Above The Surface

by Akeroyd, Serena

  The place stank of cheap disinfectant, was all one color—avocado—and the lockers looked dubious at best, but I hadn’t brought much with me, so I figured I didn’t need to worry about unsecure lockers.

  Changing out of my clothes, I shoved everything inside. Passing a shower room, I walked into a little hall that had a wading pool connecting to the larger one. The tiles weren’t the best, grimy described them at worst, but it was clean.

  When I stepped into the pool area, I looked around, liking the light in here—it wasn’t too blaring to make me hate waking up this early to train—and loving how quiet it was.

  My usual center was busy at this time. Lots of people trying to train before work, start their day off right. Here? There was one person.

  I recognized her cap from yesterday.

  The bright red summed her up in ways I couldn’t understand. She was all muted golds, dark bronzes, and copper. But the red offset everything, revealing how vibrant she was beneath the muted mask she displayed to the rest of the world.

  Watching her slice through the water was a pleasure. I’d never thought observing someone swim could be arousing, but she was.

  Her movements, the placement of her hands, her feet, the way she twisted her head to breathe when her face was in the water, how she kicked—everything was as it had been yesterday.

  Poetry in motion.

  Even as I wondered what it would be like to dance with her, she popped her head out of the water, stopping in the middle of her lane, midstroke. The abruptness made me wonder if she was ill or something, then she spun around, twisted to face me, and she stared at me.

  And I stared back.

  My body went into meltdown, unsure whether it was aroused or terrified, as I just stood there, watching her watch me.

  She broke the moment by diving underwater, her back arching, her feet pirouetting as she moved beneath the surface, and the next thing I knew, she was at the shallows once more, peering up at me with her feet on the pool floor.

  Her speed was insane.

  She tipped her head to the side, studying me like I was the one with all the answers. “Why are you here?”

  I could have lied. Maybe I should have. “You.”

  She swallowed and pried off her goggles. Around her eyes, there were little indents, and I wanted to rub my thumbs over them, ease the itch I knew came with that maneuver.

  “I’m training,” she replied, but her huskiness hit me hard. She was just as affected by me as I was by her.

  “So am I.” I slipped into the water in the lane beside hers. “No reason we can’t train together, is there?”

  I didn’t wait for an answer, just dropped under the water and pushed off from the wall, falling into a front crawl that made me feel like I was flying too.

  Knowing she was there, next to me? The same water uniting us? Exhilarating.

  I didn’t let up on my training—I couldn’t. Cain would mock me if I did, and I’d be off the swim team quicker than he could flip me off. But after an hour’s solid swimming, I let up, and when I did, I noticed she was sitting on the side of the pool like I had yesterday.

  During my training, I’d noticed the place getting busier, but I’d ignored the other patrons, focusing on what I was here for.

  Now I could relax, and I ducked under the bobbing lane separators and moved so I was in front of her.

  I longed to push my chest to her legs, to move closer, but instead I lay back, tucking my feet into the side of the wall where the drains were.

  “You’re fast.”

  I shrugged at her remark. “So are you.” And that was an understatement. Though she turned me on something fierce, I eyed her slim limbs, the strength in them, the breadth of her shoulders that only swimming could create, not as a man, but as a fellow athlete. She was power condensed into one small package. “You’re probably the fastest swimmer I’ve ever seen.”

  My admission was true. I’d been to the Olympics, for God’s sake. I’d seen athletes win gold, but none of them swam like her.

  “My times are good,” was all she said.

  “You don’t sound that concerned.” And she didn’t.

  “The times are a means to an end.”

  Her cryptic comment had me frowning at her. “Why?”

  “It means I get to be in the water. It’s my home.”

  Well, that was weird, but then, I guessed, Theodosia was odd. At least, faintly.

  Not that I was complaining.

  I’d decided last night that she pretty much walked on fucking water for seeing Cain for the ass he was.

  “Why is it your home?”

