He was there.
Of course he was.
I didn’t even need to seek him out. He was in a different spot in the stadium, but still, the connection between us made finding him amid the manic crowd easy as pie.
The heat arced from him to me the second we were linked, and it made me feel like something from a Sci-Fi novel, but it was true. I wasn’t sure why him hugging me yesterday hadn’t fully worked, nor did I understand why this morning in the pool hadn’t either—but this? Did.
Fate.
Again.
Fuck.
Why wouldn’t it leave me alone?
I gnawed on my lip again, finally breaking free of the connection to stare over the lane. It was still, so serene and perfect that it was such a complete contrast to the crowds watching us, it was almost obscene.
My stomach churned for a second—nerves fighting with the eagerness I always felt when water was nearby. My preference would have been to start the race off, but preferences meant shit when it came down to strategy.
I was the fastest.
Therefore I went last.
As we huddled together, I barely tuned in to Rachel’s speech. She seemed to think she was our leader or some crap like that because she was going first—BS. Total BS. Disregarding most of what she said, I cast another look at Adam, almost like I was sending a net out into the ocean, hoping for a good catch.
Of course he collided with me once more.
Just like he always would.
The thought stymied me. Made my past choices and his past decisions blur and seem so pointless. There was no free will where we were concerned. None at all.
And that was the power of the image that had gone viral, I thought.
We were helpless in this fight, and it showed, and that was why it was so poignant.
The love was there. Like the word was etched on our foreheads or something.
My throat felt thick at the thought, and I knew I needed to get my head in the game when Lori shoved me in the side twice and I didn’t push her back.
“You okay?” she whispered, the second I removed my AirPods.
I blinked at her. “I’m fine.”
She studied me for a second, her eyes concerned. I knew why—last night, I’d been freezing. We had the AC on all the time at the moment, but I’d begged her to switch it off. She thought I was coming down with a cold, and I preferred for her to think that. Especially because, when the race was over, whether we lost or won, she’d forget all about it because the cold would burn away now that I’d reconnected with Adam. Proving something I’d only thought about before—that after a healing, it wasn’t enough for him to take me in his arms. We had to reconnect, and the fire would burn in our souls, heating me up nicely.
But, in close quarters, Adam and I were incapable of letting our guards down so freely. Only at this distance was it possible.
Water and Adam… my two fates, just about to twine together, creating a puzzle I didn’t think I’d ever be able to solve or, hell, even unravel partway.
All of us were ready when the initial whistle called the first swimmer in the relay up to the mount, and in a flash, so quickly that it always made my heart skip a beat, another whistle pierced the air, and Rachel went soaring into the water. Beside us, an Indian team had a false start and was immediately disqualified.
A German team, two lanes over, had Rachel at a shortcoming, and I knew it was only going to grow further and further—Mercedes Lotke had a wicked front crawl.
Adrenaline buzzed through me, further chasing away the cold, and my eagerness to win, to excel, to make a name for myself, overpowered everything else until I forgot Charles Linden, he of the shared surname with a man I had truly cared for, I forgot about healing him, and for a second, I even forgot about Adam.
I was focused on the water.
On the distance between Rachel and Mercedes.
She touched the wall, dove back under in a neat spiral, then surged forth. She was about twenty meters behind Mercedes who touched the wall on the other side in almost a flash, and was back at our end of the pool in no time at all.
As the second swimmer was halfway down the length, Lori was just diving in. She didn’t manage to recoup the time, and I looked up at the board, saw the seconds ticking by, saw how fast she was swimming, and knew it wasn’t enough.
Thankfully, Mercedes’s third swimmer was a weak link. By the time Jamie was in the water, swimming like Ariel herself, she managed to right the difference between us, and in barely the blink of an eye, it was my turn.
I mounted the diving board, prepared myself for Jamie’s touch to the wall, and I soared.
The instant I was airborne, my entire body seemed to tingle, and it only stopped when I glided in a smooth arc into the water.
Exhilaration pounded through me, excitement too, but mostly, it was joy. Just sheer fucking happiness to be back in here.
The sounds of the crowd faded to nothing, the whisper of the swimmers around me was nonexistent. All I felt was the water, the waves their strokes caused, and I was at peace.
I slipped down the lane at a time that surpassed my own record, but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that I left Jemima Markel, the fastest swimmer on Mercedes’s team, in the dust as I surged down the lane, owning it, reigning over it as I finally touched the wall.
My heart didn’t stop pounding until I looked up and heard the screams from Rachel, Lori, and Jamie. They were dancing around like lunatics, and I had my answer without having to look up at the board, without even having to ask.
We’d won.
THEA
As I joined my hands together, I pressed my thumbs outward and raised them to gently touch the center of my forehead.
Yoga centered me in a different way than swimming, but I couldn’t be in the pool all the time, and with such a busy schedule, so many people I came into contact with, I often found myself a little flustered.
It was stupid to be that way, stupid when I could be a sociable creature, but at heart, I chose to be sociable. It wasn’t in my nature. Not really.
