For some reason, I didn’t think July in Nebraska would be so hot. I had visions of snow-capped mountains and green grassed ranches that spread further than the eye could see. Instead, I hadn’t seen even a corn field, and the city seemed to trap the heat in between its tall skyscrapers.
Or maybe I just felt nervous … achingly nervous … for Deshawn and that had raised my body temperature.
I hadn’t really thought I’d be able to follow him to qualifying, so when he presented me with the airline ticket a couple weeks ago, handsomely boxed and wrapped with a pink ribbon on top, I looked at him, confused.
“I want you there,” he said at the time. “I’ve talked to Coach and told him that of all the people who support me, you were the most important to have there.”
“What about your mom?” I asked, still unable to believe what I held in my hands.
“I thought about it and I talked to her, but she can’t really afford to take off work. Not if she wants to pay for that tennis camp she’s sending Shariece to this summer. I’ve told her that they’d only distract me anyway.” He smiled and stepped closer to me. “That way she doesn’t feel guilty.”
I eased my body toward his in that moment, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pulled him to me. “And you don’t think I’ll be a distraction?” I purred.
He leaned down to kiss me, his lips soft yet needing. “You’re the good kind of distraction. Haven’t you read about the benefits of pent up sexual frustration?”
I laughed. “So, you’re hoping to use me to bait yourself, granting some sort of extra adrenaline edge or something?”
“Something like that,” he said. Then he removed my clothes carefully, one piece at a time, and made love to me slowly at first, then with a sense of wild urgency. It had been different that time. Something had shifted, and I felt something within my being crack open. It was as if this last holdout, this final lock had been undone. The last ice finally melted and the sunshine and warmth of Deshawn burst through.
And now, I sat here in Omaha, high above the swimming pool that would make or break him. His event was next—the 400 freestyle. It hadn’t been his niche until after “the incident” as we tended to call it. Ever since then, he’d taken to it and cut through the water faster than he’d ever done before, as if he was swimming from the ghost that wanted to haunt him.
His last time at practice was 3:48:49, just under the qualifying time. Excited that he could possibly beat the needed time, I sat there, trying not to bite my fingernails.
The announcer called for swimmers in the 400 freestyle to take their places. I watched as Deshawn’s dark form made its way toward the fourth lane. He looked up, spotted me and waved, flashing his white teeth in the process. God, he was beautiful. I blew him a kiss, and his smile grew.
“Even if I don’t make it,” he told me last night, and I had interrupted him, telling him that such talk was sure to jinx him. He put his hand on mine and asked me to let him finish. “Even if I don’t make it past qualifying, having you here with me, going through this part of the journey with you, it’s been more fulfilling than I could ever imagine. I found myself wondering the other day how I’d gotten through so much of my life without you.”
“I’m surprised you still want me in your life,” I joked, although there was still a wedge of truth underneath. “After all the trouble I’ve caused you, I’d think you’d be wondering why you’d ever gotten involved with me in the first place.”
He smiled. “You have brought me more of that,” he admitted, “but all in all, we’ve grown stronger together because of it, don’t you think? Better in many ways.” He smirked. “At least I learned I could go without oxygen for longer than I ever thought.”
I still didn’t think that was funny.
I inhaled deeply through my nose now as I watched him walk to his mark. He rotated his shoulders, shaking his arms out by his sides, warming up the muscles that I knew would be burning within minutes. We had gotten stronger together, and I knew that with him, I was a better person than I could ever hope to be without him.
The sharp sound of the quick buzz interrupted my reverie and I watched Deshawn’s long body dive into the perfect blue of the pool. It wasn’t a race against anyone but himself at this point, and I sent him those thoughts from my seat high above. A little god wishing for more control of the scene below, I crossed my fingers and murmured hopes and incantations for Deshawn’s success.
Four times—up and back. You’ve got this. Pace, pace, then pull out ahead. I watched as he kicked and pulled himself through the water, a black bullet sailing through the blue and white. He reached the starting point and kicked off the wall, zooming ahead by a few inches. His pace quickened and I saw him reach beyond. I checked the big, red numbers counting the hundredths of each second passing. They seemed to match the beating of my heart.
I knew that lap three was usually where Deshawn could turn it on. Something within him kicked into overdrive, and it happened now as I stood to my feet, praying and chanting and almost unable to breathe. I had teased him at his last practice.
“It’s like all the stuff we went through with Tony has groomed you for this,” I shared.
“What do you mean?” He cocked his head to the side, unsure if he would like the direction the conversation was going to take. He didn’t like talking about what we’d been through with Tony—the first time or this last time—though I knew he dreamed about it, waking in a cold sweat and breathing raggedly, patting the bed beside him to make sure I was there and in one piece.
“This burst you have in the third lap. It’s that ‘do-or-die’ mode you go into. It’s what kept you alive twice. I think being in those circumstances, being faced with death, something clicks in that swimmer’s brain of yours—knows if you don’t do something, you’re gonna die, not qualify, not make your dreams. And then WOOSH! You’re gone and the competition has no chance of catching you.”