  “Isn’t it for you?”

  I shook my head. “It’s a means to an end—to borrow your words.”

  “Tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”

  The teasing smile gracing her lips made my stomach churn. Not in a way that said, ‘get to the toilet, you need to puke.’ In a way that was like before a test I hadn’t studied for.

  Okay, neither was great, but I just felt all twisted inside. Like she was doing that to me, like it was out of my control, but also, I didn’t give a shit.

  If she’d keep looking at me like that, keep talking to me—

  I sucked in a breath, trying not to get in over my head here. I had to play it cool.

  “Mom and Dad have made it pretty clear that we can’t rely on them for college.”

  Her brows rose. “How come? Isn’t your dad wealthy?”

  That was a curious turn of phrase, and it made me smirk at her. “My dad? Not my mom? Did someone Google me last night?”

  Her cheeks pinkened, giving me my answer, but grumpily, she muttered, “Shut up.”

  My smirk morphed into a grin, which turned into a laugh. “Yeah. My dad is wealthy. Mom is too now though.”

  “So why won’t they cover college?”

  “Mom made her fortune, and though Dad was born into money, he had to rely on himself, not the family.” I shrugged. “They want to pass that same ethic on to us.”

  She snorted. “They want you to struggle too?”

  “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

  She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

  “Survival of the fittest. To be fair, it’s the only way Cain is going to get into college. He doesn’t study half the time. He’s more focused on swimming.” And boning the teachers to get As.

  “Is he good?”

  I nodded. “Better than me.”

  She whistled. “You’re fast.”

  “He’s faster.” My lips twisted. “Life isn’t fair.”

  “No. It isn’t,” she agreed softly. “But you’re going to get a scholarship, right?”

  I nodded again. “So long as nothing goes wrong over the next couple of years.” The threat of injury plagued all athletes.

  She frowned at that, then shrugged. “You Gorgers, I’ll never understand you.”

  I tipped my head to the side. “Gorger? I’ve been called a lot in my life, but never that.”

  She shrugged again, and the move drew my attention to her collarbone. I’d never known clavicle bones could be sexy—today was a day for firsts. “To be fair, I’m no longer one to judge.”

  My brow puckered. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m Roma.”

  Well, that explained her coloring. And, weirdly enough, the thought crossed my mind that maybe that was why she could sense how much of an ass Cain truly was.

  Gypsies saw into shit, didn’t they? Read cards? Believed in stuff that most people thought was crazy?

  “Family’s everything to my people. Even I couldn’t forget that rule.”

  “I think you need to start at the beginning.”

  “A Gorger is someone who isn’t Roma. For example, you. Your family. I don’t understand the way you do things because in my world, we’ll do anything for family.” A glimmer of sadness whispered across her face. “Including leaving everything you know behind to save someone from being an outcast.”

>   The way she phrased that told me she was the one who’d been threatened with exile. The harsh wording had me asking, “Why would you be an outcast?”

  She licked her lips. “It’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got at least two hours before I’m needed in school.”

  “And you’re going to give me all one hundred and twenty minutes, are you? What about showering? Getting to your school? Can’t see your high school being anywhere close to mine.”

  “No, but you can give me the cliff notes version.”

  “There’s nothing abbreviated about my heritage.” She smiled, and I liked making her smile—it hit her eyes, turning walnut brown to amber. “My family lived their life to a simple set of rules. They asked themselves whether something was clean, užo, or unclean, mahrime.” She sucked in air, then blew it out sharply. “My father died when he was horseback riding. My mother, deciding she couldn’t live without him, killed herself. That’s a gross sin. My nanny, knowing I’d be considered mahrime by being tainted by my mother, knowing that I’d be an outcast among our people, moved away. She brought me here. Where we lived together until she died, and I was put into the system.”

  My eyes widened. A part of me wanted to ask whether she was joking or not, but I knew she wasn’t.

  This was real.

  This was her life.

