by Croix, Ada
Everyone was so busy and applied to their work, pushing so hard, that it wasn’t difficult to stay on task. In the dim of dawn Allie would see Marc in his warmup gear while everyone trundled blearily down the elevator and into the car. She’d get the engine going and navigate the quickly-familiar streets while the guys woke each other up with jostling shoulders and friendly insults and gnawed on energy bars for breakfast.
Towards the end of that first full week, Allie caught up enough with the tasks from Lindsey and Everett that she had time to go outside to the bleachers and watch the end of afternoon practice. Maybe the spectacle became more familiar, but that didn’t mean Allie failed to appreciate it. She found it impossible to develop immunity to so much water-slick muscle gleaming in the Southern California sun. With her new Hollywood-ridiculous sunglasses worn against the glare, Allie hoped her particular obsession wasn’t obvious. Maybe her fixation was only natural. Marc was a dominant presence in the pool, no question.
Oh sure, Austin the veteran goalie called out impressive orchestration from inside the cage, as she now knew they called it. Chad and Blake would both rise towering out of the pool and send the ball screaming into the goal with force that would have been impressive even if their feet were on the ground. It was all the more amazing when one remembered they were half-occupied by a fight to tread water. But Marc seemed all that and more, ever in the middle of the most aggressive plays, and she couldn’t keep her eyes off him.
He looked huge, even in the water. It didn’t stop him from being fast, since Marc was one of the quickest swimmers when it came to sprinting up and down the pool length. They were all world class, but Marc usually looked like he was getting the upper hand. Allie couldn’t know if it was the nature of the position he played, or just the nature of how the other guys saw him. The big dog to be taken on to prove themselves. They’d roll and thrash in a whitewater of pitching shoulders and jamming elbows and time and time again it’d be Marc controlling the ball above the fray, skipping it into a net-caught shot or arrowing a tightly aimed pass to one of his teammates. The power on display would leave her breathless.
After the team pulled themselves free from the water’s greedy suck, Allie would see the after-effects of their scrimmaging while she worked beside Lindsey. As a group, the water polo players seemed largely oblivious to the patterns of violence which marred their skin. Stray scratches left red streaks dubiously close to the hems of their suits. They often had welts on their shins and along their arms from the contesting collisions.
On the second day Adam jammed his finger. It must have been an hour of evaluation and icing and tape. Through it all, Adam was begging to get back in the pool. Another day Ivan only reluctantly let himself be dragged out onto the deck when he couldn’t catch his breath. Lindsey had to palpate his ribs beneath the knee mark they found to be sure that nothing was broken.
Luckily Allie’s time at the training center’s clinic provided excellent preparation. When the PT needed to devote herself to the more acute cases, Allie could take on oversight of the general recovery sessions. Lindsey also complimented her judgment on which things were small enough to deal with alone and when it was best to ask for help. It wasn’t always easy for Allie to make the call, especially when the guys were reluctant to show weakness. They knew that the qualification was on the line for the team and, to some extent, for themselves. The final roster for the summer games wouldn’t be decided until after the qualifying trials.
“Belmont, we need to talk. When you’re done.” The head coach was short if not particularly sweet as he leaned in the doorway of the room Allie had waved Marc into.
“Yeah,” Marc mumbled as he got himself lowered into the chair. His skin was still damp from the pool, his wet hair dripping runnels down his neck which made the black licks of his tattoo glisten.
Allie fussed with her kit and tried to focus on her work instead of worrying about Marc. The expansion of Doctor Kaitech’s study was to be done in a somewhat abbreviated form, given that the aquatic center didn’t have quick access to the same facilities as the Colorado training center. She was to do the field tests weekly instead of every other day. Marc would then go to one of the nearby universities for his final collection of a full sample set. They would schedule his appointment about two weeks before the qualifying game so as to avoid any affect of the procedures on his performance for his team.
“I bet it was kinda nice to get into the water today, after all that time on the sand.” Earlier she had picked them up from the beach after they’d spent a few hours running a team-building training course by the shoreline.
Marc just grunted, hardly looking at her. He went through the motions of their previously established choreography as if the last time they’d done it was just yesterday. It was difficult to tell if he were any more distant than he’d been when she first met him, since he had always been so aloof. Allie knew that the strain of training affected the team mentally as well as physically, though the latter’s signs were more uniform and easy to see. Sometimes the psychological cracks showed, though, like Adam being even more wild and over the top with his stories and musical performances. Maybe for Marc it was the opposite—he was walling himself further into isolation.
It was the kind of thing his coach might be displeased with, especially after a teambuilding exercise. She thought about their conversations in Colorado and how he’d seemed concerned for his place on the team. Glancing to be sure no one was in the door, Allie swayed closer as she held his wrist. She let her grip linger against his skin while she reached over to her tablet to tap in the number. “I could take the other guys back first,” she offered nonchalantly. “If you don’t want us to be waiting at the door for your meeting to end.”
That got Marc to look at her. Those intense eyes searched hers and Allie couldn’t guess what they found.
