CHLORINE AND ALMOST LOVE
Chapter Two: Lane Four
Archie Sterling did not say a single word to me for the first ten minutes of practice, which I would have appreciated a great deal more if he hadn't spent every one of those minutes watching me swim with the particular, clinical attention of someone cataloguing every mistake for later use.
He's not even pretending not to stare. At least be subtle about judging me, Sterling.
That was Monday afternoon, my first real practice as a Lakeview Otter, and also, unfortunately, my first real practice as Archie's official problem to fix.
"Your kick's dying at the fifty," he said, finally, when I surfaced at the wall after my warmup set, water streaming off my face, lungs still working overtime. He said it the way you'd mention the weather, flat and unbothered, like my entire swim career hadn't just been reduced to a single unflattering data point.
"Good morning to you too."
"It's two in the afternoon."
"I'm aware, Archie. It was sarcasm."
Something flickered across his face, there and gone so fast I almost missed it, and for one brief, confusing second I thought it might have actually been the beginning of a smile before he smoothed it back into the same bored, assessing expression he'd been wearing since I met him.
"Your kick's dying at the fifty," he repeated, like I hadn't just tried, and failed, to lighten the mood even slightly. "You're burning it all in the first twenty five instead of pacing it out. That's why you're fading in the back half."
He's not wrong. That doesn't mean I have to enjoy hearing it from him.
"I know how to pace a race."
"Clearly," he said, deadpan, nodding toward the scoreboard where my split times sat, entirely unflattering, for the whole team to see.
I wanted, very badly, to say something cutting back, something that would wipe that infuriating almost-smirk clean off his face, but Coach Whitfield's whistle cut through the moment before I could come up with anything better than an offended splash in his general direction, which, in hindsight, would not have helped my case at all.
"Sterling, Parker, lane four," Coach Whitfield called, clipboard in hand, already moving down the pool deck toward the next pair. "Relay exchange drills. I want to see clean touches, not just fast splits."
Archie exhaled through his nose, the universal sound of someone deeply unenthused about his current life choices, and gestured toward the empty lane with a sort of resigned formality, like he was escorting me to a dungeon rather than a swim lane.
"After you," he said. "Try not to drown before your turn."
"After I what, exactly? Show you up?"
That, finally, got a real reaction out of him, a short, surprised huff of air that might have been the ghost of an actual laugh if he hadn't caught himself immediately and turned it into something more neutral. "We'll see," he said, and dove in before I could ask what, exactly, we were seeing.
Relay exchange drills, it turned out, required an uncomfortable amount of coordination between two people, timing your touch on the wall to the exact half second your partner needed to launch off the block without false starting, which meant an entire hour of Archie standing entirely too close behind me on the blocks, calling out corrections in that same low, unbothered voice, and me trying very hard not to think about how unfairly good he smelled for someone who had been in a chlorinated pool for the last hour.
Between sets, while the rest of the team rotated through their own lanes, I caught him watching the scoreboard again, not at my splits this time but at his own, a faint crease between his eyebrows that hadn't been there a moment before.
"You're doing it too, you know," I said, before I could stop myself.
"Doing what."
"Staring at the numbers like they personally insulted you."
Something in his jaw tightened, almost imperceptibly, and for a second I thought he might actually snap at me the way I half expected him to. Instead he just said, quietly, "My numbers are supposed to be better than everyone else's. That's kind of the whole job description."
Whose job description. Who decided that. That sounds exhausting, actually.
I didn't say any of that out loud, mostly because I got the distinct impression he hadn't meant to say it either, and the way his expression shut back down a second later, sliding back into that same bored composure, told me clearly enough that the subject was closed.
Focus, Veronica. This is a swim drill, not a rom-com meet-cute. He has been nothing but rude to you since the moment you met him.
"You're leaving too early," Archie said, for the fourth time, standing close enough behind me on the block that I could feel the words more than hear them over the pool noise. "You've got to trust the swimmer coming in. Watch the water, not the wall."
"I am watching the water."
"You flinched at my hand entry. That's not watching the water. That's watching me."
Okay, that's just unfair, because now I'm definitely watching you, which was not a problem until you pointed it out.
I didn't say that part out loud, obviously, choosing instead to glare at the lane line and insist, with far more confidence than I actually felt, that I absolutely had not flinched, which fooled exactly no one, least of all Archie, whose expression settled into something that was almost, infuriatingly, amused.
By the time practice wrapped, I had exactly one bruise on my hip from a poorly timed wall touch, a growing suspicion that Archie Sterling enjoyed being right slightly more than any reasonable human should, and absolutely no additional information about why my stomach kept doing that complicated, unwelcome thing every time he stood too close.
