Page 45 of Coming Home

I wanted to press him. My analytical brain wanted to demand answers, to untangle the mystery of what a peak-condition professional athlete was doing outside a chronic care clinic. But my body felt heavy, beautifully warm, and his arms were wrapped around my waist like an iron seal.

I was fast asleep before the thought could ever find an answer.

CHAPTER 16

Emma

"His flip turn at the four hundred looked like a sea lion having an existential crisis."

Coach Vance let out a sharp, choked sound behind her clipboard. Down in lane four, Ralph surfaced with a dramatic explosion of water, shaking his wet hair back, and looked up at me on the deck with the expression of a deeply wronged golden retriever.

"I can literally hear you, Emma."

"That was the goal." I clicked the stopwatch, balancing the notepad on my knee as I scrawled his split time. "I have a perfect bird's-eye view of your sloppy transitions from up here. It's public service, really."

"His form is the cleanest I've seen in a while. A few days ago it was sloppy. But the champ I know is back," Vance murmured, not looking up from her charts. She stood at the far end of the lane, her silver hair tucked firmly under a faded visor, watching Ralph without blinking, clocking every flaw in his stroke a half-second before he made it.

"Coach Vance is being nostalgic," I shot back, leaning forward just enough to catch the scent of chlorine and his specific, warm skin. "That last underwater pull was lazy. Half a second slow, at least."

"Point-three seconds," Vance corrected automatically.

"But she's right, Brandt. You're dragging your feet."

Ralph braced his massive, wet hands on the tile edge, looking up at the two of us. "Since when did you two form an alliance against me?"

"Management aligns when assets slack," I said, offering a tight, sweet smile.

This had become our quiet, sacred little ritual. Every morning, he swam until his lungs burned. Every morning, I sat on the damp concrete deck with my stopwatch, my messy notepad, and a thermos of peppermint tea. I called out his splits, bickered with Vance over his stroke mechanics, and fiercely pretended that sitting twelve feet from the water instead of forty wasn't a massive, terrifying deal.

But it was. Four weeks ago, just the humid, chemical breath of the natatorium made my chest lock up. Now? I could sit with my toes close enough to catch the mist off his kick, and my heart didn't panic. It just hummed.

I hadn't gone in yet. But I was hovering on the perimeter of my own life. Every single day, a little closer.

Ralph pushed off the wall for his final set. I watched him go, his shoulders cutting through the blue, each stroke a perfect, rhythmic loop. The sound of his swimming had become the background noise of my thoughts—the heavy splash, the deep, hollow pull—and I'd stopped trying to lie to myself about what watching him did to me. It shook me. It made me feel alive in places I'd spent three years trying to turn to stone.

He finished his last lap, catching the gutter with a heavy splash, his chest heaving as he looked up at me through wet lashes. That infuriating grin was already taking over his face.

"Fifty-two point four," I announced before he could even blink.

"Tell me that's a new best for the week."

"By a pathetic tenth of a second."

"A tenth of a second is a lifetime in this pool, Em." He folded his forearms over the gutter, resting his chin on his hands, looking up at me with those dark, bottomless eyes. "Where's my reward?"

"You're thirty, Ralph, not a toddler who successfully used the potty."

"I'm a highly sensitive professional athlete who thrives exclusively on positive reinforcement."

"You got your gift yesterday. I let you control the aux cord in the SUV."

"That's a basic human right, not a gift."

"I also refrained from pointing out how much your hips drop during your butterfly, which took an agonizing amount of spiritual restraint."

"I want a real prize," he said, his voice dropping, slipping under the ambient roar of the facility's filters. "Something tangible."

"What do you want, a gold star? A certificate of participation?"