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“Of us.” I swallowed, worrying I sounded crazy. I didn’t know how to express what I was feeling.
“You don’t need to be frightened.” He wrapped his arms around me again, nestling my head against his shoulder, stroking my hair. “Nothing’s going to happen that you don’t want. I know I’m intense. I can dial it back.”
“It’s not really your intensity that’s freaking me out. It’s mine. And I’m feeling really confused and exhausted.” Where was all this honesty coming from? I confessed thoughts to him I hadn’t even fully formed.
“You need to get some sleep.” He kissed my forehead, reluctantly pulling away.
“Don’t go,” I found myself saying, grabbing on to his hand.
He nodded. “I’ll stay if you want.”
I didn’t know what exactly I was proposing, but I knew I wanted to be with him. He reached over to flip out the light, then drew back the covers. That’s the kind of moves you had with giant Olympic swimmer arms like his. It made me smile and together we climbed in, finding each other in the darkness, clothes still on, melting into each other’s body.
“Let me hold you tonight, Emma,” he whispered, kissing my hair, pressing my cheek to his chest. I could hear his heartbeat as we lay together, so steady and strong. “I want to make you feel good. Let’s just sleep tonight.”
I could barely believe it, given how horny the man had made me in the closet, at the pool, but against his solid warmth in bed, with his large hands caressing my back, sure and slow, I felt sleep ease its way into my limbs. My eyelids grew heavy, my thoughts fuzzy, my awareness narrowing to sensory impressions. His heartbeat. The rise and fall of his chest. His smell, a unique masculine musk I knew already on instinct. Plus a hint of chlorine, which until now I’d never found sexy. Who knew pool chemicals could combine into something so delicious, so sensual, so dreamy…
The next thing I knew, he was giving me a good-bye kiss the next morning. Standing already at the side of the bed, he leaned down to my cheek. “Thank you, Emma.” And he was out the door.
§
The flight home wasn’t bad, just three and a half hours. My parents were waiting for me, full of questions. They were so excited. We were such huge fans of the Olympics and now I was getting a chance to be part of it all. I wished they had the money to come join and watch in person, but a trip to Rio plus a hotel during the highest-demand window the city had ever experienced? Not going to happen.
“I know you’ve been busy,” Mom explained, “So I’ve been saving these for you. Look who’s on the cover!” She handed me a couple of magazines in the back seat of the car as we drove back from the airport. Look who, indeed. Chase Carter gazed at me from the cover of People magazine and Men’s Health. On Sports Illustrated, though, he had to share the space with a couple of his teammates. I bet they would have sold more copies if they’d just featured him.
With those ice blue eyes and his steely, locked gaze, you could feel the determination radiating from his set jaw. The man was going to win gold, and he would do it over and over again. The world was waiting.
Was that really the same man who’d held me in his arms all last night as I slept? I must have been dreaming.
“What’s he like?” Mom asked. “Is he hard to work with?”
“Make him treat you right,” my father advised from the driver’s seat. It was as if he already knew he had to give me that kind of relationship advice.
I tried to answer their questions as best as I could, but my mother knew me well enough to ease up. “She’s tired,” she told my father, patting his arm. “Let’s not pester her.”
“We’ll give her some dinner first,” he agreed.
I felt like I hadn’t slept in a week. I didn’t even make it back to my apartment after dinner. I just crawled down the hallway like a little kid and fell into my old bed. My room now shared space with a treadmill, but Mom still kept my twin bed set up for the odd night I might want to sleep over.
With Tori out of town already in Rio, there was no one in my apartment to chat with so I ended up spending the whole weekend. I didn’t need more time in my head. I needed regular life and my parents offered that up in spades. Trips to the post office, hardware and grocery stores, making fresh summer salads, fixing loose doorknobs, they ran a tight ship and I enjoyed getting pulled into their organized, efficient bustle.
I didn’t stop by The Center for Sports Medicine, even though I would have liked to say hello to some of my co-worker friends. There was too much risk I’d get pulled into working with a client. Other members of the group practice had happily taken over all of my patients during my month-long absence, but if I walked in and someone had called in sick or needed a break I’d for sure get called into line of duty. I didn’t mind helping out my parents, but I needed my weekend off.