Perhaps it’d been the wrong thing to suggest. She’d thought it might be preferable to have his teammates unaware of precisely how long he was getting yelled at. Maybe it’d just make him feel more alone, to have them go. Her words carried on without her. “Or I could wait.”
His hand twisted in hers, his palm closing about her wrist. She didn’t know if he was pulling or if she was just drawn to him. The part of her that so reliably remembered every number she needed to record was thinking that her own pulse must have risen significantly over standard baseline.
Another voice echoed from a frozen night and kept her riveted to him: What do you want, Allie?
“You shouldn’t wait for me.” Marc’s gaze flicked towards the door, breaking the spell. “I’ll see if I can get a ride back from Everett.”
Allie swallowed. It took her a moment to speak. “Okay.”
Allie walked out to the car with the rest of the guys trailing her, a mama duck with the burliest flock of ducklings. Adam was going on and on excitedly about something to one of the other players, but she was too preoccupied worrying about why the coach might want to talk to Marc to pay attention.
Blake was hanging out next to some oddly boxy Mercedes that his driver was using to pick up him and the three other guys staying at his house. They seemed to still be waiting on one of the NorCal guys to come out from the locker room. Blake looked over from his conversation with Ivan as Allie rounded the nose of her car. “Maybe Allie would like to come. You’re not spoken for, are you, Allie?”
Allie stopped in front of her headlight like the proverbial deer and stared back at Blake. She felt like Marc’s fingerprints were still on her wrist. “What?” was all that she could blurt out.
“A lady’s entitled to her secrets.” Ivan smirked from beyond his housemate’s shoulder.
“I don’t have secrets,” Allie proclaimed, perhaps a bit weakly. She was trying to go for prim. She got her nose up and resumed her path to her door.
“Oh, yeah!” Adam had come around from the other way. “You should come hang out with us, Allie. Can’t work all the time. We have to give the married guys something to be je
alous of.”
“Where am I going?” Allie blinked in confusion.
“The un-Valentine’s Day party. At my place,” Blake said like it was no big deal. His place, on the ocean, with the hot tub and pool table and three balconies. That she’d yet to see. His bachelor pad. She felt her stomach go funny. She’d already been trapped by Blake once.
“Just me and all of you?” Her skepticism was surely palpable.
Blake slid his smile a little wider, not taking his eyes off her.
Adam gave the actual answer. “Oh, the women’s team is coming too. You know, most of the team, not the ones shacked up or whatever. They’re kinda crazy, but it’ll be awesome.”
“Oh.” Allie felt a little stupid for making a fuss. “Yeah, sounds great.”
16
“So do you know Blake very well?”
Allie walked with Adam from their building to Blake’s house as the sun sank low in front of them. They planned to meet Kelsey there since she’d left earlier to meet up with some of her old teammates. It was a bit of a hike, but a few blocks took them down to the street along the ocean and the evening was beautiful. They weren’t the only ones out. Allie marveled at some of the bare lengths of leg that she saw, prancing in high heels. It wasn’t anything like Colorado’s winter, but as the night cooled she wasn’t sure she’d want to be in a short skirt.
Instead she was comfortable in her stretch jeans and sandals. Kelsey had pouted at her when she found out what Allie was intending to wear, but it wasn’t like Adam was dressed up. He just had on jeans and a button shirt and his favorite flip flops on his feet.
“Not super well,” Adam shrugged careless in answer. “We’ve been at rival schools, you know? And there are a bunch of guys from that team on the national squad right now so they kind of stick together. But yeah, I guess we’ve been playing on the national team almost a year now, off and on. He’s all right. Kind of stuck up. But his family is fucking loaded, so.” Another shrug marked that as the way of the world.
“This is pretty insane, that he lives on the beach.” The houses didn’t look like that much from the inland side, but every car Allie spotted seemed to have some luxury badge on it, if she recognized the badge at all. A rearing horse, a trident, and plenty of the circles of Mercedes and BMW. “And that he just found it last minute.”
“I dunno, his family might have owned it, or one of their companies. Or maybe they did just buy it. I think Blake’s pretty used to getting what he wants.”
That made Allie color, though she didn’t comment. Luckily, Adam didn’t seem to be paying attention to the hue of her cheeks. “Do you know who all will be there from the women’s team?” she tried to change the subject.
“Uh, I think Meera and Kim for sure.” Adam scratched his fingers through his hair and scrunched up his face while he thought about it. “Ivy is from my school, so I think Blake was letting her invite some of the girls down from our squad. Katie was texting me earlier, actually, so some of the college girls will probably be there.”
“Oh. I thought it was going to be more of a guy’s event, with the whole steak and a … blow job. Thing.” Allie stammered through the Valentine’s theme alternative.
“You haven’t spent a lot of time around water polo girls, have you?”
“Not really?” Allie answered weakly as she looked up the street. They were getting closer to the address, and despite the clever construction of the houses to keep interior noise from the street, Allie thought she could hear the faint thump of music. There was definitely a crowing of female voices.
“Oh yeah, that’s Katie,” Adam said with a huff of breath.
“This’ll be nice for you.” Allie lifted a smile to him. She curved her step to jostle at his shoulder. “Seeing some of the crew from the home turf.” She was trying not to focus on her own nervousness over meeting new people. And over entering Blake’s mammoth house. It towered over the street and was guarded by a fancy gate.
