Above The Surface

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “It’s okay. I’m getting used to it.”

  “I suppose that makes sense with how much time you’re spending in London at the moment.”

  His lips curved as he shot me a look. “You’ve been talking to Dad.”

  “Sometimes.” I shrugged. “He checks in with me.”

  “Of course. He’s proud of you.” Another smile, but this time it was fainter. “Funny how things work out.”

  “Funny? For me, it’s nice,” I retorted, a little hurt by that comment. Robert was the only parental influence I’d had since I was a young girl, and his interest in me was genuine. I excited him. My career trajectory—it motivated him.

  “What do you talk about? Me?” he queried, making me narrow my eyes at him.

  “Yes, Adam, because the world revolves around you. I mean, I don’t have anything I could possibly talk about with your father who helped me get into Stanford, who sponsors me, is helping with the business side of my career, and who might possibly be interested in the fact that I’ve done well enough to attend the Olympics.” I released a mock gasp. “Yeah, we actually do manage to have conversations without you as a major topic, but he’s proud of you, of what you’ve achieved without his backing, and he talks about you.”

  “And you don’t ask?”

  “No, I’m not a glutton for punishment,” I rejoined stonily, staring straight ahead at some kind of statue that, according to the sign, was supposed to represent solidarity and sportsmanship.

  I just saw a crown of fish.

  But then, I’d never had the best imagination.

  “I ask about you,” he replied softly, making my heart stutter.

  I blew out a breath. “Why?” The question was a valid one.

  “I’m interested.”

  “You have my number now. You could ask me yourself.” It had been months since I’d last seen him. Weeks since we’d last spoken too. For a few years, I’d withheld my number from him, unable to deal with the distance I was placing between us, then I’d caved in and given it to him.

  He’d never used it.

  “You’re not the easiest person to talk to.”

  I stumbled to a halt at that. Hurt speared me straight in the stomach. “Wow.” I gulped. “You know how to kick a woman when she’s anything but down.”

  He frowned at me, just realizing that I’d stopped a few steps back. He turned, fully, frowned harder, and muttered, “Thea, there’s shit about me you know that no one else does. That’s hard to live with.”

  “That’s not my fault.”

  “No, but it doesn’t make it easy for me to talk to you.”

  “Why? That’s all in the past now, isn’t it?” I demanded, uncertain why I was pushing this when I was the one who had put distance between us in the first place. But—and it was a huge but—the distance was for our safety. His bullshit? Wasn’t.

  He shrugged. “The past affects our present. Don’t tell me you want to talk to me when you avoid me more than I avoid you.”

  My eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who ruined our present.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I regret all my mistakes? Don’t you think when I hear your fucking name, I’m reminded of what a fuck up I am?”

  That hurt.

  A lot.

  I was more to him than just a representation of his mistakes, and he knew it, but that he’d used that as a bullshit excuse, it was like a knife to the gut.

  I blew out a breath and stormed past him. I didn’t wait when he shouted my name, didn’t let him catch up to me. I wasn’t fast only in the pool, and though Adam was stacked and at the peak of his own health, he wasn’t as quick as me. I made it to Robert and Anna before he did, and I shot them a blinding white smile that was so beyond false, it was a wonder my face didn’t crack from the lie.

  But, content with what they’d just seen me achieve, they were busy talking about stats and the next few days of my Olympic journey.

  Maybe it was wise that Adam stood beside his mom while I was at Robert’s side, but it still stung.

  All of this stung.

  When we made it to the car, Anna let me sit in the front because she knew I got car sick in the back, and I was glad, glad because Robert was driving, and that meant I didn’t have to sit next to Adam.

  I wasn’t sure if he could have hurt me more. Thinking something and having suspicions about it was painful, but hearing that was the case straight from the horse’s mouth? Yeah, twice as painful. But I was used to that, used to him hurting me, and while that made me sound like a victim, I wasn’t. I was anything but, neither was I a fool. So I just sat in silence, aware this ordeal would be over soon as we headed to a destination only Robert seemed to know.

