I finally make it to practice after all the chaos passes and all the craziness dies down, but by then, everyone's out of the pool and heading into the changing room to change, so I end up having to do laps by myself, which sucked big time.
"Nice one, Carter," one of my teammates mutters.
"Looks like you're not the golden boy anymore," another guy scoffs and pushes past me.
I head to the pool and jump in, hoping to channel some of my frustration for a couple of minutes. The water was ice cold and perfectly clear, unlike the rough murkiness of the ocean from this morning. So I splash around and do some freestyling for a while, focusing on speed and precision and...Fish?
I see him float past as I'm paddling face down in the water, and he does a little spin before turning to wave at me, as casual as walking by in the hallway. His blonde hair forms a swirl around his head. He's in this pair of tight swimming shorts, and he looks incredible.
Gasping, I break the surface and Fish pops up across from me, beaming the whole time.
"Hey! Why are you still here? " I demand, "Practice is over. Why don't you go home like everyone else? "
Fish looks around and then he shrugs a little, annoying me even more than I was already. This guy was persistent as hell. First, he took my crown, and now he wanted to bug me by showing off how fast he was in the water.
"You know what?" I snap, and I move to crawl out of the pool, "I'm going home! I'm sick of being in the water. "
I swing one leg over the edge of the pool, then the other, but before I can haul myself up, someone's tugging on my swim shorts. The next thing I know, my whole bathing suit is coming off and I'm launching forward, onto the concrete.
Fish starts to laugh from where he's still in the pool, and I turn in time to see him waving my shorts back and forth.
"Jackass!" I holler at him, and then I stand up in all my naked glory.
He stops laughing. His mouth snaps shut and his cheeks instantly flush bright red in response.
Oh.
I reach over and grab my shorts, snapping them out of his hand. "Jerk!" I mumble, my own face burning when I meet eyes with him again. But then, for some reason, neither of us moves from where we are. Fish stares up at me from the water, his fingers holding onto the edge of the pool, his head tilted upwards, crystal clear drops sliding down his face.
I lean forward slightly, and Fish tips towards me as if we were two magnets being pulled together. And even if I know it's crazy to want to kiss a stranger, my lips tingle at the prospect of kissing him.
I was that batshit insane.
Before our lips meet, Fish grabs my shoulder and pulls me into the water. The world fades away, the blue water turns to darkness. Then suddenly, I'm a kid again, standing on the beach.
My mother is far behind me in the distance, so it's just me and the ocean, or so I believe. The sun is high in the sky, and the wind keeps trying to sweep my straw hat off my head. And after a few unsuccessful tugs, it launches it right off my head and drags it across the beach.
I scream and laugh, then dash after it, chasing it down the beach until I spot a small figure in the distance. His hair is so blonde that it almost glows in the sunlight, and he has bits of glitter stuck to his bare shoulders, reflecting multiple colors when he turns to face me.
Oddly enough, he's also holding my hat, but I can't see his face because of the glare of the sun.
Maybe he liked it, the hat, I mean.
I reach into my pocket and pull out one of my old toys, a rubber pineapple, and hold it out to him. "It's a pineapple," I say, and my voice is small. "Trade?"
"Carter!" My mother yells at me from down the beach.
"I'm coming!" I yell back, but when I turn to look at the boy, he's gone, the water splashing as if something large had jumped in and vanished.
And I know it's Fish.
I just know it.
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