by Layla Reyne
Beauty Bas wanted to touch. Desire blazed to life again, warring with his good intentions, twin flames racing through his veins. He’d wrecked beauty like this before, and not in the good way. He couldn’t—wouldn’t—do the same to Jacob. That was the very opposite of looking out for him.
He released Jacob’s arm just as Sean thundered up the stairs. “Show’s over,” the distance swimmer called from the front. “You can come out now.”
“On our way.” Bas handed Jacob his passport and nudged him forward. “Was just keeping the pup safe from the vultures.”
Jacob trotted ahead, descending the steps behind Sean. “Time to get some stamps,” he said, voice chipper. But as they crossed the parking lot, Bas watched Jacob slip his hand back into the pocket with the dog tags.
Worry hidden, but still present.
Bas had gotten another page of the pup’s story. He wasn’t sure he liked it.
Bitte and Entschuldigung—two German words Jacob learned on day one in Vienna. Since arriving yesterday, he’d lost count of how many times he’d heard the former. The Viennese used the German word for please like American college kids used, well, like. Far more useful was Entschuldigung—excuse me—the magic word for shoving his way out of the packed U-Bahn before the highly efficient, timed-to-the-second subway sped off.
Outside of the subway car, Burggasse Station was likewise swarming with morning commuters. Crowd size bigger than he was used to, German voices so very different from his everyday mix of English and Spanish, Jacob was more than a little disoriented. After a restless day and night thanks to jet lag, he admittedly wasn’t in the best shape for an off-book excursion. He probably should have waited on his teammates, or at least dragged Sean, who’d studied abroad here, with him. But that’d defeat the purpose of getting a few extra minutes of peace before training chaos resumed.
By the time he got his wits about him, he’d been ferried by the crowd up the stairs to the street-level concourse. Rather than exiting across the black-and-white-tiled foyer, he shouldered his bag and climbed another level to the exhibit hall. As soon as he set foot inside, he felt at home again. Here, in the quiet showroom full of old cars and motorcycles, he could practically smell the oil and grease, the same scents his dad brought home from the garage every day. Peace settling over him, Jacob looked his fill and snapped pictures to send home. Arranged like they were racing on a track, an impressive collection of Harleys led a pack of trailing motorcycles from all over the world. Inside the racing oval, there were a dozen or so more bikes on display, including several vintage US Army panheads and a couple of military transports. He was neck-deep in an old Volkswagen truck when a familiar voice called out “Pup” behind him.
He turned, grinning wide, and Bas smiled back. “I see you’ve found your favorite place in Vienna.”
“My dad’s a mechanic,” Jacob explained. “Uncle owns the shop. I grew up around cars there, whenever Dad was home between tours.”
“Home away from home, then.” Bas held out a travel mug to him. “Now it’s time for our other home, in the pool,” he said, directing them toward the exit. At the top of the stairs he paused, asking, “You take plenty of pictures?”
“Tons.” Jacob took a sip from the mug and nearly spit out the bitter liquid, scowling. “Is this shit rocket fuel?”
“Don’t knock the Turkish coffee. You’ll thank me later.” Bas threw a wink over his shoulder, then started down the steps. “I load up on it whenever I travel to Europe for meets or whatnot. Jet lag cure-all. Alex would mainline it if he could.”
Reminded again of his inexperience, Jacob’s smile faltered. He didn’t have long to dwell on it though, as Bas brought up a more urgent, equally unpleasant, topic.
“Got a text from Nat.” Natalie Harris was the women’s team captain and a former USC teammate of Alex and Bas. “Reporters outside the pool.”
“Shit. They on about Alex and Dane?”
“They’re asking about you, Pup.”
Jacob gulped. “Me?”
“You and the rest of the new talent—Mike, Terrence, the other rooks. But we’re not ready to reveal all our cards yet.”
Jacob was beginning to think they were taking this secret-weapon thing too far. He understood the strategy—protect him and the other noobs, and also maintain a competitive advantage—but the pressure of living up to the hype they were building was mounting steadily. As was the guilt at needing “extra handling.” The vets had enough on their plates already.
