AllFreeNovel
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I blinked. “Hit you?”
Wes laughed, and I turned toward the sound. I guess he was right. Win was like the sun, and I turned toward anything that seemed bright like him. “It’s an expression,” he explained.
“Yeah.” Jamie agreed. “Teach me a cuss word in your language.”
I blinked. “You want to know a cuss word in Swedish?”
“Bro, yeah, we do!” Jamie was enthusiastic.
“You say bro a lot,” I observed.
Jamie nodded solemnly. “It’s gender neutral.”
Ryan made a sound and smiled. “You’ll get used to it.” Then, “So yeah, teach us a curse word in Swedish. We can yell it at Coach, and he won’t know what it means.”
“Until he looks it up,” I pointed out.
“Well, it will be fun until then,” Jamie quipped.
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. It was the first real laugh I’d had in I didn’t know how long. “Skit,” I told them. “It means shit.”
Jamie rejected it right away. “Bro, that sounds too close. Coach will know.”
I laughed under my breath. “Fan,” I offered. “That means damn.”
Jamie snapped. “I like it.”
“So you guys just meet up in the afternoons and swim extra?” I asked, glancing at the pool. As usual, the water called to me, the muffled quiet of being submerged in its depth.
Ryan nodded. “Yeah, you’re welcome to join anytime. But no pressure. We usually weight train together too.”
“I’d like that. I used to want to swim more than once a day, but my old coach was a stickler about resting.”
Ryan nodded. “You looked good in the lane today. Your time is good too.”
“Bro, you outswam Kruger, and he’s our top backstroke swimmer.”
A fissure of worry slid through me with Jamie’s words. The last thing I wanted to do was make enemies on my first day. It was on the tip of my tongue to apologize, but I bit back the words. I shouldn’t apologize for doing what I was supposed to do. I shouldn’t have to worry about being punished for making someone else feel weak.
I shifted, not quite knowing what to say, when a door banged across the room.
“You out here talking shit, Owens?” Kruger hollered. Right behind him was another swimmer. Prism, I thought.
Without any thought, I took a small step toward Wes, glancing at him for his reaction.
Wes glanced at me and smiled, no traces of anxiety anywhere on his face. I relaxed a little.
“Kruger talks more shit than Jamie.”
Kruger pointed at Wes. “I heard that!”
“Well, I wasn’t whispering,” Wes shot back.
“No one’s talking shit,” Ryan said. “We were just telling Lars he looked good this morning.” He glanced at me. “Or is it Eriksson?”
“Lars is good,” I answered, then glanced at Kruger. He’d been nice this morning, swimming laps with me, offering me encouragement.
He smiled, his different-colored eyes crinkling at the edges. “Gonna keep me on my toes this semester!” Stepping close, he slapped me on the back. “Don’t get too comfortable, though. I’m gonna swim hard.”