“Yeah, it’s just Austin and Marc from my school on our team, and you know those guys …” Adam was already focused on getting the gate open.
“Oh, that’s right. It’s hard to think of Marc as a college player.” Allie tried not to be too obvious as she crossed beneath Adam’s arm to head in.
“Yeah, way before my time. I thought maybe he’d have come, but I guess Natalie might be here.” He sounded a little bummed out, but it only lasted a moment as screams of—Adam! Get your scrawny ass in here!—started to echo from the open door.
“He doesn’t seem very social,” Allie observed as if offhand, trying to prompt for more.
“Which is crazy, because … whoa, is that Brittany?”
Allie hung on his words, but he never finished the thought. Adam was already sucked into the whirlwind of girls who had clad themselves with little regard for the swimsuit tans they all seemed to be sporting.
Thankfully her roommate was amongst them. Kelsey grabbed her wrist and dragged her along. “This is Allie,” she introduced her to the assembled girls. “She’s working with Lindsey and putting up with the guys every day and she drives them around, so you should be nice to her.”
“Hi Allie!”
“Did the other guys not come with you?”
“Ivy, you know Troy hooked up with that chick from his business classes.”
“Oh yeah, what’s her face. Isn’t she in New York?”
“No, that’s Blake’s ex.”
“Wait, they broke up?”
“I don’t know, you know how he is. Ask him and see if he says yes by dragging you into a closet.”
It was impossible to keep up with the quick-fire conversation. Allie’s eyes must have reached critical wideness since Kelsey roped her in with a hook of elbows.
“What about Marc?” someone was asking, and Allie would have liked to listen, but she found herself being dragged farther into the house.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Kelsey said as she led the way towards what looked to be the kitchen.
“And name tags,” Allie answered by way of sheepish agreement.
“Don’t worry about it. No one will expect you to remember.” Kelsey left Allie by the counter and started rummaging through cupboards and the refrigerator. “So I’m hearing you’ve been doing your research project with Marc? How has that been going?”
“It’s … fine?” Allie stopped rubbernecking at the fashionably decorated home and stared at Kelsey’s back.
“He hasn’t been trying to get in your pants, has he? Or is he seeing someone? They were saying he was seeing some countess or something in Europe.” Kelsey snorted. “Or was being kept by.”
“Really?” A countess. Allie was having trouble imagining such a thing. “I mean, no. And not … not that I know about.”
“Huh.” Kelsey thunked a cup down on the counter. “Blake,” she hollered over the top of Allie’s head. “Where’s the liquor?”
“Hold your panties.” Blake ambled shirtless through the living room with an emptied platter in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.
Allie noticed the ground-level patio from which he came. Out there a number of guys from the team lounged in chairs where they could watch the traffic on the beach.
“Ivan ran out to pick up some Bailey’s with Meera because she forgot it.” There was something predatory about Blake’s gaze even though he continued casually past her to get at the fridge for another container full of marinating meat. “The blow job will have to wait. Hey, Allie.”
“Hey.” Allie found herself watching the easy slip of his muscles beneath his bare skin while he opened the refrigerator door. She’d seen those muscles work in the pool, she’d had her hands on them professionally, but witnessing them close up in a domestic setting seemed too intimate.
“The wet bar should be stocked with the standards.” Blake pointed out the glass-shelved alcove as he moved around the kitchen. “Knock yourselves out.”
“Great.” Kelsey grabbed her again, like she’d no
minated Allie to be her accessory for the evening. “What do you like, Allie? Tequila? Vodka?”
“I don’t really drink that much.” Allie was getting the sense that her protests were futile. “Vodka?”
“Vodka,” Kelsey repeated like it was a challenge. “Shit …” she breathed once she squatted down in front of the wet bar’s fridge and swung the door open. “Blake, are you sponsored by Coke?”
Blake laughed from the kitchen. “Whyever do you ask?” The fridge was lined with bottles of the company’s products.
“His dad is probably on the fucking board,” Kelsey muttered. She reached in and grabbed two bottles. “How about a rum and Coke?”
Allie only paused a moment before returning the other girl’s grin. “Why not.”
After Kelsey poured their drinks she insisted on taking a tour of the house. They left the thumping stereo and the kick-back grill party downstairs and wandered their way up to the other floors. Booze wasn’t the only thing with which Kelsey was liberal. She opened doors like she owned the place. They found a small weight room and a locked bathroom. Two of the guys from the team waved at them from the far side of a pool table on the second floor.
The roommates got less of a welcome when they walked in on one of the NorCal guys chatting up one of the girls in his room. “Don’t forget to put a hat on it, kids,” Kelsey yelled as she shut the door again.
“I can’t believe you said that,” Allie giggled. Her rum with a splash of Coke was quickly going to her head.
Kelsey winked at her and took her hand to lead up one more flight. “We’ll have to see who ends up in Ivan’s room tonight. He has a girlfriend back in France, but I swear he’s training to take the Hat Trick title from Marc this year.” She rolled her eyes and gulped her drink.