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When the need for air was essential, I broke the surface to fill my lungs.
Oxygen wasn’t the only thing I found, though. I had an audience.
Twelve bodies lined the edge of the pool, all of them with their feet submerged in the water. Twelve sets of eyes stared at me as I blinked behind the goggles, almost as if I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Reaching up, I shifted them onto my head, the strap pulling my wet hair. I’d been so anxious to swim earlier that I hadn’t even bothered with a swim cap.
Even though my eyes were dry, I swiped at them with damp fingers before looking back at Elite. “What are you guys doing here?”
“You always show up for us,” Wes said, and everyone else bobbed their head.
“But I’m just swimming,” I said, unsure what else to say.
“About that. Your form in those last two laps sucked,” Rush announced.
Landry gasped and smacked him in the back of his head. “Jay! That was so rude.”
Rush glanced at his girlfriend. “You’re the assistant coach. You saying you thought his form was good?”
“I’m not here to judge him,” she announced.
I didn’t know why, but those words made my stomach drop. Instantly, my stare flew to Kruger, panic twisting my insides and making the temperature of the water seem that much icier.
Feeling my panic, he shook his head decisively, then redirected my thoughts by throwing out his arms. “All movers on deck! We about to be kings of our own castle!”
“It’s a townhouse,” Max pointed out. “That you rented.”
“I’m beginning to question my choice of neighbors,” Kruger retorted.
Win flashed his dimples. “Are you kidding? We are gonna be the best neighbors ever!”
Jess groaned and leaned around Kruger to look toward Rory, Madison, and Landry. “I hope you girls come hang out often. Otherwise, I’ll be outnumbered.”
Oh shit, how could I have forgotten? We’d literally been planning on moving out of our dorm room and into the townhouse beside Max, Wes, Win, and Lars for weeks now.
As soon as Kruger and Jess made things official, as in he finally went after what he wanted, he rented a townhouse for the three of us. She had her own dorm room but stayed in ours a lot, and it just wasn’t a big enough space for three people. The second Kruger heard the place next to our bros was up for rent, he snapped it up.
And now it was moving day. Something I’d been conscious of and, yeah, anxious about for a while now.
So how the hell could it have just slipped my mind?
Because you’re too busy freaking out over Arsen.
Quietly, Lars said, “I think he forgot.”
“I’m not doing extra because he wore his ass out swimming all those laps,” Max grumped.
I forced myself out of my own head. “I didn’t forget,” I said, gliding through the water toward them. “I just didn’t realize what day it was.”
Jamie nodded emphatically. “Trying to adjust to life on the outside.”
I snorted. “It was one night in a holding cell.”
Jamie leaned his upper body over the water toward me. “You have to share a cot with Arsen?”
I sucked in a breath so forcefully that water rushed up my nose. I recoiled and hacked, the burning sensation taking over everything else.
Slapping a hand on the edge, I used the other to squeeze my nose.
“Jamie Michael Owens, what kind of question is that?” Madison declared, pulling her feet from the water to stand up on deck.
