by Morgan Kyle
I walked in and took a seat about two-thirds of the way down. Miranda was two rows farther down, sitting with a girl named Gwen—her version of Izzy.
The room smelled of coffee and donuts, a nice departure from the usual stench of chlorine that I associated with the swim team. People sat slumped in chairs, not yet used to waking up so early, eyes puffy, voices groggy, girls with their hair pulled up into ponytails or buns, guys with their hair messy or partially hidden by baseball caps.
I said hi to a few people I hadn’t seen since May. One of the girls who had been at the party the other night asked what had happened, and why I just disappeared from the frat party. I said I had started to not feel well and had to leave. Small talk followed. Lots of it, for the few minutes until Coach Malone entered.
He was in his late forties, a former swimmer himself, but now starting to show a little bit of a gut and, when he took his hat off, hair that was thinning more and more each year.
He started by welcoming everyone back, and then making a few jokes about how out of shape we all looked, and said we’d start correcting that later in the afternoon with our first practice.
I was looking forward to it. I hadn’t done any serious swimming all summer. No maintenance workouts, nothing. I knew I’d get in the water and struggle at first, but from years past, I knew I wouldn’t be the only one who needed to shake off the rust and get back into shape.
Two assistant coaches stood in the first row when Coach Malone called their names. This was done more for the benefit of the incoming freshmen in the room, a sort of re-introduction.
“And, as you all know, Coach Anson left last year.” I had liked Coach Anson. She was tough, but also fun, especially on trips to away meets. “I’d like to introduce you to her replacement, a guy we’re lucky to have on board. He comes to us from Virginia, where he swam at UVA…”
This is when the blood rushed out of my head and I had to take a deep breath. Cole had told me the other night that he was from Virginia, specifically mentioning UVA. As Coach Malone finished his introduction, I sat up straighter in my chair and my eyes scanned the room, concentrating on the first row, down near the other assistant coaches, but all I could see was the backs of heads.
Coach Malone was finishing his intro (“…Coach Cole Dempsey”) and I saw Cole rise up out of the chair, turn around, smile, giving a little wave.
Cole—Cole Dempsey…Coach Dempsey—stood before the team, down there on the floor, telling us all a little more about himself. His eyes moved from the left side of the room to the right, but never settling in the center where I was, almost like he was doing it on purpose, avoiding looking at me, but how did he know I was in the center, all the way up here? Finally, as he wrapped up his short intro, his eyes moved to my direction, settling on me, and even though he was all the way down there, it was as though our eyes were just inches apart, like the other night.
My stomach tightened, heat rushed up my back to my neck, and I felt myself swallow hard.
My head turned quickly to the left when I heard one of the girls, under her breath but loud enough for everyone around her to hear: “He’s fucking hot.”
You have no idea, I thought.
I hadn’t heard a word Cole said. Did he mention how long ago he’d been at UVA? How old he was? Shit. All the blood had rushed to my head, but apparently my ears had shut down. My eyes hadn’t, though, and I saw that he was even hotter than I remembered. Six one? Maybe almost six two? Broad shoulders, which I did remember.
I squirmed in my seat for a few moments as Coach Malone introduced the incoming freshmen members of the team, and then said a few words about our schedule, followed by his usual pep talk that he always gave on the first day, and then said he’d see us all at 3:30 in the pool.
*****
I didn’t have to be at my first class until 10, so I waited outside the aquatic center for Cole, feeling a bit like a stalker but more like a girl who wanted to know why he left so abruptly the other night.
By now, I knew what it was. My shorts. The cotton workout ones, blue, with white “UNC SWIMMING” on them. He had seen that, figured out that I was on the swim team and decided to leave rather than tell me who he was and why he had come to Chapel Hill.
It was obvious now, and I spent about two seconds chastising myself for not putting it together the other night, but then quickly stopped because who the hell could have guessed that he was my new coach?
I had been waiting outside the front of the building, sitting on a concrete bench down the sidewalk, in a stand of full oak trees. When Cole came out, he didn’t look around nervously, wasn’t expecting to see me, and he didn’t, until I called out, “Coach Dempsey.”
It was a good twenty minutes after the meeting, so all the swimmers had left, and now the sidewalk was teeming with students on their way to first day classes. No one was paying attention to me, or him, us.
He walked toward me and stopped without sitting, so I stood. And smiled. And waited for him to say something.
“I’m sorry.” He shook his head a little.
“For what? That kind of thing happens to me all the time. I bring guys home, mess around a little—”
“Brooke,” he said, cutting me off, “I said I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted. It was the shorts, right?”
He let out a heavy sigh. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Just say, I’m your new swim coach, that’s how. “Well, I remember asking you what your new job was and then it got loud in the club and I didn’t ask again, so…”
“Yeah,” he said, “I remember.” Admitting to withholding information. Interesting.
“I thought you were a student,” I said. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Only seven years separated us. That wasn’t bad. Not that I would’ve cared if he had said thirty or thirty-five.
