A backup plan.
Backup plans were for people who had the luxury of quitting.
Swimming had never been a hobby for me. It was the only thing I’d ever built my life around. The only thing that had ever felt like a way out.
“I’ll figure it out.” I slung my swim bag over my shoulder before she could pity me any harder.
“Ledger—”
“I’ve got it,” I repeated, sharper than I meant. I didn’t wait for her to answer.
I stepped outside into the cooling Florida evening. Early spring here wasn’t chilly, not really, but compared to the humid chlorine-fogged air inside, the breeze felt sharp. I pulled on a hoodie, the fabric sticking to my still-damp back. My knee-length swim jammer continued to drip water down my legs, but I didn’t care.
The sun had already dipped behind the palm trees lining the walkway. The sky was streaked pink and orange, pretty in the kind of way I was too stressed to appreciate.
Most of the swimmers I passed were students, but a handful of us postgrads trained here year-round, trying to claw our way into the national circuit. Some evenings, it felt like we were invisible, just random people in thewater, but the stakes were higher now, heavier in a way college had never prepared me for. The pool didn’t care about age, degree, or money.
I tried to stop thinking about it once I left the water and started toward home, the sidewalk warm beneath my slides, tried not to think about the numbers I’d be crunching later—rent, utilities, groceries, training expenses, travel. Every dollar I didn’t have translated into fewer hours in the water, fewer meets I could afford to travel to, fewer chances to prove I deserved to be here at all.
Trying not to think about how all of it was suddenly a threat.
Halfway down the back path behind the kinesiology building, I saw her.
Of course I did.
Roxie Montgomery.
Wearing leggings and a cropped tank top that screamed “expensive,” even though she’d probably call it practical. The fabric fit like it had been engineered specifically to be distracting, outlining toned legs and a waist I absolutely did not need to notice right now.
Her curly blonde hair was in a ponytail, and she was power walking like she did every evening at this exact time—head high, purposefully ignoring that it was exercise.
She noticed me the same moment I noticed her.
Her steps slowed. Her eyes narrowed.
Perfect.
“Well.” She tugged out an earbud. A curl slippedloose from her ponytail, brushing her cheek, and for a split second my brain stalled on the way the late sun caught the gold in her hair. “If it isn’t Mr. Competitive.”
I exhaled through my nose. I did not have the mental capacity for this. Not today. Probably not ever.
“Don’t start,” I warned.
She let out a short laugh. “Who said I started anything? You always assume I’m picking a fight.”
“Because you usually are.”
“Like you’re one to talk,” she shot back. “Maybe I just don’t like being talked down to.”
“I wasn’t—” I stopped, jaw tight. “Forget it.”
“You’re dripping everywhere.” She looked me up and down. Which would’ve been less irritating if my own gaze hadn’t already betrayed me by flicking—briefly, stupidly—over the line of her collarbone and the confident set of her shoulders. “Did you walk out of the pool without drying off? Again?”
“I had a towel.”
“Did it not make the trip with you this time?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Roxie. Move.”
