by Croix, Ada
“Me and Adam are in the second one that way.” Marc jerked a thumb to his left when he came out of the elevator, but his stride turned towards the right leg of the hall.
“We’re practically roommates.” Dumb, Allie berated herself the second the words spilled out of her mouth. She did her best to keep up with Marc as her roller bag bumped at her heels while she dragged it along the carpeting.
Marc turned some sliver of expression over his shoulder, but she couldn’t quite decipher it. “This is you.” He stopped in front of one of the doors.
Allie pulled up beside him, glancing back the way they had come. Marc would be living only half a hall away from her. Processing that, it took her a minute to remember that Everett had given her the key at the airport. She balanced her roller bag against the wall to dig her hand into her purse to find it.
Marc’s eyes were on her the whole time. It made her ridiculously nervous. She tried to force the key in the wrong way at first, and she only realized there was a deadbolt after turning the knob and trying to shove the door open with her shoulder to no effect. Her cheeks were hot by the time she finally let them through to step inside.
The apartment seemed newly remodeled and was tastefully furnished. It took her breath away. It was nicer than any place Allie had ever lived. Her bag’s little wheels clattered over the tile as she walked into the living room. She turned a slow circle to take in the gleaming counters of the kitchen, the small table set with a floral centerpiece, and the archway that led back to the doors of the bedrooms and bathroom.
“Is yours like this?” Allie wondered, her gaze lifting back up to Marc. He was watching her intently.
“Yeah, pretty much. There’s already shit all over. Adam’s messier than his sister.”
Allie flickered a smile and glanced back towards the rooms. “Do you know which one’s mine?” It seemed silly to think he would know, she realized after she’d asked. And yet …
“Kelsey took the one to the left.” Marc moved to walk past her and headed for the room on the right. “She works, so she’ll be back this evening.”
“Do you know her?” Surprise lilted into Allie’s voice as she followed him. She was more interested in witnessing the expression on his face than in studying her new bedroom.
Marc dropped her bag at the foot of the bed and turned to shrug at Allie. “She was on the women’s team in two thousand eight.” His eyes were lazily lidded. He shook his shirt straight from where carrying her bag had pulled it askew across the broad of his shoulders.
“She wasn’t … Did you two date?”
The edge of Marc’s mouth twisted up, but it wasn’t exactly a smile. “No, we did not.”
Allie was stuck searching Marc’s dark eyes. “Oh,” she said lamely after too long had passed. Clearing her throat, she edged sideways into the room and found the desk. She set down her purse and her backpack on its surface and left her roller bag standing.
A turn found Marc still watching her. She twisted her empty palms together and offered him a smile. “Thanks.” Her feet kind of wandered towards him on their own accord.
“Yeah.” Marc stayed planted where he was, looking down at her with that indecipherable intensity.
“I think my wardrobe is going to be all wrong.” His shirt still wasn’t quite even where its open edges framed the tanned-skin firmness of his chest and stomach. “Somehow I don’t think I’ll be needing my parka.”
When had Allie started to reach forward? She was a little horrified to realize she was tugging the fabric into neater alignment.
“We do get rain.” His hand lifted to catch at her right wrist.
Allie’s breath stopped. Her fingers froze tensely above his chest. He didn’t let go, and when she relaxed, the prints of her fingertips fell lightly over his heartbeat. Allie stared at her own hand, at the sight of her touching him. It took her a moment to look back up.
It took Marc a beat longer. When his gaze lifted, it paused before reaching her eyes. He looked at her mouth, and when he did, the edge of his tongue wetted the full of his lips.
A small noise caught in her throat. Allie felt her legs failing, her weight falling forward so that she balanced over his heart. “Marc …” She wanted to tell him how good it was to see him. How her reason for coming out here should have been that it was the best move for her career, but that it wasn’t the reason. She had come all this way because there was nothing in the world that she wanted more than to see him again, to touch him again.
His grip at her wrist tightened. Marc’s other hand closed over her shoulder. Even though he was restraining from full strength, Allie could better understand how easily he drowned the other guys on the team when they scrimmaged. But all he did to Allie was push her back to center over her own feet.
“I need to get my stuff together for practice.”
Allie blinked, swaying to catch her balance and silently berating herself. She should know, she did know, what was important to him. This must be an inconvenience, having to see her again. Especially when there were all those bikini-clad girls a few blocks away. Surely the last thing Marc wanted was some awkward girl dogging his heels and mooning over him. Allie snatched her hand back and employed it in neatening her hair over her ear. “Right. I’ll find the address and …” She twisted her back to him and looked back towards her bag. “I’ll, uhm. I’ll see you at the car in—”
“About half an hour.”
“Okay.” Allie closed her eyes deliberately to help keep herself together. “See you then.”
Holding her breath so that she didn’t do anything else stupid, Allie listened to Marc’s footfalls as he walked out of the apartment. It only felt a little safer once the front door whumped closed behind him. The faint sound of him walking along the hall may have only been in her imagination. She was just a few doors from … But no. She was here to do a job, and Allie wasn’t going ruin it by indulging the wild notions of her heart. She’d managed to stay professional in Colorado. She could do it here, too.