He smiled and brushed his lips first against my forehead, then against my lips before fluttering them along my throat. My spot. He knew what that would get him.
“Only one person I want catching me,” he said. “And I think it’s safe to say, you’ve already caught me.”
The numbers clicked off on the clock as Deshawn pushed off the wall for the final leg of his race. The swimmer two lanes over was closing in, but Deshawn still had a lead and he was beating the clock with a speed I’d never seen before. The clock showed three minutes and twenty-two seconds, and he still had half the distance to go. For someone who felt like the past months had gone by so quickly, suddenly time was moving at the pace of a turtle. No, a stoned turtle with no need to be anywhere for anyone.
And then I saw him touch, and his coach lean down to pull him from the water, embracing him the entire time. I checked the clock: 3:48:89. Not his personal best, but more than enough to put him on the team and send him toward his dream. I ran from my seat down to the pool level and found him already toweled off and his jacket on, a small crowd headed up by Keri Carson surrounding him.
“How does it feel, Deshawn, knowing that you’re going to the Olympics, a dream you’ve had since boyhood?” Keri asked.
Deshawn’s smile couldn’t get any wider. He beamed. He glowed.
“Amazing. I kept seeing this—this moment, and me swimming for the Olympic team, and Janice and my mom, and that’s what kept me focused in the water, kept giving me more strength and more energy. I felt more energy than I think I’ve ever felt, like I could swim another four laps, easily!”
Coach Winters put his hands on the shoulders of his new star. “Save it for the relay,” he said. “Let’s just get you qualified there too and you’ll be indispensable. No one came even close to touching your time here.”
Deshawn saw me and motioned me in. The crowd parted to let me rush into his arms, and I sprang up, wrapping my legs around him and hugging him with all the pride I felt, hoping I was transferring that feeling to him. He set me down.
“And this is Janice,” Keri explained, playing an emcee to the other reporters and photographers gathered there. “Janice is Deshawn’s girlfriend, the one he risked his life twice to save.”
Questions were thrown at me and cameras flashed. Deshawn’s story had caught on even more, and I was sure it was going to blow up now that he was going to the Olympics. I shied away from the rumble, feeling overwhelmed in the moment.
And that’s exactly what it felt like, only ten times more, when he won his third gold medal in the Olympics the very next year…
I stood watching him at the press conference after I’d seen him take the gold medal spot three times, the chills and tears more intense for me with each of his wins. Yet he stayed calm, cool, collected as if it were something he knew would happen all along, not in an egotistical way, but just sure of where he stood and how he got there.
“Deshawn, we’ve followed your story—the tragedy you’ve survived. It’s a real page-turner, and I for one can’t wait for the actual book. But, isn’t life gonna be boring now?” One reporter spoke from the middle row. “What’s the next big adventure? Training for the next Olympics? Gonna write your own book? Maybe star in your own movie based on your life?”
Deshawn laughed good-naturedly, and he looked back over his shoulder, making eye contact with me.
“I have plans,” he said slowly, a grin spreading.
“Want to enlighten us?” another reporter from the front row asked. “After all, inquiring minds want to know.”
I watched as he stood from his seat and buttoned the top button of his sports coat. I frowned my confusion toward him as he reached out his hand.
“Janice, will you join me?”
Intimidated by the cameras and recording devices in the room, I shook my head quickly, putting my hand up.
“No. No, I’m fine, really,” I told him.
“Please,” he said. “I can’t really do this part without you.”
Coach Winters nudged me from my spot behind the scenes in the shadows, and too quickly, I found myself under bright lights, the audience darkening as cameras flashed my appearance.
“Ya’ll getting this?” Deshawn asked the cameramen. “I don’t want a single second missed.”
“Deshawn,” I whispered, feeling my cheeks beginning to burn.
He crouched down on one knee as he held my hands in his.
Oh God.
Oh my God.
Really? Here? Now?
“Janice Fisher, I hope that I’m twice the man I was when we first met. But I know I can’t be half the man I should be without you. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life showing you just how much.” He pulled a solitaire diamond out of his pocket and held it up. It sparkled crazily in the lights. “You’ve helped me make my dreams come true, but there’s one last one, and it depends on you. Will you do me the honor of being my partner throughout this next adventure?”
I heard … felt … everyone holding their breaths. I thought I heard a few of the female reporters actually wipe away a tear. But over all that, I could hear my heart beating, and I thought about how it wouldn’t be if it weren’t for him ... in so many ways. A tear slipped down my cheek as I nodded and croaked out a pitiful, “Yes.”
He slid the diamond on my finger and slid his arms around my waist, picking me up and spinning me around.
“This feels better than winning the gold,” he whispered in my ear. Then he kissed me. That photo became one of the most memorable ones of that year’s Olympic games.
I hope you enjoyed Love, Lies, Deceit. Turn the page for a preview of Beneath the Lights.
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