Between Heats (Downtown Aquatics Book 1) (13 page)

"You've done the work, Aaron," Coach Didion
reminded him. "From here on out, it's all mental. Good job."

"Thanks, Coach," Aaron said, right before a camera
flashed in front of him and local reporters pulled him away for interviews.
Coach Didion just laughed and turned to his own set of reporters. The Colorado
leg of the Splash Circuit Nationals had just ended, with Aaron taking first in
the 50-m and second in the 100-m. The whole team had done really well so far,
their best showing in seven years.

He supposed he had Madison to thank for it. Without the
distraction, he could only concentrate.
One stroke at a time.
One heat at a time.
One event at a
time.
He even managed to beat his personal best. It hadn’t been the case
back at Irvine when he almost missed out finishing, but he was grateful that
Coach Didion didn’t go into a lecture about personal stuff getting in the way
of the performance like he had expected. It was like Coach knew he needed his
space. He repaid his coach by showing up at every practice ready to swim.

But that didn’t mean he didn’t think of her outside of the
pool. He felt his heart had been yanked out. He saw her in every street corner.
He smelled her on his sheets, in his shower. He liked his routine and his
routine had included her. She was as essential to him as training, as
conditioning, as water. There was even one weekend when he hadn’t felt like
sleeping at his apartment and headed back home. His dad was surprised he had
shown up. Aaron hadn’t felt like talking but when he told him that he and
Madison had split, his dad had told him to take it easy. It was the first time
he had said those words in years.

Madison had tried calling immediately after the Irvine meet.
She left him so many messages, at first wanting to ask if they could meet, then
later on resorting to drunk-dialed messages and apologetic texts. With all the
training and the bitter Irvine incident still hounding him, Aaron avoided
answering any of them. Eventually, they had tapered off, making him think that
she had given up.

There were so many damn times that he had wanted to pick up the
phone and ask her what had gone wrong between them. Why he wasn’t what she
wanted. When his anger had abated, his pride was left in its stead. It took him
a while before he could mold it into something he could use. The renewed
training resolve did wonders for his swim times but did nothing for the
emptiness in his life.

He loved
Madison, that
much was true.
Still did. He shouldn’t have let her go without a fight. On nights when he
would torture himself, he replayed their last argument over and over again. He
had so many what ifs. What if he hadn’t lost his
temper.
What if he had let her
go.
What if he could fix things
with her first before he
swam.
What if he could give
this all
up…
But none of that mattered now. After this
meet was over, Aaron knew that he still had a long way to go before he could
win her back.

“Good portfolio,” murmured the designer Stephanie Lee,
flipping through her book. Though the woman’s expression didn’t change, Madison
was thrilled by her words.

They were seated at Lee and Leigh, a young fashion house,
discussing what could be another project. “Thank you,” Madison replied
sincerely.

“We’re looking for a different kind of model for our spring and
summer
lookbook
. When we set out a call, we weren’t sure
what we would get. But with your body of work and your recent work with Stroke
Swimwear, I can tell that you’re a great fit. According to your agent, you’re
fine with doing underwater shoots?” Stephanie asked.

This time, Madison confidently said, “Yes.”

It wasn’t a lie. She had begun swimming every weekend. At first
she thought it was a way to stay connected to Aaron, but the truth was she
couldn’t even bring herself to visit the aquatic center downtown. She drove to
Irvine instead and found a weird sense of peace here where her relationship
fell apart. But she had to remind herself that she wasn’t training for
anything; she couldn’t afford developing new muscles. She just let herself
swim. There was something so relaxing and therapeutic about it. Maybe she
didn’t love it quite the same way that Aaron did, but it had become an
important part of her routine and it looked like it was going to come in handy.

Twenty minutes later, Madison was walking out with another
contract. Her career was really picking up. She felt more confident about
herself and her abilities now. Sean was just an ugly memory. She knew that each
job she booked, she got because of her hard work and not for any other reason.
She couldn’t wait to tell someone.

She already had her phone out, but as her thumb moved on
auto-pilot
, she realized that she was about to click on
Aaron’s name.

Her heart felt heavy in her chest. Even with everything
happening around her, something was still missing. It was still hard to not
have him around to share in her good news. Sure, she had Mac and Elliott, but
not even their best efforts could help fill the ache that Aaron’s absence had
left.

Was she contented to just leave the way things were now? She
wanted him back. She wanted to at least talk to him face to face, and tell him
all the words she wanted to say. All the things she wanted to apologize for.
And even if—worst-case scenario—he wouldn’t take her back, at least
she knew she tried to win him back. At least
he
would know she tried. And maybe then she would have a sense of
closure. Certainty.

Madison had stopped trying to call him
too much
, since he wouldn’t pick up or answer anyway. She was only
half-kidding about that restraining order. In the end, she called Zoe instead.
It had been almost a month since the Splash meet, when they had last spoken to
each other.

Zoe’s voice sounded thrilled when she answered the phone, and
their greetings felt like there was no gap in their conversations. But it soon
turned awkward when the younger girl asked about her and if she’d seen Aaron.
Madison told her.

Zoe was confused about what went wrong between them. “Aaron
doesn’t talk about it.”

Madison ventured to ask if he was still in Colorado right now.

“Oh! You still follow the news?”
Zoe asked,
sounding pleasantly surprised.

“I know where he’ll be next, but I don’t know his schedule
anymore...”

“He’ll be in Baltimore,” Zoe was all too quick to reply. “He’s
swimming the 100-m tomorrow. Madison—” her voice hedged, as if
considering something. “He’s hurting. He’s hurting and he’s trying not to show
it but I think he needs you.”