Too much time alone, too much time spent evading others, trying to blend in and never stand out, had taught me how to behave, how to be. And it also meant that I didn’t particularly like myself, which was something I had to work on in the future.
I blew out a breath, then opened my eyes. A feeling of calm washed through me, and I flopped back onto my yoga mat, uncaring that I’d technically just finished my practice, and lay staring up at the ceiling in a Savasana pose.
Lori, still celebrating her gold medal and the fact she was no longer in any races, was out somewhere trying and failing to get over Jonas, and I’d had no desire to go with her. She’d swum her last race today, but mine? It was in the morning.
Nerves churned inside me in a way they never had before. It was strange how I’d come here wanting to make records, uncaring about winning, and here I was, five golds in, and somehow, more nervous than a rookie.
A knock sounded at the door. “Lori, if you’ve lost your keycard again—” I started to call out, only for a deep, husky voice to have my nerves instantly pinging in reaction as he interrupted me.
“No. It’s me.”
My heart stilled for just a fraction of a second. “Go away.” I knew why he was here.
That look by the pool.
But I also knew what would happen if I talked to him, if I let him stay, and I couldn’t afford that. Not tonight. Christ, maybe not ever.
“No.”
A sigh that I felt deep in my soul boomed from the other side of the door. “Don’t be difficult, Thea.”
My nostrils flared at that. Difficult? He thought I was being difficult? He was damn lucky I was as easygoing as I was.
Any other woman would have wished him to hell. Me? I kept on talking to him.
God, maybe I was a fool.
“I don’t want to talk to you. I need to focus.”
“You can only focus so much.”
/> “And what are you going to do to make me feel better?” I retorted. “Wash all my worries away?” I scoffed, finally getting to my feet because there was no point in trying to relax anymore. Not when he was outside.
The persistence that had him coming to Hawkvale Community Center day in and day out to visit with me was something I knew he hadn’t grown out of.
He was quite capable of staying there until Lori wandered back and let him in—either accidentally or on purpose because she knew I had feelings for Adam, and would probably think letting him in was doing me a favor.
Feeling cornered, and disliking it, I rolled up my mat, tucked it under my arm, and headed over to the door.
I didn’t want him inside, but he wouldn’t stop, and fuck, I wanted to see him.
Like a junkie, if I could just look at him, something inside me would feel better.
Yeah, I knew I was sick.
My poison. No antidote.
When I jerked open the door, glowering at him in welcome, I felt the electric shock to my system as our eyes connected.
For a few seconds, neither of us said anything.
There was nothing to say.
Five years on, and the link between us was as powerful as ever. More powerful even. Probably because we denied it and had done so for so long.
Still, I was angry at him. Still so fucking angry for how we’d parted the last time I’d seen him before the debacle with Charles Linden, and my annoyance had me snapping, “What do you want?”
“Did you do this?”
I frowned. “Do what?” But he was twisting his phone around, revealing a picture that made me want to smile and puke at the same time.
I jerked my chin up. “While you might want to cast more sins on me than Lucifer himself, no, I didn’t somehow engineer that going viral.”
It was a picture of us. Just moments after I’d been awarded my first gold medal, when I’d gone to greet the family the day of that first race.
Anna and Robert weren’t there, having just started to walk off through the crowds to get to the car, and he and I were just standing together, staring.
Something we tended to do a lot of when we were in each other’s vicinity.
Someone had taken the picture, and it had been trending on Twitter every time I won a race.
I’d gotten some shit from my teammates, but I hadn’t really cared. Most things like that washed over me without my giving much of a reaction, because those people meant nothing to me.
In the grand scheme of things, at any rate.
“I didn’t come here to start a fight,” Adam muttered, his gaze trained on the screen. Then, with a plea in his voice that surprised me, he asked, “Do we always look at each other like that?”
The tone of his voice made me wonder if he hoped we did look at each other that way.
Confused, I whispered, “I think so.”
“Why do you think so?” Ever analytical.
“Because I feel it. You do too. I’m just surprised that it was captured so well by a camera.” My voice turned gruff as I stated, “You already know what you are to me. Whether you choose to avoid it or not, you know it.”
“I wasn’t the one who started that, Thea. You’re the one who backed out on us.”
“You’re the one who changed the goalposts,” I growled.
His eyes narrowed into slits before he grated out, “It’s been a long time since you even thought of me as more than a pain in the ass.”
“That’s because you are one.” I shrugged. “I don’t understand you, Adam. I don’t know how things went so wrong between us. We had that one summer, where everything was wonderful, and then, everything changed.”
“Life happened.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m the one still dealing with the aftermath.”
“And I’m not?” He sighed as he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, I hate Cain.”
“Present tense?”
“Of course. He affects us every day whether we like to think he does or not.”
I pursed my lips. “I don’t think of him.”
“You don’t? How can you not?”
“Because what he did affected my life” —some might say Cain had wrecked it— “and I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of thinking about him. It gives him too much power, and he deserves none.”