“I can handle it,” Jacob said, not entirely convinced but bolstered by another giant gulp of rocket fuel.
Bas shook his head. “You, Dane, and the other rooks are going to break off a block early. One of Nat’s squad will meet you at the facility’s back entrance.”
Before Jacob could object, they reached the bottom of the steps and the rest of the team. Bas walked ahead to join Alex and Sean, while Dane drew alongside Jacob. “You trying to show us up, beating us here early?”
Stymied, for now, Jacob turned his attention to Dane. “Wanted to check out the transportation museum.” He pointed upstairs.
“Good stuff?”
“Yeah, lots of classic cars and bikes. You want to see pictures?”
“Heck yeah!”
He flipped through the pictures with Dane as the team walked up the street to the gleaming glass-and-metal aquatic complex ahead. Before arriving in the Olympic host city, many US teams practiced in other cities nearby—a final training push and a chance to get acclimated after travel. They could have trained closer to Madrid, in Barcelona with some of the other US teams, but USA Swimming had selected Vienna, Austria, for the competition-level Stadthallenbad aquatic complex.
And for the distance from the media swarming Spain.
Not that the media weren’t out in force here too. A block from the pool, they could see the press gathered out front, just as Natalie had warned. Per the plan, the newbies, himself and Dane included, broke off and snuck in the back entrance. Once the heavy doors swung closed, the thick soup of chlorinated air wrapped around them like a safety blanket, the relief immense.
The same relief showed on the rest of their teammates’ faces as they all met up outside the locker room to ditch their bags before the facility tour. Jacob tried hard not to look like an awestruck kid, and he was holding it together well. Until they entered the main event area. His jaw hit the deck as he struggled to take in the sheer enormity of the place. Industrial in design, it was a marvel of metal, glass, and water. Huge in area, a vaulted metal ceiling, buttressed by red metal struts, stretched the length of an eight-track pool. A long wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, plus elevated windows above the opposite-facing spectator stands, cast the cavernous space in bright morning light. And at either end of the pool, diving blocks, pacing clocks, and digital leaderboards fed swimmers and coaches all the info they could possibly need.
At the deep end, closest to where they’d entered, the divers were inspecting the multilevel platforms and springboards, while at the far end, the women’s team mingled.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Sean said.
Jacob silently nodded, still grasping for words.
“Was a bitch of a reconstruction project,” Sean carried on, as they made their way to the other end of the pool. “Only got to swim here for a summer before they shut it down. Was still closed when I moved on to Munich.” Sean was getting a PhD in German studies from Emory. As part of his program, he’d studied here, Munich, and Berlin for two of the four years between this and the last Olympics.
“Well, hello, boys,” Nat greeted. “Finally decided to show, huh?” Pulling her dyed-red curls into a bun, she flexed her toned brown arms, and Jacob was fairly certain they could squash him.
Alex, at the front of their group, held out his hand and went through a secret-society-level handshake with Nat. “You did get the closer dorms.”
“Coaches must’ve thought you need the extra exercise,” she joked.
“Oh, is that it?�
�� Bas shouldered through and wrapped Nat in a bear hug, lifting her off her feet. “I think you just wanted the single rooms.”
“Lies, all lies.” She laughed and blew a raspberry on his cheek.
Jacob couldn’t help but wonder if there was more than friendship between them, either in the past or present. Casually affectionate with each other and both still living in LA, Nat and Bas would make sense, their interests and locations aligning. Jacob’s stomach did a funny flip, and he looked away, absently rubbing a hand over his tattoo.
“You ever seen anything like this place?” came a voice on his other side.
The rolling Baltimore accent gave away the speaker before Jacob even turned his head. Leah Franklin, the bubbly, twenty-one-year-old breaststroke champ from Maryland, was the women’s team’s social butterfly. So why the hell was the cute brunette talking to a dork like him? He ran a hand over his head, wondering if Josh had been right. Was a haircut and tattoo all it took to make him cool? No fucking way. Except Leah was looking up at him with an inviting smile and interested hazel eyes, waiting for an answer.
