trouble.”

“Right.” Ryan agreed. “I’m gonna go change. I’m starving.”

I waved him off and turned back to the pool, ordering everyone out to stretch and shower. When I turned back, Rush was still there.

“What?”

“I just can’t right now,” he said.

My brow wrinkled. “Can’t what?”

“Talk to Bodhi,” he answered. “He thinks I came and got him just to show off that I’m happy or whatever.”

“He said that?”

Rush nodded. “Maybe he didn’t mean it, but it still bothers me. He, ah…”

“I know,” I said, not making him say out loud how much Bodhi accusing him of killing Brynne hurt. “Don’t blame yourself. You’ve done what you could, which is frankly more than most would do.”

“Not you,” he said, surprising me.

“What?”

“You don’t even know him, and the little you do is all bad. But you dropped everything and flew to Cali, used your good rep here to get him a second chance.”

I shook my head. “Don’t put me on a pedestal, Rush. That’s the last place I belong.”

“Then why’d you do it?”

I paused, heart beating too hard. “Because I think people deserve a second chance and someone to believe in them.”

He nodded.

“Go easy on yourself. It hasn’t been rainbows and unicorns for you either. Just because stuff is better now doesn’t mean you still don’t have scars.”

Rush said nothing.

“Let Walsh talk to him. You know he lives for that shit.”

Rush smiled. “All hail Elite,” he said in his best Walsh impersonation.

I suppressed a laugh. “Go shower.”

Rush jogged off, and I turned back to the now-empty pool. The water was calm, the surface reflective.

In truth, I should have been the one talking to Bodhi. And I definitely shouldn’t have let him get away with missing three consecutive practices. I’d been trying to give myself some time. Time to get over this attraction until I could look at him as nothing but one of my swimmers.

But the more time passed, the more frustrated I grew and the more I feared this wasn’t just some chemical attraction but something with enough power to blow my world apart.