While the guys are still running laps, I slip into their locker room and tape a folded-up note on the front of Wesley’s locker, which asks him to meet me at the pool. I don’t sign it, just in case my dad sees it. Then I head to the pool at the college’s gym, and read a book on the bleachers.
I like to come to this pool whenever I can. Although I’ve never been much of a swimmer, I find it comforting to watch the agile bodies of the athletes as they swim their laps. They look orderly and controlled, always finding their way back to the same spot in the pool in which they’d started. I even like to listen to the graceful splashes they make in the water while I read.
I’m beginning to think that Wesley won’t show up. Maybe someone else got to my note and ripped it off as a cruel joke, or maybe he’s really just not as into me as I’d thought.
Maybe my dad saw the note, and he and Wesley are fighting right now. At first these worried thoughts pass through my mind as I anxiously scan every person who walks in, but I know none of them.
Then I become immersed in my book, and nearly forget where I am or why.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her…
Suddenly, I feel a hand on my shoulder that causes me to nearly jump off the bleacher.
“Sorry, sorry,” Wesley says, running a hand through his wind-blown hair. “Your dad had the entire offensive team run so many laps…”
“No problem,” I tell him, although I think it’s cute that he’s so worried about being late for a meeting I’d just spontaneously arranged without much advance notice at all. “Sorry I got so scared. I was just lost in this book and forgot where I was. But no worries about being late. I know how my dad can be. In fact, that’s precisely the reason I needed to talk to you.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks, raising his eyebrows with interest. “You think he might be getting suspicious about us?”
“I don’t think so.” I shrug. “But you never know. He’s so strict with me that I thought we might talk about our game plan…”
I pause, not used to opening up and being so vulnerable. I don’t actually have a game plan, but I’m hoping that Wesley will jump in with some ideas.
“I thought that note you left for me was hot,” he says, leaning in close to whisper in my ear.
“Oh yeah?”
I’m surprised by the seemingly sudden change of subject. But if he thinks that something I did was hot, I’m willing to hear about it.
“Yeah,” he says, kissing my cheek and then nuzzling my neck with his nose. “The forbidden coach’s daughter is leaving me secret notes. Right out in the open. I love it.”
“Oh.”
I pull away a little bit. This topic of conversation wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind.
He leans back into me, as if oblivious as to my confusion. “And I love how you thought up the pool as our secret meeting place.”
I stare at him blankly.
“It’s funny,” he continues. “Swimmers and football players and cheerleaders are all athletes, but our paths rarely ever cross. It’s very unlikely that anyone would recognize us here. Good thinking.”
I nod, although that’s not why I had chosen the pool as our meeting place. I know, though, that my reasons for liking to come here don’t make a lot of sense, and it’s nothing I feel like explaining to him now.
Maybe part of me wanted to share one of my favorite spots with him, and I feel silly about that now.
“Don’t worry,” he says, taking my hand in his own.
He clearly misinterprets my disappointment as worry. As he squeezes my hand though, seeming concerned, I relax a little bit, and squeeze it back.
“I know I was scared shitless of your dad at the lake house, but I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay.”
I nod. I wasn’t really thinking he was going anywhere, but it had felt to me like we were getting closer to being together for real. There’s no way I’m going to tell him that now, though. I’d sound ridiculous.
“I don’t mind staying your dirty little secret,” he says, squeezing my hand again, but I don’t reciprocate this time. “I don’t want any more trouble during training and I’d like to keep seeing you of course. And I’m starting to think it’s pretty hot.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. A forbidden relationship. Off limits affair with the coach’s daughter. Both of us purposefully going totally out of bounds, but not getting caught.”
He smiles, and I do my best to smile back. But all I feel is confusion. He said “relationship,” but he also said “affair” and made it sound as if what we’re doing is something dirty and wrong.
I wasn’t exactly thinking we should approach my dad together and let him know we like each other, but I thought maybe we should at least start thinking about a direction for the future. I’d thought maybe we could go public after the football season is over, although it sure would be fun to hang out as a couple before and after home games and while traveling at away games.
I guess we’re not going to be able to do that now. And maybe not ever, from how Wesley’s making it sound.
I’m definitely not going to ask him about the other cheerleaders back at his old school that he supposedly jilted and mistreated. Since we’re not even officially dating, it’s not any of my business.