While he imitated a goldfish, opening and closing his mouth in startled surprise. Words, Josh coached in his head. Words would be good. He cleared his throat, forcing them out. “UT’s natatorium is big, other complexes too, but this is huge, and everything here is so bright and shiny and—”
“Clean.” She read his mind. “Like the airport and subways too.”
“Yes! And our dorms at the academy are like five-star-hotel clean.” Not that he’d ever been in one, but the graduate academy where they were lodging was the furthest thing from a school dorm Jacob had ever seen.
“I know, right?” Leah said. “The place we’re staying at is the same!”
From there, they devolved into a bitch-fest about their UT and UMD dorms, until the coaches called everyone over to the bleachers. Rather than diverting down Nat’s row, Leah followed him up a few rows, sitting close enough for their shoulders to brush. Climbing the stairs past them, Bas shot him an odd look—brow furrowed over narrowed eyes and his lips pressed together like he was holding in words. Jacob had never seen that expression on Bas’s face before. He wanted to turn and get a better read on it, but Coach Hartl was banging the bottom bleacher for their attention.
“Welcome to the name of the place I can’t pronounce,” Hartl said.
“Stadthallenbad,” Sean pronounced, his German perfect.
“Yeah, that,” Coach muttered, talking over the laughing crowd. “All right, all right, let’s focus now. It’s just us here for the next five days. We’ll alternate shifts between the three pools—women, men, and divers. Schedules are on the white boards in the locker rooms, and Alex will email ’em to you as well. Pool is open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. There’s open swim time built into the schedule, but don’t overdo it. And leave time for dry-land workouts back at the dorms. They’ve both got gyms.”
“Morning runs start tomorrow,” Sean called out. “Nat, meet us at Karlsplatz? Ass crack of dawn?”
“You got it,” she replied with a wink. “Happy to smoke your ass any day.”
“Good, that’s settled,” Coach said. “Any other questions?”
“I wanna hear you say the name of this place,” Bas shouted, drawing another round of laughter.
Coach did not look amused, his black eyes glittering. “Shut it, Stewart, and take your crew to Pool Three. Divers start up here today.”
“Ladies,” Coach Albert, the women’s team head said, “we’re in Pool Two today.” She blew her whistle, the sound echoing in the big open space.
Leah bumped her shoulder against Jacob’s. “Can’t say I’ve missed that sound the past couple days.”
Jacob agreed, though he was more than game for what it signaled. After two days of travel and nothing but a run last night, he was ready to get back in the water. So was everyone else, judging by how fast his teammates jumped to it. Exiting into the aisle, Jacob started to step down but a colorful arm wrapped around his shoulders and hauled him back.
“Ladies first, Pup,” Bas said, right next to his ear.
Grinning, Leah exited the row and offered a playful curtsey. “Thank you, gentlemen.” Her gaze strayed briefly to Bas, before landing back on Jacob, eyes still sparkling with interest. For him, not Bas. How was that possible? Could she not see how gorgeous the man behind him was?
The man whose hold tightened and whose warm, hard chest pressed flush against his back. “Time to work,” Bas said, voice rumbling against Jacob’s spine.
“You guys have a good swim,” Leah said, her parting wave matching her flirty smile.
She was just out of earshot when, from somewhere behind Jacob, Dane observed, “If y’all are done flirting now . . .”
Jacob gulped, his lurching Adam’s apple running into Bas’s forearm. Did Dane mean Jacob and Leah, or Jacob and Bas? Had Bas told Dane, or Alex, about what happened at the tattoo parlor? About falling asleep together the other night?
Ahoy, Davy Jones! Walking the plank of mortification . . .
“With the ladies,” Dane added, and Jacob covered his weak-kneed stumble out of Bas’s loosening hold with a pirate quip about bonny lasses, since his brain had already gone there anyway.
They laughed the rest of the way into the locker room, until Dane hit the brakes in front of the whiteboard, and Jacob careened into his back.
“This is what you were doing last night?” Dane said to Alex.
Their captain’s sharp, slanted handwriting was unmistakable.