I found Lucy's texts waiting when I finally checked my phone in the locker room, a whole string of them sent in rapid, increasingly impatient succession.
hello? did the obnoxious training partner drown you? blink twice if you need rescuing
also I looked him up on the swim league page. Archie Sterling. he has a whole highlight reel. this is either very bad news or extremely good news for you, I cannot decide which
VERONICA
I'm alive, I typed back, sitting on the locker room bench in my towel, hair dripping onto the tile. He is exactly as annoying in person as advertised. Also apparently correct about my kick, which is somehow worse.
correct AND annoying is a very dangerous combination. proceed with caution
I was still smiling at my phone when Coach Whitfield's voice carried through the locker room door, calling the team back out to the pool deck for what she called, ominously, "a quick announcement," and I pulled my shirt on over my swimsuit and followed the herd of damp, complaining teenagers back outside.
"I have news," Coach Whitfield said, once the whole team had gathered, dripping and restless, around the shallow end. "Coach Delgado from State reached out this morning. He's putting together his recruitment list for next year's freshman class, and he wants to observe our relay development in a real training environment before he finalizes anything."
A ripple went through the team at that, low murmurs, a few excited glances toward the seniors who'd been angling for a scout's attention all season. I felt it too, a small, sharp spike of hope I hadn't fully let myself feel yet, the actual, physical possibility of what a scholarship offer could mean for my family sitting suddenly, uncomfortably close.
Don't get ahead of yourself. One scout mention is not a scholarship. Breathe.
"To make the most of his visit," Coach Whitfield continued, "I've booked us two weeks at Pine Lake for a summer training camp, starting a week from Monday. Full team, full coaching staff, parent chaperones on site the entire time. We'll be running structured practices twice daily, relay strategy sessions, and yes, Coach Delgado will be joining us for at least part of it to observe."
Two weeks. At a lake. With the entire team. Including Archie.
I glanced sideways without quite meaning to, and found Archie already looking distinctly unenthused about the whole announcement, arms crossed, jaw tight in a way that made me wonder, not for the first time that day, exactly what was going on behind that carefully bored expression of his.
A few lanes over, I heard someone murmur, not quietly enough, that Coach Delgado had apparently sat courtside at three of Archie's meets last season alone, which explained, at least partly, the particular flavor of tension currently radiating off him. Whatever this camp meant for the rest of us, it clearly meant something sharper, more personal, for him.
"Cabin assignments will go out by email," Coach Whitfield said, already gathering her clipboard, already moving on to logistics with the brisk efficiency of someone who had run a hundred of these camps before. "Boys in the east cabins, girls in the west, chaperones in the center cabin between you, and yes, before anyone asks, curfew will be strictly enforced. This is a training camp, not a vacation."
The team broke into scattered chatter as we filed back toward the locker rooms, half of it about swim strategy, the other half, judging by the whispers I caught drifting past me, about considerably less academic subjects involving lake sunsets and who was rooming with whom.
I fell into step, unintentionally, beside Archie, who hadn't said a word since the announcement, his expression unreadable in a way that felt different from his usual bored composure, something tighter underneath it that I couldn't quite name.
"You don't look thrilled," I said, mostly to fill the silence, mostly because some reckless part of me had apparently decided that poking at Archie Sterling's moods was now a recreational activity I enjoyed.
"I'm thrilled," he said, in a tone that suggested the exact opposite, and picked up his pace just enough to put a few extra feet between us, which felt, somehow, like the most honest thing he'd said to me all day.
Two weeks. Same lake, same team, same infuriating training partner, and apparently a college scout watching our every move.
I texted Lucy the second I got to my car, thumbs moving fast against the steering wheel.
update: we are all going to a lake for two weeks. obnoxious training partner included. a college scout will be there. I don't know which part of this sentence is more terrifying.
a LAKE. with HIM. Veronica this is officially a rom-com and I need updates every single day or I will drive there myself
I didn't have a good response to that, mostly because some small, traitorous part of me, watching Archie's car pull out of the parking lot ahead of mine, jaw still tight, shoulders still carrying whatever weight that announcement had put on them, was already wondering exactly the same thing.
I drove home with the windows down, the late afternoon air still smelling faintly of chlorine no matter how many times I'd rinsed off, and tried, without much success, to talk myself out of the small, stubborn curiosity that had lodged itself somewhere behind my ribs. Two weeks at a lake. Two weeks of relay drills and early mornings and Archie Sterling's low, unimpressed voice correcting my every stroke.
It's fine, I told myself, pulling into our new driveway, the porch light already on because Dad always left it on for me now, a small, steady habit from a man trying very hard to make a new house feel like home faster than either of us actually felt it. Two weeks. New town, new team, new annoying boy who happens to be devastatingly good at swimming. I can survive two weeks of anything.
I did not, if I'm being honest with myself, feel entirely convinced of that at all.