“What year are you?” he asked.
“Freshman,” I lied. “I turn eighteen in about a month.”
His eyes widened and he tilted his head a little.
I continued toying with him. “I was using a fake ID the other night. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
He stared at me.
“Relax,” I said, “I’m twenty-one and I’m a senior.”
Those blue-gray eyes of his glinted in the rising sunlight, and made it nearly impossible for me to give him a hard time about all of this. But I tried.
I whispered. “The truth is, I like being used.”
He rolled his eyes. “I didn’t use you.”
I pretended to think about it for a few seconds, adding to the dramatics by placing my forefinger on my chin. “Come to think of it, you’re right. I used you.”
He was holding back a laugh. “Fine with me.”
“Is it?”
His eyes darted around, like he’d just realized someone might see us and wonder why the new assistant coach was talking to a student/swimmer. “Look, I felt awful about leaving the other night, but you’re the only thing I’ve thought about since. I couldn’t wait for this morning.” He lowered his voice, as if it mattered with all the noise around us, cars going down the street, groups of people walking and talking, not paying us a bit of attention, and why should they? “I don’t want that to be a one-night thing, but I also don’t want this to fuck you up.”
“Fuck me up? Why would this fuck me up?” I felt a little resentment just then, like he was assuming the adult role and I was some kind of child who didn’t know what she was getting herself into. “Maybe it’ll fuck you up.”
“Maybe it will,” he said, and for a second I thought I had planted enough of a seed of doubt that he’d change his mind, reverse his craving—that’s what it was, craving, right?—for me that he had felt for the last couple of days. “And maybe it will be worth it.”
It was my turn to look around, but I wasn’t doing it because I was worried about being seen talking to him. I was doing it because I was considering what to say next, just
how much I should reveal to him right at this moment.
I was, for the first time in my life, feeling a little power. Not that I would use it to harm him or control him, but I was feeling like I could do what I wanted, I had something right in front of me that I wanted, and so why not?
“I think you should finish what you started,” I said.
“It’s dangerous,” he added. “This could get complicated.”
I looked at his lips, longing to feel them on mine again, wishing I could feel them all over my body. His hair was short, but not so short that it couldn’t be messed up, and I wanted to mess it up.
“Only if we make it complicated,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“I’m sure we’ll be able to control that.” He smirked, adding to the sarcastic tone of his voice.
“This is going to be fun,” I said, picking up my bag and taking a step away. “I have to get to my first class, Coach.”
I turned to walk away but looked back over my shoulder. He was still standing there, watching me walk, running a hand through his hair, shaking his head, smiling.
I had surprised myself with my own brazenness. I didn’t know where it came from, but there it was. Would I have done this with any random hot guy I met? Probably not. But with Cole, there was something pulling me toward him, and it went back to the discovery that we both shared a cynicism for people and relationships. Part of me felt safe knowing that about him, that he wouldn’t get attached, that nothing serious would come of this. Serious was the last thing I wanted at this point. I wanted fun.
He was right—this was going to be dangerous and complicated. Only if we weren’t careful, I thought, and then immediately started thinking about how different this felt, the new Brooke not letting the old Brooke’s doubts and reservations control her actions, limiting her experiences.
In typical fashion, maybe just because it’s how I was or maybe it was all the psychological training, I was over-thinking this and I needed to stop.
So we were going to do this, after all.
I didn’t have to justify this to anyone, including myself. I could handle it.
I wasn’t like my irresponsible, embarrassing mother.
No, I wasn’t like her. At all.
Chapter Four
Cole didn’t even acknowledge me that afternoon¸ during our first practice of the year. No eye contact, not even a glance out of the corner of his eye. He was working with the freshmen on the other side of the pool, so maybe it was a good thing we weren’t physically close to each other.
Practice the next morning was much the same.
I went to Franklin Street around noon and grabbed a quick lunch with Eric, who told me he had read up a little on Lacrosse, and that it bored the hell out of him, and what if he fell asleep while calling a game? “Oh,” he added, “I’d been calling it a match, not a game, so I didn’t even know that.”
I laughed. If this was his biggest worry, he was going to sail through senior year just fine.
Afternoon practice. Once again, Cole strode around the pool deck like I didn’t exist.
Same at practice the next morning and afternoon.
By this time, I was starting to wonder what was up with him. Not only wouldn’t he look at me at practice, he had so far made no effort to follow through on what we had talked about. Had he changed his mind? Had he decided not to even tell me?
I had my first Abnormal Psych class the next morning and couldn’t help thinking about how abnormal it was that Cole would be so distant, not even attempt to get something going, and then I thought maybe it was all me, maybe it was my behavior that was abnormal. Why let this guy occupy so much of my mind when it was apparent that he wasn’t even thinking about me?