  “Why would you be blamed for what your mother did?” I was struggling to understand what she could mean. How was it her fault that her parent had taken her own life?

  “Our sins make a household, and the people within it, mahrime—unclean.” She shrugged like it meant nothing, when I knew from the shadows in her eyes it meant everything. “She made me unclean. Women are considered that anyway. Especially below the waist.” A breath whistled from her. “Long story short, some sins can be cleansed, but that one couldn’t be. And if I couldn’t be cleansed, then I’d be an outcast because no man would marry me. No man would want a mahrime wife. It would be unlucky.”

  “You just blew my mind.”

  “I told you it was a long story,” she rasped, her shoulders hunching.

  I shook my head. “But wait, how can you say my family’s strange when your family—”

  “My nanny gave up everything for me. She left friends behind to give me a chance at a new life. She left our culture behind, and she—”

  When her words broke off, I prompted softly, “She what?”

  “We don’t trust doctors. We certainly don’t trust hospitals.” Her chin jerked up. “She got sick. But for me, because she didn’t want to leave me, she went for treatment. That’s what family does for one another.

  “They don’t make you scrimp and save unnecessarily. You’ve been blessed with wealth. Why wouldn’t they share that with you? It’s not like they can take it with them when they cross over.”

  “I think it’s to instill a sense of work ethic in us.” I winced. “I can’t say it doesn’t work. Knowing our college educations are dependent on us makes us do stuff we might not if things were different.”

  “Wouldn’t you swim?”

  “Maybe not.” I ducked my head underwater for a second. Then, when the water stopped the itch from the chlorine, which meant I needed a shower, I muttered, “For pleasure, sure. But competitively? No. I get nervous. It’s why—”

  “Why, what?”

  “Why Cain always beats me. He’s a shark. I’m just a—”

  “A dolphin?”

  A laugh escaped me. “Yeah. I’m good with that.” Dolphins could beat off sharks, couldn’t they? I liked the idea of that.

  “Cain is very predatorial,” she agreed, and then she shivered. “I don’t like him.”

  Music to my ears.

  Clearing my throat, I muttered, “I don’t either. But he’s a damn fine swimmer, and he’s got the heart of a shark when it comes down to races.”

  “What would you do instead?” Thea inquired, her head tipped to the side. “If you didn’t swim, I mean.”

  “My family wants us to go to college.”

  “Yeah, your family. But what do you want?”

  I pulled a face. “It’s stupid.”

  “Nothing’s stupid if it’s what you want. If it makes you happy.”

  I didn’t know why, but her question hit me on the raw. It was harder than it should be to admit, “I like to fix stuff.” Fuck, why did that feel like I’d admitted to having a foot fetish or something?

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Things. Just… things.” Shoulders hunched from embarrassment, I cleared my throat before I quickly changed the subject. “Now, we can stay here all morning, or do you feel like grabbing something to eat?” I knew from the little she’d told me, as well as from the state of the center she swam in, that she didn’t have much, so just in case it was an issue, I tacked on, “My treat?”

  “If you want,” she replied offhandedly, but I wasn’t offended. I liked the way she peered down at my face then glanced quickly away when she saw me looking.

  Now that I knew a little about her past, tonight I’d be researching what I could find about the Roma people. Their traditions, their customs. Even if she was no longer being raised that way, maybe it would explain the ethereal quality to her.

  Maybe it would let me understand who Theodosia was and why she was that way.

  Fifteen minutes later, after leaving the pool and showering—the fastest shower I’d ever had because I preferred to spend my time with her rather than under the shitty showerhead—we met up in the coffee shop which was just opening in the center.

  I was used to enthusiastic, bubbly staff offering me smoothies and protein shakes for breakfast. Trying to get me to spend thirty dollars on the first meal of the day.

  Here? It was more yawning, disinterested servers, and I was lucky to get a banana and a coffee.

  “I’ll get a car next birthday.”

