And I don’t know where to look. Do I look atit? Do I look away? Would it be weirder to look or not look? Do I keep my eyes on the lockers and pretend like I can’t see anything at all? But it’s not like I need to pretend to be straight. And it’s not like I’ve never, you know, felt Liam when we were making out, if we were close enough.
“Jackson?”
“Huh?” Either my hearing aids are feeding back or I just literally squeaked. I’ve got a full-body blush coming on.
“You all right?”
“Uh-huh.”
Except my eyes definitely dart down, and now I’ve officially seen all of Liam, and this might be the greatest day of my life, but also the last one, because I seem to have forgotten how to breathe.
Liam caught me looking too, and he blushes, bending over to pull his suit up quickly.
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking,” he said. “On the team we kind of get used to it.”
“It’s fine.”
“I didn’t mean to somethingsomething.”
“What?”
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
“I can leave you while you get changed.”
I swallow. I want to stuff myself into a locker and never emerge. But for some reason I say, “It’s okay.”
And then I pull my shirt over my head, and try to breathe and get my blushing under control, even though I can feel Liam’s eyes on me as I pull off my pants and underwear, pull up the swim trunks and do the drawstring. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Liam adjusting himself before tying his own drawstring, a sight that’s burned into my brain.
Finally I breathe and look at him again. He’s blushing hard too, red cutting sharp lines across his cheekbones. His eyes are wide, and he’s smiling like he might honestly find me beautiful.
I feel like an octopus standing next to a shark: me in my baggy black trunks, short and soft; Liam in his team suit, lithe and dangerous and beautiful. But he keeps looking. And smiling. And blushing.
“Ready,” I finally say when I can’t take the tension anymore.
I stick my hearing aid case in my backpack, and Liam stuffs everything into the locker before leading me out the back door, past the little leisure pool—shallow, with slides and water cannons—and through the doors to the competition pool.
I’ve been in the stands countless times, but I’ve never set foot on the deck itself. The concrete is rough and scratchy and cold, but the air is warm and humid. No one is in the pool: Apparently swimming’s not that popular on a Saturday afternoon in February. Liam sets a pair of towels on a low bleacher, steps up next to one of the starting blocks, and dives in smoothly.
When he surfaces, he pushes the hair off his face and gestures for me to join him.
I don’t dive: Instead I sit on the edge, dangle my legs in.
“It’s cold!”
Liam bobs in the middle of the lane, smiling at me. I never want him to stop smiling at me like that.
So I get in. Cold water rushes up the legs of my swimsuit, up my back, over my head. I bob up and shake the water off my face.
Liam comes up next to me as I grab the ledge. “Okay?” he signs.
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Let’s practice floating first.” He fingerspellsfloating,so I show him the proper sign.
“Stop stalling. Come on.”