I kept my father company while he tinkered with a bike in our garage. And when I said bike, I didn’t mean motorcycle. To me, my dad was super cool, but even I knew he wasn’t motorcycle cool. Once the bike was oiled and ready, I hopped right on and headed out into the late afternoon Florida sunshine. As a local, I didn’t go out in the middle of the day to bake myself slathered in oil. What I loved were the late afternoons, crowds subsided, lazy sunshine and last fading rays. Give me a book and a beach chair and I was in my happy place.
When I got to the beach, my phone blipped with a text. It was a photo of a beach. From Chase. I almost looked around, half wondering if he were there. I texted him back.
Emma: Where are you?
Chase: Naugatuck. My dad’s house. How’s Vero?
The best way to reply? A photo, of course. I locked my bike and walked out past the dunes onto the white sandy beach. I’d lived there all my life, but the coastline never ceased to amaze. The crashing waves and cries of gulls, the scampering clusters of sandpipers and white puffy clouds against endless blue, it welcomed me home like nothing else. I snapped a pic, which of course didn’t do it justice. Photos never did. Someday I’d have to learn to paint. Maybe in my retirement I’d head out every day with an easel and devote myself to trying to capture even a fraction of the beauty of the ocean.
I sent Chase my version of coastline.
Chase: I thought I sensed you nearby.
The man really knew how to make me smile.
Emma: Have you ever been to Vero?
Chase: No, Palm Beach though.
Palm Beach meant money, money, money. About an hour and a half down the Atlantic coast of Florida, Palm Beach boasted a jet-setting society crowd and expensive boutiques on every corner. Vero had some of that, but a lot more mid-range, family-friendly restaurants and shops. I’d heard of Naugatuck, too. It was an exclusive island off the coast of Massachusetts, the type of place you’d vacation after the IPO and sale of your dot com.
Chase must come from money. Another piece in the Chase Carter puzzle. I’d lost track of whether I was putting it together with my blogger hat on, or whether it was just me, Emma Nelson, interested single woman.
Chase: What have you been up to?
Emma: Catching up on reading the latest issue of People magazine.
I couldn’t help it. I
had to tease him. The man was the featured cover model on practically every major national publication. It was too weird not to mention.
Chase: Do you have a poster of me up on your bedroom wall?
I burst out laughing. I didn’t know why, but Chase’s humor always surprised me. It was probably his intensity, the burning heat in those blue eyes. He didn’t look like he had a great sense of humor. But it turned out he knew exactly what to say to crack me up.
Emma: I was thinking I’d make a collage. There’s plenty of photos of you to make a big one.
Chase: That is so creepy.
I pressed send on the “blow a kiss” emoji before I’d thought it through. It was an instinct. Tori and I communicated in large part via emojis and GIFs. She was the best at finding hilarious ones that I could re-use. But now I’d sent Chase a big kiss.
Chase: Wish it were in person.
I put my phone back in my pocket. Two more days before I’d see him again. The next facility was only a state away in Georgia. Then we’d head directly to Rio.
I biked over to a friend’s apartment to hang out. Another friend came over and we made enchiladas for dinner and watched a silly Zac Efron movie. Really, I’d watch anything with him in it as long as he removed his shirt. Thankfully, directors seemed to understand I was not alone in my thinking and that was exactly how he rolled for most of the movie.
Back at my parent’s house at midnight, they were already asleep so I headed to my room. I felt guilty about it, but I was kind of glad to avoid any late-night heart-to-heart talks with my mom. She was so good at the laser-like questions, piercing right to the heart of the matter. And I knew what she’d say about my current situation. She’d like Chase all right, hard-working, clean-living and, at least from what I’d seen so far, really good to me. But she’d tell me to wait. Now wasn’t the right time to start anything. I was there in a professional capacity, hired as his physical therapist. He was about to compete in front of the eyes of the world, going for gold on an international stage.