In the quiet, alone, Allie could just hear the sound of the ocean through the cracked-open window. A seagull cried lazily on the breeze. She opened her eyes and looked out to where clear blue sky was bright overhead. She took a deep breath and inhaled the lingering scent of the sun-kissed and sand-speckled man who had been in her bedroom.
She could do this. Sure.
14
Allie set her alarm so that she could be back down to the garage early. She wanted to familiarize herself with the car before the guys showed up to get their lift to afternoon practice. Adam was one of the three in the building who’d already been living in the area, so he hopped up front to help Allie in addition to the car’s navigation system. The usefulness of his input was questionable in threading through the afternoon traffic. Allie hadn’t ever heard anyone argue with a robot with quite so much enthusiasm before.
The older guys mostly seemed content to catch a nap in the back. All of them except Marc, whom Allie periodically caught looking at her when she checked her mirror. By the time she pulled into the parking lot her skin was tingling from the sense of being watched. At least Everett’s convertible provided a familiar reference point for her to focus on as she pulled into an adjacent stall. Right behind her arrived a fancy sports car marked by a badge Allie didn’t recognize and driven by a blond she did.
“She’s arrived,” Blake grinned at her while they were all slipping out of their vehicles. He was distracted shortly thereafter. When Marc opened the team car’s door it came millimeters from scratching the paint of Blake’s ride.
Allie put on a smile and tried not to make too much of the way the two guys bristled at each other. “Just this afternoon,” she said lightly, hurrying everyone out with their bags so she could click on the alarm. Shouldering her purse, she followed the pack of water polo players into the facility. Marc’s longer strides had put distance between them so that he was lost to a far corner of the pool deck before she even made it into the front entry hall.<
br />
“Allie?” The familiar voice of the team’s physical trainer distracted Allie before her dwelling could ruin her mood too much.
“Hi Lindsey.” Allie didn’t have to fake her smile for the older woman. She let her path diverge from the guys’ to head over to where the PT leaned out of an office doorway.
“Everett said your journey went smoothly? I’m so glad to have you here.” Lindsey’s smile crinkled at the edges of her eyes. “And not just because you’re an extra pair of hands, though it might be hard to tell because I have loads of work to pile on you straight away.”
Lindsey wasn’t kidding. There was a whole host of information for Allie. They were in the process of transferring a lot of files from the national water polo organization’s office. She would be a part of the staffing team in charge of managing the paperwork specific to the guys’ summer games bid. One of Allie’s tasks would be keeping the records for the athletes’ compliance with the international anti-doping standards, which was both a flattering vote of confidence and a daunting responsibility.
On top of that, she would be assisting Lindsey with the day to day oversight of the team’s training and recovery programs. It was work that the sports medicine clinic had well prepared her for. Likewise, coordinating appointments with outside specialists such as the nutritionists and sports psychologists was solidly in her skill set. There was just so much to do, and it all was in addition to her contributions to the research project which Doctor Kaitech had specifically sent her to California to continue.
By the time the guys were done with their afternoon pool workout, Allie felt like she’d had an equivalent mental workout trying to come up to speed with all her duties. The drive back to the house was quiet, and even Adam did not do much more than rock his head along with the playlist he linked into the car’s stereo system.
“Hi guys!” Troy’s girlfriend was waiting in the lobby of the apartment building to greet them when they arrived home. She was the kind of girl who could make lounge wear look good. All she had on was a skimpy tank top and drawstring pants with her business school’s letters stamped across her top-tier ass. “How was practice, honey?”
Allie felt too conscious of Marc at her elbow when the couple wrapped around each other and kissed.
“Just please don’t tell me how many more days of this we have,” Adam groaned. “Is there any food?”
“Meal delivery just came through about fifteen minutes ago,” Troy’s girlfriend answered. “I showed them in. Everything should still be warm.”
Adam dove into the elevator and smacked the button for their floor so fast that the door almost closed on the rest of them. He wedged impatiently into the corner as the rest of the group smashed in.
Unselfconscious of the crowd, Troy’s girlfriend ruffled his still-damp hair while he held her close around her waist. “I remember when you used to be like that.”
“What are you talking about, I’m still like that,” Troy murmured against her skin. She squealed as he took a bite of her neck, catching her arms around him as they swayed from the elevator stopping at their floor.
Allie ducked her eyes away as she felt a blush picking over her cheeks, but it only got worse when she noticed Marc watching her from the corner of her eye.
There was absolutely no chance of ‘ladies first’ when the doors opened. “These guys have no manners,” the other woman sighed, setting her hands on her hips as Troy left her to rush to dinner with the rest of his teammates.
“Priorities,” Marc said lazily as he, too, beat them into the hall.
Troy’s girlfriend rolled her eyes and flattened a palm over the door’s sensor to keep it open for Allie. She held out her other hand in belated greeting. “I’m Candace by the way.” She might have been a bottle blonde, but there was nothing fake about her smile. “Or Candi. That’s what you’ll hear them call me.” She shrugged a suntanned shoulder. “I’m trying to shake the nickname for business school, but there’s little chance of it around this lot.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Candace,” Allie made a point of saying as she grinned back. “I’m Allie. Are you going to business school now? I hope to apply to graduate programs and start next year.”
