“That makes me nervous.”
“Yeah, well…” He sighed deeply. “She came by my place this morning insisting that I give her a ride to work and stuff. I tried to say no, but she kept moving in the way, so I couldn’t leave unless I brought her with me or, I don’t know, ran her over. For the whole car ride, she put her hands on my arms and tried to kiss me at red lights and stuff.”
I grimaced. Why was she so insistent on regaining Charlie’s affections? It was a little pathetic to watch, actually. I wasn’t sure how long they had dated before this, but it wasn’t long enough to warrant her feeling like she should win him back—especially when he was with me. Well, not with me so much as fooling around with me for the summer while keeping it a secret from everyone. I guess if I were being fair, I couldn’t be mad that she didn’t know because we hadn’t told anyone, but I didn’t care. I didn’t like her being around him.
“Eventually, I had to tell her to quit it,” Charlie continued, “because it was annoying me and distracting me from driving. But she just kept insisting that she knew I liked it and how she knew that I wanted to get back together. I turned her down... and now here we are.”
I didn’t want to seem weird and jealous over him—though, next to Courtney I was sure I looked great in every respect—so I tried to go for a joke instead. I shook my head and tsked. “Couldn’t have taken one for the team? Come on, Charlie.”
He laughed. “You try spending a full day with her and then tell me that would have been worth it.”
We spread out to the opposite side of the pool again and each grabbed the end of the lane rope.
“Let’s do the farthest one first,” Charlie called. I nodded and held up a thumbs up. Doing it in that order was really the only one that made sense since doing it any other way would mean having to actually lift the rope instead of just dragging it across the surface of the water.
“Wait,” I said, pausing before we actually got it in the water. “We are the worst people to do this!”
“Why?”
“Uh, because you have like twice my muscle mass,” I said. “When you try to pull it, you’re going to pull me straight into the pool!”
“Oh, come on,” Charlie said. “I will not.”
“I’m sure you won’t mean to, but you definitely will!” I said. “And I know I’m teaching swimming today, but I’m not looking to belly flop into the pool before my first class even gets here.”
“I promise I’ll save you if you fall in!”
“Do you really think that’s what I’m worried about?”
“Madison, just put the stupid lane ropes in!” Courtney yelled. Ironically, she was just sitting on the bleachers. Although she had a clipboard on her lap and was probably pretending to do some sort of work whenever Kelly looked at her, I could easily tell that she was actually just scrolling through something on her phone. I could respect trying to get out of work as much as possible, but not while yelling at other people to do work themselves.
“Just let one of the other guys do it,” I said. I spotted Thomas coming out of the storage room, arms full of flutter boards and noodles. “Hey, Thomas! Switch with me!”
He nodded and dropped the stuff he was carrying by the supply room door. That would be easy for me to do—I just had to lay stuff out by every section of the pool where a class would be going on.
“No!” Courtney snapped. “Thomas, go back to what you were doing! And Madison, I want to see you do your job right now! Understand?”
“I’m not falling face-first into the water just because you refused to let Thomas do his job,” I said. I crossed my arms and stepped back. “If you’re so certain it’s fine, do it yourself.”
“Is there a problem here?” Kelly asked, stepping out of the manager’s office.
“I’m just trying to get Madison to do the work she is being paid to do,” Courtney said, pointing a finger at me like a toddler tattling on their sibling.
“I’m worried that Charlie will pull me into the pool if I put the lane ropes in with him,” I explained.
Kelly frowned. “So get somebody else to do it.”
“I tried,” I said. “But Courtney refused to let me and Thomas switch jobs, even though it makes no difference to anyone else.”
“All right,” Kelly said. Courtney smiled at me triumphantly. “Courtney, you do it then.”
The smile dropped right off Courtney’s face so quickly that I found it funny.
“What?” she snapped.
“If you don’t want Thomas to help Charlie, then you do it,” Kelly said calmly. “Unless there’s some reason you can’t?”
“I—Well—” Courtney’s face turned bright red as she tried to think of an excuse. She couldn’t say that she was worried Charlie was too strong for her since she’d already decided that wasn’t enough of a reason for me, and I’d wager there weren’t any other good excuses she could use either. “I’m in the middle of some paperwork.”