He shook his head as he leaned against the doorjamb, and his brow puckered as he whispered, “I miss you.”
Though that about broke my heart, I knew I was living up to my ice queen tag on my team when I retorted, “You’d never tell.”
“I made choices, decisions that I can’t go back on.”
“Have I asked you to?” I snapped, my body going rigid at his presumption. If anything, I was the one who lowered myself, who morphed into a hypocrite where he was concerned.
I wasn’t a cheater, but he’d made a liar out of me.
“No. But—”
“But what?” I released a mocking laugh. “You were supposed to leave her by now.”
“Things are complicated,” he bit out.
“Aren’t they always?” I snarled.
My temper flared, raging through me like nothing else could. I wanted, so badly, to hit him. To punch him. To make him hurt. To make him ache like I did.
But then I’d be no better than my father.
So because I couldn’t hurt him, I slammed the door in his face instead.
Pressing my forehead against the door, I spat, “Go away. I hate you.” My words were tear soaked, and fuck if I didn’t hate myself for that too—as well as all the other shit our poison made me do. “I hate you,” I repeated, agony whirling inside me.
My misery made it clear that I didn’t hate him. If anything, my words of hatred proved the opposite, but I wasn’t capable of saying anything else.
Of doing anything else.
“Thea,” he whispered, and he sounded so close that I got the feeling his forehead was brushing up against the door too.
“No. You don’t have the right to do this to me.” I wiped my nose on the back of my hand. “Why are you here, Adam? What good does your coming here achieve? I’m trying to stay calm for tomorrow, trying not to freak out, and you’re here, messing with me. Fucking things up for me.”
“You know that isn’t my intention.”
“Isn’t it? You’re here accusing me of making a picture go goddamn viral. How would I even do that? All I did was look at you. And you looked back. That isn’t a crime, is it?”
“I miss you,” he repeated.
“You have no right to miss me,” I snapped, closing my eyes as the pain filtered through me like neat vodka, hitting my system as though it was pure alcohol.
“I love you.”
“You chose her.”
“I didn’t choose her,” he countered. “I chose—”
“You chose her,” I bit off, refusing to hear otherwise. “I should have known you couldn’t be trusted. Should have realized that your words were just lies.”
He released a hiss. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“No?” My mouth tightened, and evil witch that it made me, because I was hurting, the desire to make him hurt filled me. “That day, when the shit hit the fan, when Cain walked around the pool toward me, I genuinely thought it was you. Do you know that?”
A sharp gasp escaped him. “I’d never hurt you.”
“No? Well, there’s an irony to that, Adam. Every goddamn day, you hurt me more than Cain ever could. Now get the fuck away from me.”
My heart was pounding so loud I didn’t hear his footsteps fade as he walked down the hall, and my eyes were a blurred mess as I staggered back, sank onto Lori’s bed, and pushed my face into my hands.
I knew what it was to be alone. I’d been that way since he’d said ‘I do’ to another woman. I’d been that way since he’d picked Maria Lopez over me. And I’d be that way for the rest of my life, because if I couldn’t trust Adam, then who could I trust?
&nb
sp; I wanted to cry, wanted so badly to let my emotions free, but I couldn’t. He was the source of my pain and the cure too.
I dug my fingers into my eyes, wanting to feel the ache, needing to. Something about Adam always made me feel this way, it was why I knew we were toxic together—the curse at work, even though I did my devil’s best to dance out of its reach.
A shudder whispered through me when I heard a faint shushing noise. I happened to peer up just in time to see the door moving inward.
My mouth fell open, and I gaped at the now open door where Adam was standing.
A little wildly, I stared at him, and he clenched his jaw at me.
I wasn’t frightened, I wasn’t even angry at his intrusion.
I didn’t know what I was, to be honest.
Stunned, sure. On edge? Definitely.
I thrust myself onto my feet, refusing to sit there looking diminished and as if I was cowering.
I wasn’t.
Everything about him hurt me, but somehow, it was easier to breathe when we were together.
I curled my nails into my palms and demanded, “How did you get the keycard?”
“Lori.”
I gritted my teeth. Fuck, she was a nuisance. She’d been giving me shit about that viral picture ever since it had started trending, so I knew exactly why she’d given him the keycard.
Running a hand over my face, I whispered, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why shouldn’t I be? Who says I shouldn’t be here?”
“Me. The world.”
“I care about the first. Don’t give a shit about the latter.”
When I stared at him, at his masculine beauty, my heart and something else began to throb.
Fuck.
Just, fuck.
Then, after the initial surge, I could feel my heart start to slow, like the blood in my veins was somehow clogged with desire. Christ, could passion bring on a heart attack?
I didn’t think so, but if it was at all possible, with our bad luck, it would probably happen right here. Right now.
I started gnawing on my bottom lip, nibbling hard on it, trying to hurt myself because that was the only way I could fight this.
Fight him.
Above The Surface Page 13
