Saturday morning, Liam texts me.
What are you doing today?
Before movie night?
Nothing much
Why
?
There's public swim today.
You said I could teach you!
I did say that.
I'll drive us to the movie after?
Okay
After lunch, Amy drops me off at the Natatorium, two shmoodies clutched in my hands.
“Have fun. Don’t drown. Tell Bowie I say hi.”
“Okay.” I might have said implied that it was Bowie giving me a lesson.
Liam’s waiting for me, practically bouncing on his heels by the registration desk. He grins when he spots me.
“Hey. I already paid, so you’re good to go.”
“You sure?” I pull out my wallet, but he stops me.
“Don’t try to taarof me. I know your secrets now.”
I snort. That’s not how taarof works, but whatever.
Liam leads me toward the locker room. I haven’t been in one since first-year PE, which was definitely the stuff of nightmares. At least this one is cleaner than the one at Riverstone: It’s got nice tile floors, pristine gray lockers, and it smells like baby powder instead of that weird mix of body odor and not-enough-deodorant that Riverstone’s had.
“I always use this one,” Liam says, dropping his mesh bag in front of locker 47. “I don’t know why. You mind sharing?”
I shake my head.
“Great.”
And just like that he pulls his shirt over his head. I’ve seen him shirtless often enough, but it’s been a while. He’s got a dusting of fine black hair on his chest now, and a little line that goes from his belly button straight down toward his underwear, which is black with a silver Calvin Klein stitched into the waistband. I guess he stopped shaving once the swim season ended.
Liam catches me staring, but he just grins. “Come on. Get changed.”
He pulls out a swimsuit for me, baggy black trunks, because I told him I didn’t have my own. I do, technically, but it fit me back in seventh grade, and I like to think I’ve grown a little bit since then.
Liam digs out his own suit: one of his purple team Speedos. Then, without even blinking, he pulls his pants and underwear down in one fell swoop.
And I don’t know where to look. Do I look at it? 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 fingerspells floating, so I show him the proper sign.
“Stop stalling. Come on.”
I push away from the wall, floating until I bump up against the lane line and start to sink, but Liam’s hand is under my back to steady me.
After that, he has me show him how well I can swim, which is not very. Apparently it’s a bit closer to a doggy paddle than a front crawl. I’m out of breath after only a single length, but at least we made it to the shallow end, where we can stand.
“Here.” He demonstrates his form, rotating his torso so he can bring his shoulder up and arm forward and scoop the water. I try to copy him.
“Don’t kick so much. That’s why you’re out of breath.”
“I thought I was supposed to kick.”
“Use your kick to stabilize. Power comes from your arms and back.”
He demonstrates again, and I copy him.
Not well enough, I guess, because he puts one hand on my lower back and the other below my abdomen to demonstrate what he means. Despite the cold of the pool, his skin is warm against mine, and I’m amazed the water doesn’t boil around us.
Once Liam’s satisfied I’m not going to kick myself to death, he swims lazily along with me as I make it up and down the length of the pool. It’s probably like walking next to a toddler, with their tiny legs, but Liam doesn’t seem to mind. He’s patient and sweet and gives me the biggest smile when I get something right.
It’s not like I didn’t take swimming lessons before. I did, growing up, in our neighborhood pool actually. But none of those teachers ever took the time to make sure I understood.
I can’t stop grinning as I come up at the end of another length. Even though I’m not kicking as much, I’m still tired after half an hour. But it’s a good tired, one that I can feel in my chest and limbs. I feel strong, and confident, and proud.
“You did great.”
“You’re a good teacher.”
Liam bites his lip and smiles. “I want to kiss you.”
We’re all alone—except for the lifeguard, some older guy with a white goatee—so I float closer to him.
“I want to kiss you too.”
And so I do, drawing closer, but I barely get a peck on his lips before I bob lower, losing contact and getting a mouthful of pool water instead.
I sputter as I float back up.
“Smooth,” he signs.
I roll my eyes, but can’t help laughing.
After showering and drying off—in stalls, separately, because I don’t think I could survive actually showering with Liam, not when I have shrinkage—and getting dressed, we go through the drive-thru at TJ’s before movie night.
“I’m starving.”
“Swimming does that,” Liam says, checking both ways before pulling away. My tea and his mocha are in his cupholders, and I’ve got the bag with our cookies (peanut butter for me, snickerdoodle for him) flat on my lap.
“It was fun, though.”
“Yeah?” Liam smiles so big as he heads toward Riverstone.
“Yeah. Maybe we can go again?”
“Really?” Liam looks like I just stripped naked in front of him again told him Christmas came early. “I’d love that.”
I would too.
Dr. Lochley claps her hands once and the cast settles down. Everyone’s crowded in the first couple rows of benches; a few are even sprawled on the stage floor, on blankets or flattened sleeping bags or random furniture pillows borrowed from textbook storage the prop closet.
I’m stationed by the doors, ready to turn off the house lights once she gives me the signal. We’ve got a projector set up, and a big folding screen, and a super-old DVD player that I had to use five different adapters to connect to the Little Theatre’s sound system. But I got it working, despite not even being a sound person.
Denise was on a big call at the Kauffman Center today and couldn’t make it, so it’s just me. Well, me and Paige, who is standing by the DVD player and ready to hit play. She cocks her head to listen to Dr. Lochley’s speech to the cast.
I can’t make out a word of it, and I don’t even try. It’s for the actors anyway. I glance at Liam, who’s sitting on the last row, saving a seat for me with his arm slung over the back of the bench. His hair is still a little damp from the pool, shining in the house lights. He catches me looking and gives a little smile.
I shake myself and wait for Dr. L’s cue. She’s got two movies for us to watch: one a recording of a staged production from London a couple years back, the other a movie called She’s the Man, which is an adaptation set in the lurid world of high school soccer.
As I settle in next to Liam, I think he’s going to move his arm, but he doesn’t. Instead he shifts so he can run his fingers through my hair, playing with the ends and finding all the spots where it’s about to curl if I let it get too long. He still smells like chlorine and lemon soap and a little bit of sweat.
I shouldn’t be letting him do this, not in public. But Cam and Philip do stuff like this all the time. It’s not fair. I shouldn’t have to keep this a secret just because Jasmine can’t get over him.
And it feels so perfectly peaceful. Like this is where I belong. Liam’s laughter rumbles against my side. No one can see us in the back row, not without craning around, and it’s too dark anyway. We’re in our own little world.
So I relax against him. Liam brushes the shell of my ear, and I twitch a bit, but he avoids touching my hearing aids. Instead his fingers trail along my jaw, the back of my neck, and back up into my hair. It’s hypnotic, sending tingles from my scalp all the way to my toes.
I never want him to stop.