Hold My Breath(95)

His counterpart steps in with a few more questions, picking up on a few things my dad answered earlier—about the impending closure of the Shore Club, and how this week was its last hoorah. The local papers care more about this angle, so I give them the heartfelt answers they deserve—words I mean.

“No place will ever feel the same,” I say, glancing over and catching my dad’s sad smile.

I start to worry that I waited too long—that my opportunity was slipping by as the Tribune reporter hands away the mic—when the public’s insatiable appetite for gossip and romance comes to the rescue.

The reporter, the same one who finished with Will, stands tall, waving her hand in desperation for the microphone. I don’t recognize her, but I can tell she’s with one of the entertainment outlets—the sports reporters all have a different look about them, less…polished. She stands, brushing a wave of blonde hair over her shoulder as her eyes lower toward me and her smile creeps up. She’s probably expecting me to evade romance rumors, too—which she’ll simply turn into juicy gossip that won’t have anything to do with how we swim tomorrow. I’m about to do her one better.

“Hi, Maddy. Sheila Vargas, Z-TV,” she says. I give her a closed-mouth smile, raising my brow, welcoming it. She looks giddy. “Will told me I should ask you about the rumors that you two seem to be forming a…special bond, so let me just put it out there—are you and Will Hollister…dating?”

I look down to my hands, folded near the mic, and I start to tilt my head because as ready as I am, the blush still hits me hard. I wait for my cheeks to feel it, for the smile to be unstoppable, and then the wave of attention passes enough that I can talk without messing this up.

“We train so hard, Sheila. Hours in the water, and the hours out of the water are all spent on mentally preparing yourself for something that for most of us lasts less than a minute—that might last eighteen seconds,” I say, that last part for Will and my dad. I don’t even have to look to know they’re both smiling. “When I first started competing, it was Will Hollister pushing me to be my best.”

I glance over my shoulder to find his eyes waiting, his head tilted slightly, his uncle sitting next to him for support.

“I love him something fierce, Sheila,” I smile, turning back to face the reporter, her eyes glowing with the gem of a story I just gave her. I hold her gaze on mine for a few seconds, and she lowers the mic, satisfied and probably already mentally putting together the six-o’clock package I just wrapped up with a bow. I’m about to sprinkle it with glitter. “We’re in this together, and if Will doesn’t swim for Team USA, neither do I.”

I step back when I finish, my eyes glancing down at my hands as my fingers drum once on the wooden surface. I can’t avoid Will’s gaze as I walk back to the seat, but I avoid my father. I went off script for that, and neither of them are going to like it. It means Will’s just going to have to win. It just so happens, though, that I have an incredible amount of faith in him.





Will




I’m starting to think Maddy’s aim may have been to incite fear in my bones, to make me feel the death threat of her father at my heels in the pool. The moment she made that public comment yesterday, I felt Curtis’s eyes on me in a way I never have. He hasn’t said it, but I know the threat is real—if I f*ck this up for his daughter, I can kiss my balls goodbye.

There’s a part of me that knows Maddy wasn’t serious. If something happens, and I am on the bubble—the guy they choose, or don’t choose, for alternate—I don’t really believe that Maddy would turn her back on her dreams in protest. But then there’s that other part of me that knows that Maddy doesn’t lie—not to my face. She looked me in the eyes when she walked away from that microphone, conviction in the sway of her hips and smug confidence in her grin. She told me the rest was up to me.

I’ll give her this, I haven’t thought about Evan, or Dylan and Tanya, until right now, and only because I can see my nephew on the screen for the camera. They’re panning to my family.

My family. Only two of them are related to me by blood, yet they all have this piece of me.

“You ready, son?” Curtis says, his hands fists that knead at my shoulders.

Son.

My head falls, my eyes look at my feet, water on the ground tracked in from the race before me. It all comes down to this—to eighteen seconds.

I tilt my head and look at him sideways as Curtis moves to stand next to me.

“Explode, right?”

He nods, reaching his fist forward to pound against mine.

“You got this,” he says, just like his daughter. I wait with the other sprinters. I won my heat, but my time wasn’t the best. I’m in lane two. But lanes aren’t going to make the difference for me today. I could be swimming in a separate pool from everyone all together, alone…in the dark, and it wouldn’t change what I need to do to get myself to the games.

I know I’m supposed to clear out my thoughts of anything but his words, but my head is full. It’s crowded in there—responsibilities running into memories—the past tangling with the present, guilt melting into pride, a dash of anger thrown on top for good measure. I doubt my mind will ever be quiet again, but I’ll learn to use it. I better learn fast.