“Should I go too?” I asked.
Courtney looked at me with an unimpressed look and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
I took a deep breath and mentally counted to five before responding, knowing that getting annoyed with her would not get us anywhere.
“My student also isn’t here,” I said, gesturing at the empty pool around us. A couple of the lifeguards were still there, but they were sitting on the benches in the back corner of the room. Technically, they were supposed to remain standing and such at all times, but most of them took advantage of sitting when there were only instructors in the pool to take a break. We were all good swimmers and knew enough about lifeguarding to help each other out if anything went wrong.
“No,” Courtney said.
“Why not?” I asked through gritted teeth. Could she do that? Just let Leah leave and make me stay on a whim? I felt like she had to have a good reason to do that, but I couldn’t think of why she would be able to.
“Your class was supposed to be an hour,” she said.
“And?”
“Leah’s class was only forty-five minutes,” she said, looking at her watch again. It looked like some sort of smartwatch and I wondered whether it was waterproof. It seemed idiotic to wear a non-waterproof watch to a job at a pool, but I wouldn’t put it past her to purposely do that just so she would have a reason not to go in the water, or to get mad at us if we splashed water on her. She was petty like that. “For a class that’s forty-five minutes, the instructor can leave after fifteen minutes.”
“So then I can leave after twenty minutes for an hour-long class, right?” I asked.
“What?”
“A third of the class,” I said. She stared at me blankly. Goodness, if she couldn’t understand that, then she really didn’t have business being our supervisor. She’d do better as a student upstairs where Violet was working.
Courtney shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I need you to stay here for the full hour—I need at least one instructor in the pool in case the kids show up.”
That wasn’t how it worked and we both knew it, but I also knew she was just trying to irritate me. I was determined not to give her the satisfaction. I was happy enough to get paid to hang out alone in the pool for the next forty-five minutes. If Leah’s student showed up and Courtney tried to demand that I teach them, I would find Kelly and explain the situation, because I sure as heck was not going to take on that responsibility.
I shrugged and leaned back on the noodle again. “Fine,” I said loftily.
Courtney stared at me with her mouth agape, like she had been prepared for me to argue with her and now didn’t know what to do.
“Fine,” she replied, crossing her arms. She stared at me for another second before turning on her heel and storming off.
Once she was completely gone, I stood up again and chewed on my lip as I thought about what to do. I could go hang out with the lifeguards that were still on duty, but I couldn’t see who it was from here, and I was a little worried about getting caught up in a conversation that I wouldn’t be able to leave without a lot of awkwardness. Finally, I figured that if I was in the pool anyway, I might as well take advantage and swim a little. I didn’t have any goggles, so I opted to go on my back, my limbs moving in easy and lazy strokes. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the chlorine-scented air, taking strange pleasure in how my eyes started to water. There was somethingso euphoric about swimming—I always forgot how much I loved it until I came back to it after some time away. As I finished my third length—ending at the deep end of the pool—I noticed a figure standing by the diving block out of the corner of my eye. I jerked up instinctively, my heart pounding. Why would someone be standing ominously like that, watching me swim?
“What are you…” I trailed off as I realized it was Charlie smiling down at me.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t,” I said automatically, even though it was obvious that he had. “What are you doing?”
“Just my job,” he said. “Making sure you don’t drown and all that.”
I smiled and shook my head as I swam the last couple of feet to the wall. I rested my arms on it and smiled up at him. He crouched down so his head was almost at the same level as mine.
“I think I’ve got that pretty well down by now,” I said. “Seeing as I’m a swim instructor.”
“Well, you can never be too careful.”
My gaze drifted from his eyes down to his lips. “No,” I murmured. “I guess you can’t.”
I was thinking things that I definitely wasn’t supposed to be—thoughts related to the other night, to what we couldn’t do again. I needed some sort of distraction from this.
I held my hand out to him. “Help me get out.”
He grabbed my hand with both of his, completely surrounding it. Before he could stand fully or pull me up, though, I tugged forward, making him fall into the water alongside me.
I screamed and ducked backwards as the impact made a huge splash, completely soaking my head. I guess it was deserved, but I still didn’t appreciate it. Charlie broke through the surface, spitting out a stream of water.