“Oh, that’s right, I heard you’re looking at med school. That’s awesome.” Candace touched at her elbow with companionable warmth. “I’m in my second term. We should share study spots. Troy and I lived closer to campus when we were in undergrad, so I’m still finding good spots around here.”
“That would be great. I have the MCAT to prep for.”
“I’ll point some out this weekend,” Candace decided with a beaming smile. “Now I should go make sure Troy is chewing his food. He comes home from practice and, I swear, is all reptile brain.”
Allie hoped her laugh didn’t sound forced. She tried to avoid thinking too much about water polo players’ appetites and priorities.
As it was, everything went out of her head as soon as Allie got to her apartment and opened the door. “Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!”
“Mmph. Is that Allie?”
“Yes?” Allie peeked cautiously through the fingers she’d flung up in front of her face.
“Roomie! I’m glad you’re finally here, come in, come in.”
Allie lowered her hands to see the older girl beckoning her in with the spoon she had been using to eat a cup of yogurt. It wasn’t her new roommate’s dietary choice that had alarmed her, but rather her state of undress. “I’m just getting ready to go out,” Kelsey explained. It did kind of explain the lacy red lingerie.
“Oh … that’s … I just got in today,” Allie stammered uselessly while she tried to figure out where to set her focus. It seemed rude to look away into the empty safety of the living room, but when she turned back to offer a smile there was so much cleavage in view.
“Yeah, my little brother texted me.” Adam’s sister breezed around the end of the kitchen counter as if she were used to welcoming people in her underwear. Maybe she was. Allie remembered how Marc said Kelsey had been on the women’s water polo team and wondered if the girls changed from their suits in their towels like the boys. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. I’ve heard such good things.”
“Have you?” Allie got a funny smile trying to imagine what Adam’s description of her would be like.
“Are you surprised?” Kelsey grinned and took up a perch on the back of the couch. “Anyway, it wasn’t just my brother. I know as well as anyone he’s prone to …” She waved her spoon in a gesture of extravagance before scooping up another bite.
Allie nearly had time to ask if that meant Marc had said anything about her, but she kept the question bitten to silence on her tongue.
“I know Austin pretty well. The goalie? We were on our university’s squads at the same time and then on the national teams. He vouched for you too. Said you don’t seem crazy.”
“That’s … nice.” Allie still was a bit stilted, but she was finding her good-humored smile again. Being more relaxed meant her curiosity almost escaped. “Were you …” She wanted to know if Kelsey knew anything more about Marc. She didn’t know Austin well, but Allie did remember he was an alumnus from the same university as both Adam and her study subject. But it wouldn’t do to seem so desperate to know about him. After a fish-mouthed moment, she found something else to ask. “Happy? To have your little brother follow to your same school?”
“I guess it was fine.” Kelsey didn’t seem to notice the awkward pause. “Maybe I would have been less thrilled if we were on campus at the same time, but I was out of state by the time he started. It saved mom and dad from having to get another ‘proud parent of’ sticker for their car.” She winked while her spoon scraped the bottom of her yogurt cup.
“I should finish getting ready,” Kelsey said with a small sigh as she hopped back to her feet. “Shouldn’t be late for the blind date my coworker set up for me.” Despite the red lace, there was skepticism in the wrinkle of her nose. “Anyway, you’re probably jet lagge
d. But we should do drinks sometime. Girls’ night.”
“Yeah, I’m about to drop. But I’d like that.” Allie stretched a wide smile. “I’m going to need an escape from all this testosterone or I’m sure to go crazy.”
15
Allie barely got her feet under her before the team cranked up to full-time training. That meant the guys were under the direct watch of their coaches six days a week. They had two pool practices a day plus dryland workouts which included cardio and weights and whatever new teambuilding activity the coaches could dream up to throw at them. She was in the thick of it. After driving about half the team from the apartment building to the pool every morning, Allie would spend the majority of her day at Lindsey’s elbow.
Speedos swiftly became less of a shock and she started to recognize the team just as well in those ear-cupped caps as without them. Amongst the guys outside her carpool, she knew Blake and Ivan best. There were two more teammates from Northern California living with them at Blake’s apparently amazing beach house. The team’s youngest player was living with his parents south of the facility, and then there were the other senior veterans: Kelsey’s friend Austin, the team’s captain Chad, and the oldest teammate Vince. The three of them had been to multiple summer games like Marc, but unlike him they all had families who were living with them in houses close to the aquatic center.
Overall, it was a good group of people to work with. The head coach terrified Allie, but perhaps that was needed to keep so much over-revved aggression and energy in line. Even Everett could be scary when he boomed his instruction at the group of guys. There was a lot on the line. Not only were they preparing for the big event in August, but a number of international tournaments would occur in the months before. However, the one looming largest on their schedule was the qualifying tournament at the start of April that would be their last chance to earn a spot at the summer games.