  No stranger to Tokyo, he maneuvered the streets with an ease that I wouldn’t have been able to recreate.

  I was glad that we were shuttled in on buses on the few occasions when Coach didn’t have me run to the stadium to warm up. Nothing made sense here, not the strange atmosphere in the air, not the odd costumes I sometimes saw younger men and women wear. Although, when they were dressed up like dolls from the Victorian era, I had to admit, I envied them their freedom.

  They didn’t care what anyone thought about their outfits. They were proud of their appearances, and that was what I envied even if I didn’t get it. But I didn’t have to, did I? I wanted that freedom to be myself, but, for the most part, I wasn’t sure what I was, except for a swimmer. A charity case. Someone whose successes were due to the pain of others.

  For the past five years, I’d been focused on nothing more than reaching these games, on making the Olympics and forging a name for myself that would live on longer than I did. But what happened after?

  It was four years until the next Olympics, I’d only be twenty-six, and there’d be plenty of time for me to make more history, but was that it for me?

  Just more training? More endlessness as I dedicated my life to one single thing?

  Confusion swirled inside me as we made it to the restaurant. By that point, I wasn’t really in the mood for the little eatery that was tucked away in a quieter street just off a busy thoroughfare.

  All around, the buildings towered over us, but the restaurant seemed pretty old-fashioned.

  As I climbed out of the car, I stared around, fascinated once more by the city.

  In the grand scheme of things, I hadn’t managed to do that much visiting. Nothing outside of the stadium, pretty much. We’d ventured out for a couple of drinks the first night we’d arrived, but that had been under Coach Friars’ watchful eye, which meant it had been mimosas with more OJ than champagne—not that I’d complained. I wasn’t that much of a drinker anyway.

  Still, the vibe in the air and the busy hustle was such a contrast to my real life, I couldn’t help but be blown away by this marvelous city.

  The scents filtering from the restaurant were rich and strangely creamy, and if I hadn’t been hungry before, I was now. The banana I’d eaten earlier had long since stopped filling a hole, so when Robert grabbed my arm, tucked it through his, and started shuffling me toward the restaurant, I wasn’t about to complain.

  “I found this place the last time I was in the city. They do something called omurice.”

  My brow puckered. “I might have seen something like that on Facebook.”

  Robert shrugged. “Wouldn’t know about that, but it’s damn fine and should be the carb dump you need.”

  Even as he said the words, Coach’s doom and gloom voice filtered into my head.

  With races and heats tomorrow, I had to watch what I ate, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t sample something of what the others were getting.

  The restaurant was dark, and each table was in a booth that gave a veil of privacy. Overhead, there were dim lights that created a spotlight in the middle of the table, meaning you could see what you were eating, but there were more shadows between each table, making the waiters moving around look like specters.

  I’d f
ound, thus far, the Japanese people to be kind, beyond helpful, and ultra polite. To the point where I felt rude for only saying ‘thank you.’

  My lips curved at the thought as we were seated, with the waiter bowing as we slipped into the booth. Automatically, I wanted to bow back, but I wasn’t sure if that was rude or not.

  Whenever I was around Robert and Adam, even though it wasn’t their fault I’d been raised the way I had, I kind of always felt awkward. Not with Anna. She knew what it was to strive thanks to her past, but Robert and Adam knew their place in the world. It had been set in stone for them since they were born.

  Hell, probably before they were born.

  I could imagine Anna picking her kids’ schools while they were still in the womb and getting them registered for a school that had a waiting list eight years long.

  My parents? Well, they hadn’t been as organized. Poverty did that for you, and the way we’d moved around had made preschool and the basics that much harder.

  I bit my lip at the memory of the hardship of my childhood, especially in the face of the life I was leading now. My family had loved me, and that love had been pure and untainted, and in that, I’d been richer than Adam. Sure, Anna and Robert adored him, but there were more expectations on him than any kid should have had to deal with.

