“Fine, fine,” Karma said, putting her hands up in surrender. “Want me to tell you about my night?”
“Sure.” Anything to get off the subject of Major.
We made our smoothies and Karma told me about her night, and she left nothing out. Her mouth was just as dirty as any guy I ever knew. More than once I told her she could write erotica. We drank our smoothies and grabbed our swim bags. It was a nice walk over to the swim complex. We were probably among only a handful of students up at this hour on a Saturday morning.
I breathed in the scent of the pool and started to get pumped up. The water invigorated me. Karma and I went and changed then we were ready to start.
It always took me a few days to get used to a new coach, but I liked Coach Cross from our first meeting. There were eleven other women on the team and twenty on the men’s team. From what I could tell, sometimes we were going to practice together and it looked like today was one of those days.
I was stretching when Wes came over to me. I’d long since gotten used to guys looking at me in my swimsuit and was a pro at ignoring it. Wes watched me and I pretended he wasn’t there. For someone who was a competitive swimmer, it was kind of against the unwritten rules for guys to stare at the girls.
I finished my stretches and waited for Coach Cross to tell us what we were going to do today. I was anxious to get in the water. It had been over two weeks since I swam, and I was itching to get back at it. Luckily I didn’t have to wait long.
“Good morning everyone,” Coach said. “Today we’re going to do some time trials. We like to get a sense of where you are and how much you’ll improve. We’re going to start with the 100m freestyle. Line up as I call your name.”
I watched as my fellow swimmers were called. I was looking forward to seeing how fast we all were. Watching them line up got my adrenalin pumping. I loved this part, the anticipation of competing. Even though this wasn’t an official competition, I was competing against my teammates. The gun fired and the splashing started. Everyone was fast, but the guys had beat the girls in this case. My goal was to beat the guys.
My name was one of the next ones called. I ignored everything around me and focused solely on the lane in front of me. I got in my starting position and waited for the sound of the gun. The instant I heard it, I was off. It was only me and the water. Nothing else existed. I got to the end, executed a perfect turn, and headed back to the other end. I touched the wall and felt pleased with the result.
I looked at my time. It wasn’t the fastest I’d ever been, but it was good for me not having practiced in a while. As I got out of the pool I looked at the other times. I’d had the fastest of the women and I even beat a couple of the men. It was a good start to the year.
While the rest of my teammates did their first-time trials I had an opportunity to see Karma dive. She was on the 10m platform, which was her favorite. She did a few twists and a tuck and landed with a bit of a splash. It always amazed me when I saw her dive. I knew from watching her for years she wasn’t going to be very happy with that dive. But then again, like me, she hadn’t been practicing for the last two weeks.
After everyone swam the 100m freestyle, we did the same with the butterfly, breaststroke, and backstroke. I was happy with my times, but I knew there was room for improvement. Once we all had starting times for the four events, we broke into the men’s and women’s teams so our coaches could talk to us. We ended the practice with some lane swimming to start getting our stamina back up.
When practice was done, Karma and I went back to our dorm room and got ready for the rest of the day. Since we didn’t know how many free Saturday afternoons we were going to have, we put on our bikinis and headed back to the beach to get some sun.
“This is the best,” Karma said, as we laid on our towels.
“I agree. I wonder how long it’ll stay this nice.”
“I don’t know, but I’m hoping we can still do this in January,” Karma said.
We’d probably been lying in the sun for an hour, when I heard a voice I have become too familiar with.
“If you ladies aren’t careful you’ll get sunburned.”
I opened my eyes to see Major standing over me. He had his arm around his board and was openly staring at me. Since I figured it was a fair play, I stared back at him. He noticed and smirked at me.
“See something you like?” Major asked me.
“Nope,” I lied. He had a gorgeous body and he knew it.
He laughed and shook his head. “Well, see you around,” he said, and headed to the water.
It was only then that I noticed his friends with him. I had to stop letting him get to me. He was going to think I liked him, which I really didn’t.
“What was that?” Karma asked.
“What are you talking about?”
“You two were totally eye fucking each other.”
“We were not,” I argued. “He was checking me out so I did the same, you know, equal rights and all.”
Karma laughed. “The two of you are either going to end up hating each other, or you won’t be able to keep your hands off each other. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Whatever,” I muttered. I turned over and closed my eyes, wanting to get back in the lazy sun mode I’d been in before Major showed up.
A little while later, Karma was tapping me on the shoulder.
“What?” I mumbled.
“You’ve gotta see this.”
“See what?” I asked, still not turning over.
“Kayleigh, just sit up and you’ll see.”
“Fine,” I said and sat up. I looked in the direction Karma was looking, and saw what she was talking about. The boys on their surfboards.
We watched them for a while and I had to admit that it looked kind of fun. Growing up in Tulsa didn’t give us a lot of opportunities to learn how to surf.
“I think I’d like to try that,” I said to Karma, after watching for a few minutes.
“I know, me too. Do you think they’d teach us?”
“It doesn’t matter if they would, I’m not taking lessons from Major,” I said.
“I didn’t say anything about Major teaching you,” Karma said smiling. “For someone, you don’t like, you sure seem to have him stuck in your head.”
She was right and I hated that.
“Remember our deal?” she asked. “Give things a chance. When they walk back by here I’m going to ask them.”
I knew it was pointless to argue with her, so I went back to sunbathing.
I’m not sure how much time had passed when I heard their voices getting closer. I watched them give each other shit as they came closer.
“Did you enjoy the show?” Major asked, as he stopped in front of us
I was trying not to act like a bitch so I gave a little nod.
“Actually,” Karma said, getting his attention, “We were wondering if you boys could teach us how to surf?”
Major’s face lit up and I was wishing Karma could take her words back.
“We’d love to teach you ladies to surf. Be here at 1:00 pm tomorrow afternoon and be ready to get wet,” Major said with a wink, and I knew he wasn’t talking about the water.
Chapter 8