“Rugby shorts and a shirt of mine sound good to me. Come on, Chaos, when’s the last time you swam in the rain? Let’s get your mind off of everything tonight. Be spontaneous with me.” I decided against dropping a skinny-dipping comment because I wasn’t a complete nitwit. Only a couple of seconds passed before she shrugged and agreed. “Alright, let’s do it.”
Let’s do it, indeed, Audra King.
We changed our clothes, and I wore the suit that had her drooling last time while she rocked my rugby shorts and a little black tank top she had under her sweatshirt. Those rugby shorts. Damn. I knew she caught me looking at her, and it was her turn to smile a knowing smile. I just couldn’t keep my eyes off her; it didn’t matter what she was wearing.
“So, are we just going to run out?” she asked as she eyed the falling rain.
“No, don’t actually run. The ground could be slippery.”
“That’s very Batman of you,” she retorted.
“Well, running on wet stone is very chaotic of you,” I said back, and we both shared a laugh. “Ready?” I looked at Audra for confirmation.
All the hesitation about swimming was gone and replaced with anticipation and delight. I couldn’t help myself. When I opened the door, I grabbed her hand and led her outside. On the drive home, there had been sheets of rain, but that had subsided. Now it was a normal springrainfall, though admittedly, chilly on our skin as it hit us, though.
“It’s freezing, Donovan!” she yelped.
“Eyes on the prize, Audra!” I shouted back and kept moving to the pool that had billows of steam coming off of it. We stopped right in front of the deep end, and I still had her hand. She turned her body to mine and looked at me with her tongue resting on her lip. It looked like she was either deep in thought or wanted to kiss me. I let the breaths hang in the air to see what she would do, and I thought I was about to be rewarded when she leaned ever so slightly in. In a flash, she tried to yank her hand away, jump behind me, and shove me with all the strength she had. But I had her hand tight, so she heaved me with just one arm. The surprise managed to get me off balance, and I tumbled, but because she wasn’t quite able to pull her hand away, she came with me, screeching on the way down. We hit the water together and both emerged laughing.
“I can’t believe that after coming to get you tonight and offering you shelter, you’d do me dirty by pushing me in,” I joked.
“I’m just keeping you on your toes,” she giggled, but that set the flirty tone for our swim. We waded and floated through the water for a little. I grabbed us a couple of floats, but it didn’t exactly feel good to lie on top of one with the rain coming down. So we kind of hid our bodies except for our heads as we waded around. It very much reminded me of swimming in the rain as a kid. Stubborn enough to want to do it, even though it probably wasn’t the greatest idea.
“Want to race?” came a question from the shallow end.
“You want to race me? Like in a swimming race?” I asked skeptically. Audra didn’t know I competitively swam for over a decade and had found a great deal of success in it. My parentsand coaches pushed me to go for an Olympic bid, but I wasn’t willing to dedicate the time needed to achieve that. Not only did I not care enough about it, but it had the added bonus of not giving my parents what they wanted.
“No, a cannonball race. Yes, a swimming race, you fool, not sure what other race we could do right now,” she replied sarcastically.
I love when she called me out on my questions like that. She was right. What other swimming race could there be?“Do you know I used to swim competitively?” I asked.
“Color me surprised, Donovan. You’re even built like a swimmer.” She rolled her eyes. “Sheesh, what haven’t you done? Besides work on cars,” she laughed. “Actually, hold that thought. We can talk about what you haven’t done after I kick your ass at this.” She had to know she had no chance against me, but she still wanted to have a go.
Tracing her features as she laughed, I realized I was the most awestruck I had ever been by a person in my life. She was beaming, ready to compete, and had no concern for things like makeup or keeping any part dry. I’d never known a woman like Audra. Droplets clung to her skin, and the soft lights cast a stunning glow across her face, while her wild, wet hair created a striking paradox. She was the most beautiful chaos I’d ever seen. If I couldn’t stop staring, she would win.
“Ok, let’s do it.” I conceded.
“And don’t go easy on me,” she demanded.
“Remember, you asked for this,” I said as we arranged ourselves at one end of the pool.
“Ready, set, GO!” she shouted and took off.
I gave her a couple of seconds’ head start, but the joke was on me. This wasn’t just a little haha flirty race. She was freaking good. It certainly wasn’t the easy victory I thought it would be;it was work to catch her. I loved that she gave it an honest go and that she wasn’t far behind at all. I thought about Pentathlon Day and how much fun we were going to have.
“Oh, did I not mention I also swam? Whoops,” she shrugged, and her head tilted back as a sound of delight spilled out of her.
“Ok, Pentathlon. My turn. I challenge you to a game of pool HORSE. I swam over to the basketball that I had thrown in earlier and shot it from far away. Truth be told, I wasn’t the best shooter, so I was just as surprised when it went in. But did I play it off like it was no big deal? Absolutely.
“Ooooh, I’m in!” she retorted excitedly. “But that one doesn’t count because I hadn’t agreed yet.”
“OK, you shoot first, then.” I tossed her the ball, and she sunk her first shot from a spot I knew I wasn’t going to match. First letter went to me. After a while, the game was tied up, and my sides hurt from laughing so much. We were shamelessly flirting, sneaking touches, and shit-talking while attempting ridiculous trick shots and just simply enjoying each other. The time of night didn’t matter; I wanted this to continue as long as it could.
I was up for my shot, and both of us had H-O-R-S. “You can’t make this shot, Wright,” she heckled.
“Watch me, King.” But as I was doing that funny pool walk where you hop along as you go, she jumped on my back to get a piggyback ride. While I was hopping along with her on my back, I registered different parts of her body against mine. If that was her distraction tactic, it worked, because I missed my shot. When she went to take hers, I jumped on her back to return the favor.
“No way! Not Fair!” she exclaimed, as she cracked up and missed her shot as well.