  It was, I felt sure, why he was the way he was. It was what had turned him down the path he’d taken, and while it was a path I’d understood and had been willing to help him with along the way, it was a festering bitterness in his soul that he couldn’t seem to escape from.

  A bitterness that affected us every damn day.

  “God, I’m so proud of you!”

  Anna’s declaration had me jolting, because I realized I’d been staring at Adam and he, of course, had been staring at me. See, that was how two magnets worked.

  Put them in the vicinity of one another, and boom—they were going to collide.

  Sometimes I fought it, but I couldn’t fight fate.

  I quickly broke the link between us, then turned to Anna who was still beaming, but it felt faker now as her gaze drifted between Adam and me.

  “Thank you, Anna,” I replied a little tamely and a lot huskily, thanks to where my thoughts had taken me.

  Adam was opposite me, his knees so close that I could feel his body heat against me, and I wanted nothing more than to be able to claim that heat, to have it as mine.

  To have the right to cuddle up to him, to be in his arms for something longer than a congratulatory hug.

  But he wouldn’t allow it.

  And me? I wasn’t sure if what I wanted was worth fighting for when Adam’s demons took up more of his soul than I possibly could.

  As Robert ordered something in Japanese, I told Anna, “I intend on making you prouder.”

  Excitement gleamed in her eyes. “I can’t wait for tomorrow. What you did today was incredible. The speed you swam at?”

  “She’s right. You were like a fish under there,” Adam rasped. “You beat even the men’s record.”

  That he sounded impressed made me color, and I dipped my chin. Though he wasn’t a competitive swimmer anymore, he had been, so his respect meant a lot to me.

  “I just—” I shrugged. “I don’t know what I did.” A sheepish grin split my jaw at their laughter.

  “Well, whatever it was, do it again.” Robert’s eyes twinkled in the dim light. “We can put your medals in the Trophy Room.”

  My mouth rounded at that. “You’d let me?”

  Robert snorted. “Let you? Just you wait. The second you take that off your neck, I want my grabby hands around it.”

  Anna rolled her eyes, but there was a faint glint in them that told me she was thinking of Cain.

  Though Adam had what it took to be a competitive swimmer, Cain had Olympic level talent. I’d seen him in the water—he’d been like a fish. The coaches at Rosemore had used some of his techniques as teaching material for a reason.

  I bit the inside of my cheek to hide the sudden shrouding of guilt that overtook me, and instead, ducked my head and lifted the medal over it. Passing it to Robert, I murmured, “Here.”

  Robert grinned as he raised it to his line of sight, then pushed it into the spotlight so he could see the different details on the face.

  “Didn’t think I’d get to touch one of these after—” He choked a little, then he whistled under his breath as he passed it back to me.

  I shook my head. “Feel free to wear it,” I offered, laughing when, without even a second’s hesitation, he plunked it overhead.

  “Goes well with your Polo shirt, Dad,” Adam joked.

  “Fingers crossed you’ll win enough for us all to wear one,” Robert teased.

  “I’ll try my best,” I told him, but my tone was a little too fervent for my pledge to sound like a joke.

  Robert’s eyes softened as he reached over and patted my hand. “Be you, Thea, and you’ll do us proud. You know that, don’t you?”

  Because it was Robert, I believed him, so I sent him a smile.

  When champagne arrived at the table, I took a few sips, not bothering to argue that it wasn’t part of my diet. They wanted to celebrate my success, and I wanted to as well. And the omurice that appeared, an omelet slit open over a bed of rice and topped with beef gravy, was something I could only have a sliver of. Robert had ordered salads too, so I tasted more of that than the omurice, even though the molten egg concoction flooded my mouth with saliva, making me want twice as much as I’d had. Pulling away from it was just one reminder of how much I gave up to do what I was doing with my life.