“And you put medley relay in the pool first? Man, some boyfriend you are.” Dane poked out his bottom lip, mischief dancing in his blue-gray eyes.
Three weeks ago, those same eyes had been cold and angry. Three weeks ago, Alex would not have responded by swatting Dane’s ass, with a teasing, “Buck up, gringo.”
They retrieved their bags from the pretour pile, then joined Sean and Mike in the first row of lockers, while Jacob settled across the aisle from them in the row with Bas and Kevin.
“Was that your dad you were on Skype with last night?” Bas asked. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m the one who’s sorry.”
Bas had come in after a run, sped through a shower, and ducked back out before Jacob could flag him down. He’d only needed a few more minutes. He should have apologized last night or this morning—he didn’t want Bas thinking he couldn’t come and go to their shared room—but there’d been a million other things on Jacob’s mind.
Bas sat on the bench, digging his cap and goggles out of his bag. “No worries. Took a walk, then hung out in the academy lounge.”
“More X-Files?” The team obsession had started in San Antonio, a nightly wind down with Mulder and Scully.
“Two seasons left.”
Jacob settled next to him, clawing through his own bag for the rest of his gear. “Hate to break it to you, but your time would be better spent on Black Sails at this point. Last two seasons of The X-Files suck donkey balls.”
Bas gasped, hand to his chest and face drawn in exaggerated betrayal. “You’ve watched it already?” Jacob shrugged, smiling, and Bas’s gasp turned into an answering grin. “Of course you have, dork.”
No use denying it. Jacob laughed, liking that the guys on his team were cool with his uncoolness. The girls too, it seemed. So fucking bizarre. Josh was never going to believe him.
“He doing okay? Your dad?” Bas asked, putting the skids on Jacob’s amusement. “You were worried about him when we left Texas.”
“Yeah, he’s good.” Jacob stood, zipped his bag, and shoved it into a locker. Or tried to at least, the bulky bag and narrow space foiling his efforts at deflection. Reaching an arm in, Bas helped squeeze the bag into the locker, and Jacob slammed the metal door closed. “That’s fucking teamwork,” Jacob singsonged.
Chuckling, Bas leaned a shoulder against the adjacent locker and dipped his head, catching Jacob’s eyes. “I’m glad he’s good, but if he’s
ever not”—his voice and face turned serious—“I’m here, if you need to talk. We’re all here, Pup.”
Kevin crossed behind them, on the other side of the bench, and held out a closed fist for a bump. “We’ve got your back, Pup, especially when things get wild in Madrid.” Kevin’s dark waggling eyebrows and gleeful expression were frightening in a Jack Torrance from The Shining sort of way.
Jacob glanced between his teammates. “Why does that not comfort me?”
Bas’s knowing smirk was not exactly comforting either, even if his words were beautiful. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.”
Three days of hard practice and Bas was impressed with what he saw in the pool. Medley relay was back to full speed with Alex in the lineup again, and the individual medley swimmers had also bounced back after losing Ryan. Terrence, now their lead IM swimmer and also Jacob’s breaststroke backup, was within a couple hundredths of Ryan’s personal best, and their third IM swimmer, Hunter, Bas’s fly backup, was only a few tenths behind him. Both men’s and women’s teams had rallied behind them, cheering whenever they were in the pool, frustrating Coach as he tried to track the swimmers with his stopwatch, no matter the giant clocks at either end.
Midway up the bleachers, Bas had a better view than all of them, which Alex had recognized too, frequently ditching the pool-side ruckus and joining him with a notebook. Today, though, the captain’s hands were free as he shuffled down the row toward Bas.
“Any new designs you love?”
Alex was used to him sketching at all hours, including during practice, the waterproof graphics tablet making it even easier to draw on deck than it used to be. His sketches usually made it onto his, a teammate’s, or a client’s skin, or onto his LA shop’s walls. The drawings in this folder, however, were for Bas’s eyes only. Tablet angled so Alex couldn’t see the screen, Bas saved and closed the drawing, sliding it into the folder labeled DPR.