At those words Madison almost felt hopeful. Could there really
be a chance then? But she didn’t want to cling onto those words alone. She
still had a lot to prove to him and she knew she had to do it in person. “Thank
you, Zoe,” she said truthfully.

Now at least, she knew what she had to do.

Madison had never been to the East Coast before, but there
wasn’t any time to act the wide-eyed tourist. With Elliott’s blessing, she flew
to DC and took a shuttle to Baltimore. From the downtown area, she hopped on a
cab to the sports center. The Splash Circuit Nationals were a bigger deal here
than they were back home, but whether it was because of their popular
hometown swimming
heroes or because the Splash Circuit
Nationals were coming to an exciting finale here, she wasn’t sure. But when
Madison stepped off the cab and saw the sizable crowd, she felt irrationally
happy that there were more spectators this time.

It was the final day of the Baltimore leg, and the sports
center was charged with energy, even at nine in the morning. Already, the VIP
section was filled with client-types from the meet’s various sponsors. She even
caught sight of Frank but he was talking to someone else so he didn’t see her
sneak by. Madison would have wanted to say hi to Aaron’s dad, but maybe this
wasn’t the best time. Instead, she made a beeline for a seat at the very top of
the bleachers, grateful for sun protection courtesy of the generous coating of
sunblock she had put on and the bill of her much-treasured Harding cap.

If Madison had been anxious for Aaron during the Irvine leg,
this time she was anxious for herself. She didn’t know what would happen when
they met. She knew that she wanted to talk to him and apologize for what had
happened between them, but she didn’t know if she’d even get the chance. She
didn’t want to make him lose his focus, especially not now. Maybe it was going
to be enough to just be here without him knowing that she had come. But she
also knew that if she gave up without talking to him, then it would be so much
harder to convince him to give her another chance.

She bided her time through the early heats, mentally willing
the day to go faster. Then all of a sudden, it was his heat.

The Aaron Harding who came up to the deck was not her sweet and
dirty-talking hotshot. His eyes were sharp squints as they survey the pool. His
movements were brief and precise: the acknowledging
arm
once his name was called, the minimal jerk of his head. He was a stranger to
her. What she wouldn’t give to have him smile again, if not for her then at
least for the crowd.

Then unexpectedly, he scanned the bleachers and their eyes met.

She felt a sharp ache in every part of her that missed him. She
stared back at
him,
unable to look away, unable to
pull the cap down to hide her face. Aaron didn’t look like he had recognized
her in the distance. He put his goggles on without even the slightest flicker
of acknowledgment. Madison felt the ache even more keenly now but she had come
this far. She watched him step on the block and get in position, and as he
gathered himself to swim, so too did she stand to watch him.

Go, hotshot.

The swimmers shot off at the signal. Madison had seen Aaron
race before, at the Irvine meet and on dozens of YouTube videos that she
thought could help get him out of her system, but seeing him still took her
breath away. His strong strokes were unmatched; his
familiar
form
a sight to behold.
 

Madison’s fingernails dug deeper and deeper into her palms as
the race progressed. Aaron was first at the turn, but he wasn’t about to rest.
He dug in deep and sprinted himself to a convincing victory, extending his arms
during the last ten meters. The cheers of an enthusiastic crowd—and one
teary-eyed ex-girlfriend—greeted him as he touched the wall.
 

Madison fell to her seat, exhausted.
 
More than the race, she was shaken by
their earlier encounter, of seeing him and his blank face. He was so different
from the man that she had come to know. He reminded her of Dr. Jekyll and
Merman Hyde but that was so long ago, when they were still strangers. It hurt
that that’s what they were to each other now because of her.

She drew her knees up against her seat and buried her head
there. Eventually she raised her head to watch heat after heat, but her heart
was no longer in it, her eyes just focused on the strip of water.

Then she heard a voice. “You came.”

She was the last person he expected to see there. There was
no mistaking her tall and trim figure. Damn woman didn’t know it, but there was
something in the graceful way she held herself that made Aaron pick her out in
a crowd and made his senses go wild. She was seated, she had a cap over her
head, but he could still tell that it was
her
in a
split second.

He tried to school his features into a blank mask as he took
deep breaths. When he had swum the 50-m finals at Irvine, he had let thoughts
of her inside his head and he had lost. There were no two ways about it; he
could only blame himself. But what had left him with so much doubt and
hesitation last time now only steeled his spine.
 

Aaron had never wanted to win as badly as he wanted to do now.
Not the Olympics, not some international competition, but here in this
Baltimore pool for a preliminary heat. He felt as if he were back in guppy
meet, eager for his dad’s praise, or strutting down the cafeteria with sweaty
palms, hoping his seventh-grade crush took notice. Aaron hadn’t expected
Madison to be there but damn, she was going to see him win nevertheless. It was
childish. It was arrogant. It was everything he was trained
not
to do. It was pure alpha pride.

“Good luck,” Parker, who was swimming in the same heat, called
out as they climbed their blocks.

He took his starting position and his muscles tensed. There was
nothing else to think about. His body reacted to the beep, propelling him
through the air and into the water. He let his training take over. There were
so many things to remember about his body position but they already came so
naturally to him at this point. Back flat. Stomach tucked. Toes pointed. He
glided through the push-off and executed one powerful stroke after another.
Elbows high. Fingertips down.

Aaron had no time to think. It all came naturally, the way his
muscles remembered what to do. He kept himself streamlined. Every movement was
perfectly timed, every catch and pull,
every hand
acceleration
, every hip rotation, every efficient stroke. All those
drills had paid off.

Breathe.
As one arm
stretched forward and the other pushed the water back, Aaron let his head roll
to one side in sync with his body. He moved his head just high enough for his
mouth to clear the water and take a breath. He rotated again to let his head
re-enter the water and exhaled through his nose.