By the end of afternoon practice the following day, I’d had enough of wondering, enough of being curious about what might be going on in Cole’s head. During both practices that day, I had driven myself nearly crazy trying to swim and catch glimpses of him when my head came up to take a breath. At one point, we’d been doing breaststroke, Cole blowing his whistle each time my head came up out of the water. There were dozens of us doing this, our heads couldn’t have been coming up at same time, all in sync, and so I knew he was blowing that whistle and keeping time with my rhythm. Or was I just losing it?
He’d been given an office, the smallest one in the aquatic center. Not surprising for the newest assistant coach, but that didn’t stop me from teasing him about it when I surprised him after practice.
I had taken my time in the locker room, waiting around for most of the girls to leave. I didn’t worry about the guys. They were much faster. What I did have to be careful about was whether Coach Malone and the other assistants were still around. I couldn’t be sure, and so I took my chance anyway, because Cole’s office was not only small, it was tucked at the end of the hallway, around a corner. Like it was an afterthought to put it there. Like it was actually a closet converted into an office.
Which is exactly what I said when I walked in and closed the door behind me.
“Very original,” he said.
I locked the door behind me, that little sound, the snick of the lock, making me feel like I had him all alone and cornered now. “What’s original? The joke about your office size, or me showing up here?”
“Both.” He leaned back in his chair.
I sat on the corner of his desk and looked at him. I could see, under the harsh overhead light, the bleached-yellow strands of his hair, the mark of someone who had spent a lot of time in the pool. I wanted to touch his hair. I wanted to feel that stubble on his chin against my face, and the contrast of his soft lips.
“So what’s up with ignoring me?” I said, my eyes widening as I tried to suppress a smile. I couldn’t help it.
He shrugged nonchalantly. “I’m not ignoring you. You have my full attention.”
I looked away, to the blank wall, then back at him. “You know what I mean.”
“I wanted to see who chased who first.”
I stood, quickly, turning toward him. “Are you serious?”
He just looked at me, but the little smirk had dropped off his face.
“Look,” I said, “if you’re trying to play hard to get, that’s not really going to work with me.”
“You’re here, aren’t you? You came to my little office, didn’t you?”
I didn’t say anything, just watched as he stood and walked around his desk, behind me. I tried to turn but he held me in place by putting his hands on my shoulders. He stood behind me, closely, his hands running down my bare arms to my hands, trapping them beneath his, flat on the desk.
I felt the warmth of his breath on my neck. I tilted my head to one side, opening up for him as he lightly sucked my skin into his mouth.
His hand circled around my waist, underneath the front of my shirt, and up to my right breast. He gave it a light squeeze, his thumb grazing across the bump in the bra created by my hardening nipple.
He said, “The more I think about this, the more dangerous it seems, and I just want you more.”
I didn’t say anything, I wanted him to keep talking, tell me what he wanted.
“What do you want, Brooke?”
Great.
Might as well tell him the truth, especially since I knew he wasn’t after anything serious, either.
“I want to have fun,” I said. “That’s it.”
“With me?” A taunt in his tone.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he said. “I want you to be my sure thing.”
Yes, yes, I’ll be your sure thing, whatever that means exactly, but right now I don’t care.
I tilted my head back, involuntarily, and Cole spun me around, picking me up and placing me on the edge of his desk. His legs wedged between my knees, parting my legs.
“This is bad,” he said, his voice barely audible. Almost just breaths.
“No, no, this is good.” I reached behind his head and pulled his face to mine.
&n
bsp; “Good bad. That’s what I meant.”
Our lips met, both of us inhaling hard. His tongue slipped into my mouth, and he pulled me closer to him.
I was wearing the workout shorts—the ones that had caused him to leave the other night—and he was wearing similar ones. Cotton, soft and thin, just two layers of it separating us. I felt his hardness against me, and he moved his hips a little, teasing me more.
I’d felt it the other night, but just with my hand. Now I was feeling it close, so damn close to where I really wanted to feel it.
I reached up and ran both hands through his hair. Soft. Just long enough to clench in my fists.
He was moving against me, his breath picking up as he kissed me harder. I closed my eyes, then felt his finger under my chin, much like he’d done the other night when he first kissed me, but this time his thumb traced my lower lip as his lips pulled away from mine.
I opened my eyes again to find his gaze trained on my mouth as his thumb circled my lips. Then stopped, right against my closed mouth. I knew what he was thinking, what he was visualizing, and I considered for a brief second dropping down off the desk and to my knees to give him what he wanted.
But damn, the way he was rocking against me. I didn’t want that to stop. I opened my mouth, taking the tip of his thumb between my lips, feeling it touch my front teeth.
His eyes raised, meeting my stare.
“You think I was ignoring you,” he said, his voice rough and low. “I wasn’t. I watched you as much as I could.”
He lowered his hand, both of them now on my thighs.
“I watched you moving through the water, watched you walking around the pool deck in your swimsuit, imagining you without it.”
All along, I thought he hadn’t even glanced at me, and here he was revealing that he’d probably looked at me more than I’d looked at him during the practices.
