Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2)(7)

Molly turned and assessed my profile. “A lot like you, actually.”

I let the drape fall back across the window.

“Yeah, well, I’m amazed he’s able to get women back here at all.”

“Have you seen him?”

I shrugged. “Yeah yeah he looks all right, but that personality ruined it for me.”

Molly moved back and sat on the bottom bunk. “Did you not have the best first impression of him? He’s always been really nice to me.”

I scoffed.

“He’s really not so bad. Just wait and see.”

I didn’t believe her.





After Molly helped me get unpacked and settled into our room, she took me on a tour of the property. From the gravel drive, Erik’s home had seemed unassuming, but the more we explored, the more I fell in love. The property consisted of his main house, our guesthouse, and a small gym housed in an old airplane hangar a few yards to the right. The property was surrounded by forest on three sides and everything was overgrown and lush, green and inviting.

The property lacked a certain order, especially in the yard between the main house and guesthouse. It looked like it still held the remnants of a house party: lawn chairs clumped into random groups, a forgotten beach ball, a grill that looked like it’d seen better days.

“Is that a hot tub?” I asked Molly.

She smiled wide. “Yeah. We’ll have to try it out before we head to Rio.”

“Absolutely.”

After she’d shown me the lay of the land, we headed back to the guesthouse so I could finish the tour. I hadn’t taken the time to look around at the first floor my first time through. The living room had an old, worn-in couch and a few mismatched lamps. The kitchen was even worse: it was tiny, nothing more than a microwave and a refrigerator.

“How are we supposed to cook in here?” I asked, pulling open a drawer. Cheap plastic cutlery rattled around inside.

Molly pulled open the refrigerator and waved her arm in front of it like Vanna White. Inside, there were mountains of healthy prepared meals, prepackaged and ready to consume. It looked like for the next few weeks I’d get my fill of chicken and sweet potatoes. Joy.

“But where’s the oven?” I asked, spinning in a circle.

“Oven?” she asked, letting the refrigerator door fall closed.

I nodded. “I like to bake.”

She laughed. “Well, unless you can work with a hot plate, I think you’re shit out of luck.”

A screen door slammed in the distance and I glanced out the kitchen window in time to watch Erik walk down the steps of his back porch. The sun cut across his features, making him stand out against the green backdrop even more. His black hair and black shirt seemed out of place there, as if he didn’t belong in such a pleasant place. He was heading toward the hangar to work out, a water bottle clutched in his right hand. The scowl I’d seen an hour earlier was still there, furrowing his dark brows and flattening his smile into a straight line. He looked lost in thought, maybe still thinking about the girl who’d just left.

I tilted my head in his direction. “Does he have an oven?”

Molly’s eyes widened. “I’m sure, but I think he prefers his privacy. It’s been made pretty clear that we aren’t allowed to go into the main house.”

He hadn’t told me that rule. He’d barely uttered a word to me at all.

“I guess you need your privacy if you’ve got the Tinder Train rolling in every night.”

Molly laughed just as a throat cleared behind us. I spun around to find June standing at the bottom of the stairs, eyeing us with disdain. She must have arrived while we were out exploring the property. Her lips were tugged into a thin line and her brown eyes were narrowed; she looked just as bitchy as the last time I’d seen her. Her pin-straight black hair was tugged into a severe bun on the top of her head and her arms were crossed tightly across her chest.

“I don’t really think it’s appropriate to discuss Coach Winter’s love life.”

I shrugged. “If he brings women back here for us to see, it’s sort of fair game in my opinion.”

She tsked as she strolled into the kitchen and pulled an apple off the counter. “I just don’t think it’s befitting of members of Team USA to gossip like schoolgirls.”

June was seriously hard to figure out. In the few times we’d been around each other at competitions, she’d seemed like a stuck-up * (for lack of a better word) and so far, she wasn’t going out of her way to change my opinion of her.

“I just wonder how he befitting so many dates into his schedule this close to competition,” Molly joked, trying to break up the awkwardness between June and me.

I wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel though. I didn’t want to live with a girl I hated for an entire month; we’d drive each other insane. I shifted angles to try to get her out of her shell a little bit, to show her I wasn’t the enemy.

“Did you have a good flight?”

She nodded.

“Where did you fly in from again?”

“Montana.”

I made out like that sounded interesting. “Do you like it there?”

“No.”

“Have you trained with Erik before?”

“Coach Winter,” she corrected.