  As she sat down, an English Breakfast tea and an apple on her tray, her brow arched at that. “Good for you.”

  My lips twitched. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

  “No? How did you mean it?”

  “I mean, I’ll be able to drive us places.”

  Her brow puckered. “Adam, you barely know me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “We both know that’s a lie. I don’t know what in the hell is between us, and honestly, I don’t want to know, but damn, I’m not going to—”

  “Going to?” she pressed when I broke off. She flinched in surprise, then instantly settled when my hand snapped out and grabbed hers, folding my fingers around hers and holding her tight.

  “This is strange but good.” I blew out a breath. “Okay, that’s not romantic at all.”

  Her laugh told me the truth—she agreed. Wholeheartedly. “No, it isn’t. But I know what you mean.”

  “You do?”

  Relief almost had me crumpling in on myself.

  “I do.” Her smile was faint, and her gaze, oddly enough, didn’t connect with mine, but instead seemed to roam around me. Overhead, to the side of me. Whatever she saw had her smiling, and jealous, I twisted around, trying to figure out who she was looking at. But the place was empty. Even the bored server had disappeared somewhere.

  “What is it?” I queried, my voice husky.

  “You’re happy,” she said simply.

  I blinked. She wasn’t wrong.

  I was happy.

  Her hand tightened around mine as she reached for her apple and took a deep bite of it. There was a jauntiness to her movements, a kind of bounce that made me realize she was happy too.

  And that was the cherry on top of the sundae.

  THEA

  “I don’t get it.”

  Laughing despite myself, I muttered, “Where did you find this stuff?”

  “Google, of course.”

  It was the following day, and we were eating a banana and an apple again. I knew the staff wouldn’t mind, so I brought out a Tupperware with some crackers, veggies, and peanut bu
tter, and had placed it between us on the table.

  As I munched on some celery, I peered at his phone screen.

  “Some of it’s true, some of it isn’t,” I told him after a quick glance, loving the way his arm brushed mine, and how I could feel his breath on my cheek when I turned to him. “But, to be fair, I’ve forgotten some of the ways. Well, pretty much most of them.”

  He’d been researching my culture, which meant he’d done more reading on it than I had in years.

  It kind of made me feel guilty, but looking at the customs of my people made me feel cloistered and claustrophobic. Relieved, almost, to no longer have to be a part of all that. To have to lead my life that way.

  Then, I felt guiltier. There was no freedom in death for the living, but I was only leading my life this way because I’d been orphaned.

  “I genuinely remember that one,” I muttered, tapping one paragraph and expanding it. “Nanny never went to the second story of the house. She’d always send me. Momma and Papa lived in a caravan. Papa moved us around, but we’d always end up back with Nanny every couple of months when a job ended, and the upstairs was never used unless I was staying there.”

  “How come?” He pulled a face. “I may have watched Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, so I know the brides don’t tend to stay close to their family and have to merge into their husband’s.”

  My eyes widened at that, then I burst out laughing at the prospect of him watching TLC on my behalf. He was definitely more of an ESPN kinda guy. “You watched that?”

  “For you? Sure. I want to understand.”

  I snorted. “Well, there isn’t that much to understand. I don’t live that way. If I did, we wouldn’t be talking. We wouldn’t be eating at the same table. I wouldn’t be drinking this coffee, and my leg wouldn’t be touching yours.” Nor would I feel that aforementioned whisper of his breath on my cheek.

  His eyes widened, and he quickly scrolled down the passage like he was hunting for reasons why. Luckily for him, I remembered this. Even luckier still, I was ignoring my heritage.

  “Men and women don’t usually mix, unless it’s family. Roma men and Gadže women can meet, that’s okay, but the opposite? Nope. I wouldn’t drink this coffee, because the cup is mahrime—it hasn’t been washed appropriately. I only do that at home though. And I wouldn’t be touching your leg because my legs are mahrime too. Everything below my waist is. I wouldn’t...” I pulled a face. “Infect you with that.”