Hold My Breath(85)

For two hours, my father bends Will’s body in the pool, analyzing every single position, from the place where his hand enters the water, to where the beads leave his toe from every kick. He never asks him to swim fast. He’s resting him—forcing him to think beyond brute force and power. He’s building strategy and fine-tuning the machine.

He’s leaving limbo behind and swimming in the light.

And neither of them are going to lose. I feel it in my gut.

The noon sun blazing down on them, my father finally forces Will from the pool. I meet them both by the main deck near the door.

“I can just leave your things inside, by the kitchen, if you want to run upstairs and shower off. You might still have some spare clothes up there,” I say.

My dad takes his things from my hands and balls them up in his dry shirt.

“Maddy, if I do have clothes up there, I can guarantee you they don’t fit anymore,” he chuckles. I smile with him.

My father’s body isn’t what it was when I was a kid. Time has made his belly thicker and his shoulders less prominent. But the swimmer is still there. I saw him in the pool today.

“I love watching you work,” I say.

My father sorts through his things in his shirt, finding his keys and glancing up at me. His mouth draws into a tight smile as he shakes his head.

“I missed it,” he says.

“Missed what?” I ask.

“Believing in something,” he answers fast.

I stare into his eyes, and they’re clouded with uncertainty, but for the first time in weeks they look happy.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do about the club,” he says, taking a sharp breath through his nose and drawing his shoulders up high. I feel Will step inside behind me, and my father’s gaze leaves mine briefly. “Every day. That. We do exactly that after every workout. If you feel like putting in more, you call me—I’ll come. I don’t want those arms hitting the water a single time without my eyes on them. You’re going to be damned near perfect, but the only way I can be sure of that is if I know what’s behind every stroke.”

“Yes, sir,” Will says, stepping close and holding his palm out for my dad to take. My dad grips it, watching how they shake, and stopping their movement with his other hand on Will’s. He lifts his chin and the two men look at one another as reflections of past and present.

My dad pats Will’s arm twice with his palm before letting go of their grip completely and making his way to the door. He pauses just before pulling it open, turning with his eyes down before flitting them up to meet mine, one side of his bottom lip caught in his teeth, a poor attempt at masking a look of amusement.

“You two better get used to racing like that, too. Now that I know that point three is out there, Maddy…I’m gonna want more,” he says, chuckling as he spins and lets the door close behind him.

“Have I mentioned how much it sucks to be Coach’s daughter?” I say, my eyes squinted and my stare still on the place where my father was. I feel Will lean into me and kiss the top of my head.

“Just about every day since the moment I met you,” he says, his hand sliding down my arm and gripping the tips of my fingers, urging me to follow him up the stairs. “Let me shower and buy you lunch. Since you don’t have a cent to your name and all.”

I blink a few times then look up at him as he walks up the stairs backward. I start to giggle, a little hysterically, and Will’s brow pulls in as he draws me close to walk alongside him.

“I wasn’t kidding about any of that, just so you know. I really am broke now,” I say, my eyes still wide, the reality of my life at twenty-two, not a cent to my name, truly hitting me.

Will stops at his room door, tipping my chin up with his finger until our eyes meet.

“I’m paying you back for the ticket, Maddy. I insist,” he says.

I open my mouth to protest, but close it quickly, twisting my head slightly to the side while I wince.

“I am going to let you,” I laugh out nervously.

Will’s mouth pinches in, trying to keep his smile at bay, but it breaks through. His lips curve up and he leans in, pressing them against mine, and I don’t know what kind of kiss I love more—ones like this, where I can feel him smile against me, or the kind where he’s lost in me, whiskers rubbing me raw.

I trail behind Will as he pushes the door open, and the smile on both of our faces comes slamming to a halt. Tanya is sitting on the sofa, Duncan holding her hand in both of his. I already know why she’s here, and I know in just a few minutes, Will is going to, too. The time Tanya thought she had left has shrunk considerably, and Will is going to have to carry weight through the water once again.





Will




“Where’s Dylan?”

There is so much wrong with the scene that I walked into the moment Maddy and I stepped through that door. Dylan being missing is only a fraction of it, but I know that part has an answer. I think I’m going to need to tackle the easy things first with this one.

“His therapist is at the house. She offered to stay. I trust her,” Tanya says.

I nod, blinking away from her red eyes. My hand instinctively covers my face, my fingertips scratching lightly along my saturated skin. I smell of chlorine, and my skin is pruned. My legs twitch from exhaustion, but I’m too afraid to move forward and sit on the sofa next to her. I know what she’s going to say, and I just feel like if I can stand here on the cusp of my world falling apart for a little while that maybe it will pass by me, and for once, I won’t have to deal with the hurt that comes with bad news.