  There was nothing normal about what I did, nothing regular about the extremes I had to go to for the competition. I didn’t regret it. Not at all. But damn, some days, like today, when I just wanted to have what was the closest thing to a family meal as it got—complete with undercurrents and toxic undertones—it sucked.

  “By the way, Nike and Puma are vying for you,” Robert inserted as I speared a cherry tomato on a fork and shoveled it down.

  I cocked a brow at him. “Really?”

  Though he was a busy man, I knew it gave him a kick to manage that side of things for me.

  “I think Nike will win the bidding war,” he mused. “But we’ve had a lot of interest already. That was before you even won gold.”

  “No business over the dinner table,” Anna chided, like she usually did.

  As he usually did, Robert just shrugged. “These are exciting times.”

  Was it?

  I guessed so.

  Excitement for me was different than it was for most people though.

  For me, being under the water, beneath the surface, slicing through it, flying with its currents, that was exciting.

  The rest was just a part of the routine.

  But I needed the money for my future, so I turned to him and asked, “You’ll invest the funds from the sponsorship deals for me, won’t you, Robert?”

  He beamed at me. “Of course. But you’re better off getting Adam’s input. You know what he’s like with picking big winners.”

  I didn’t want to look at him, but I did. I just braced myself before I let my eyes connect with his, and as usual, it was like a kick to the solar plexus.

  I could have melted into him. Literally could have puddled into goo at his feet.

  “Best investment is property,” he muttered, wrenching his gaze from mine with enough force that I knew it had to hurt him as much as it did me to bust the tie between us.

  “That’s staid. Conservative.”

  Adam shrugged off Robert’s jeer. “Best way. Thea is conservative. She’ll stress if the money is put into places she can’t see, can’t control.”

  He understood my past more than his parents, even if he didn’t really have a clue about the level of poverty I’d been raised in.

  “I like the sound of real estate.”

  “Houston is one of the best places to invest at the moment. Maybe Raleigh, North Carolina. But Austin
for sure.”

  Robert’s brows lifted. “Because of the new Apple campus there?”

  “Fifteen thousand new jobs flooding into the area?” Adam whistled under his breath. “Damn straight that’s a good place to be picking up real estate.”

  Anna tapped his arm. “Maybe you and Thea should head down there, select some property for her.” With Adam’s main base still being Boston, I was certain she’d love it if I bought property in Austin…especially if I ended up moving there at some point.

  Adam’s smile was tight. “We’ll have to schedule something.”

  Anna didn’t notice his tension, but I did.

  He might as well have said, ‘Fuck no. I don’t want to be anywhere near her.’

  And it hurt.

  Fuck, it hurt.

  I wished it didn’t, wished that wasn’t the way things were between us when it was so unnecessary, but that was how it had to be.

  It grew harder and harder to maintain my smile over the course of the meal, and when Robert finally paid the bill and we climbed into the car, I was exhausted. More from our collision than the races.

  I didn’t really take another breath until I was waving them away, standing outside the dorms where the U.S. Swim Team was being accommodated—my past driving off to their hotel, my future at my back.

  I just stood there at the roadside, feeling the ground beneath my feet cling to me like an anchor. Dragging me down, weighing on me.

  Tears flooded my eyes at how hopeless I felt when I had everything to aim for, but my past was murky. My future was bright, but it was tainted.

  That was what happened when you made a deal with a devil called Adam.

  ADAM

  I was sixteen when I first saw her.

  She was slender, too slender really, especially for the exertion of our sport. She had long brown hair that swirled around her in the water as she swam. It was in a high topknot on her head when she was relaxing, tucked in a cap when she meant business.

  Her skin was the color of coffee. Not café au lait, not with African American hints to her heritage, but another ethnicity I couldn’t put my finger on.

  She looked like she was drenched in gold glitter when she surged out of the deep end like a water nymph, tiny droplets clinging to her skin, making me want to touch her. To feel that soft silkiness against my palms.