Episode 8: “Swimming 101.”
I’m starting to feel a little bit guilty, you guys.
The more episodes I do, the more I seem to blather on and on about the amazing locations I’ve visited.
Is it getting annoying?
If no, that’s good news.
If yes, I need to offer up an apology in advance.
[laughs]
You see, the next stop on my surfing assignment was Eastern Cape, South Africa.
And, no exaggeration, I’d never seen anything like it.
Rocky caverns, a pristine coastline, and lush, tropical forests dotted with the biggest, bushiest, greenest trees I’d ever seen. Its rugged beauty would entrance anyone.
This mostly undiscovered tourist destination was a bright and shiny diamond in the rough, and the hotel I’d stayed at during the competition sat right in the center of it all.
And for the first time in probably my whole life, I wanted to sit outside while I worked and bask in the glory that was South Africa.
With enough sunscreen to last me for a good four hours and my most comfortable two-piece bathing suit, I found a quiet, cozy spot beneath an umbrella beside the hotel’s infinity pool and slowly got to work on that day’s to-do list.
It wasn’t too long of a list, but included the following:
1. Revisions: Dear Ex-Boyfriend Article.
2. Edits: Surfing Article #1 that would publish on July 9th.
3. Scoop’s Instagram and Facebook posts for the day.
4. Publish the quiz of the day: What your dream first date says about your personality?
And if I’m being honest, the quiz wasn’t exactly award-winning.
I mean, it sure as hell wasn’t an Enneagram Test.
If anything, the results just linked you to something generic like, You’re thoughtful or You’re adventurous. It definitely wasn’t telling you anything you didn’t already know about yourself.
God, I really hope my boss isn’t listening to these podcasts in their entirety.
[audible pause]
Shit. Well…Vanessa, if you’re still listening, please don’t fire me…
[awkward laughter]
Okay, back to the story.
A gorgeous day in South Africa.
And me, poolside and ready to work.
It was a pretty perfect setup, frankly.
The place was empty. I had zero distractions. And the most perfect breeze flowed in from the ocean waves. The only thing left to do was slip on my favorite pair of secondhand Chanel sunglasses and get to work.
By the time I’d plowed through numbers three and four on my list and had made good headway on number one, I lifted my eyes from my laptop screen to see Ollie stepping outside of the hotel terrace doors and into the pool area.
Good God, I literally couldn’t escape the man.
Internally, I sighed, but also, my heart rate kicked up way more notches than I’d like to admit. Not to mention the prominent flutters rolling around inside my belly.
He set a plush white towel down on an empty lounge chair and slipped his gray T-shirt up and over his head. The sun glimmered and sparkled and bounced off the smooth, firm lines of his bared skin like a goddamn spotlight, and I had to shut my eyes just to stop myself from gawking at him.
Fuck, Ollie had the body of an Adonis.
I tried like hell to figure out how to escape the situation without him spotting me in the far corner of the pool area. But considering there was only one exit and entrance, the odds of me pulling that off were not in my favor.
When he stepped toward the pool, he lifted his gaze, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he’d spotted me. It also didn’t take a genius to figure out I’d opened my eyes again and had proceeded to take inventory of his perfect body.
Trim waist.
Big, lean shoulders.
Thick biceps.
And a set of washboard abs I could do my laundry on.
It was mind-blowing how a thirty-seven-year-old man could make even the fittest twenty-year-olds look pathetic in comparison.
Hell, he even had the sexy V that started at his hips and pointed down, down, down to a particular part I outright refused to let myself think about.
“It appears you survived the jet lag,” he said once he stepped beneath my umbrella and sat down beside me.
Ever since I’d accidentally used him as a makeshift bed during our flight, I’d done everything in my power to dodge him. And both times he’d attempted to invite me to lunch or dinner with a few of the competitors from the event, I’d offered up the lame excuse of jet lag.
“It appears so.”
Jet lag wasn’t really my issue, though.
I was more freaked out than anything else.
Terrified over how easily Ollie could get under my skin and turn me into an insanely turned-on, irrational mess. And that didn’t even include the whole part about me feeling comfortable enough to nap on him.
My track record around him only proved I couldn’t trust myself in his presence.
It wasn’t the easiest pill to swallow when you were the girl who was currently trying to put the kibosh on her crappy dating habits.
Hell, take Jordy, for example.
He was a good guy. A bit flirty at times. But he was the complete opposite of a jerk.
And the instant his lips had touched mine, I couldn’t have been any less into it.
But, Ollie?
God.
I didn’t even want to tempt fate with that one.
“Mixing a little business with pleasure?” he asked, and the word pleasure coming from his lips had me feeling all sorts of ways.
“Huh?”
He grinned at my confusion. “Getting some work done while enjoying the sun?”
“Oh,” I responded once the meaning of his very innocent question that I’d managed to turn dirty made sense. “Yeah, I guess that’s what you could say I’m doing. What about you? What brings you out here?” I pointed my index finger toward the ocean waves. “Isn’t that more your speed?”
A big, hearty chuckle left his lungs. “I have somewhere to be in a few hours. Reckon I better choose the mundaneness of the pool instead of losing track of time in the sea. Her bloomin’ waves are too powerful a draw for a bloke like me.”
Her waves. I kind of hated that I secretly loved that he referred to the ocean by a female pronoun.
“How’s the water?” he asked, and I shrugged.
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve been slaving away on my laptop for the past few hours.”
He quirked a brow. “You haven’t been in the water?”
I shook my head.
“That’s a bit of a shame, yeah?”
Not when you can’t swim, it isn’t, I thought to myself.
But clearly, I also kept that to myself.
“I don’t think so,” I responded. “The view is keeping me company enough.”
Ollie glanced out toward the coastline and smirked. “She is a beaut. Most people never have the pleasure of seeing a gem like this.”
I nodded. “For once, we agree on something.”
“Well, how about you take a break from that laptop you keep glued to your fingertips and enjoy a swim with me?”
I shook my head. “I’m good, but thanks.”
He stood up and reached out a hand. “C’mon, little fire. Fifteen minutes and I promise you’ll come out feeling refreshed.”
The South African sun was proving to be a lot stronger than the soft breeze coming from the waves, and honestly, he had a good point.
But my fear of water won out over everything else.
“Trust me on this, I’m all set here.”
He grinned down at me, and my breath caught in my lungs when I realized he looked far too mischievous for my own good.
Next thing I knew, I was out of my seat and into his arms before I could stop him.
He carried me toward the pool as if I weighed a measly ten pounds, and that was when panic started to set in. Visions of him tossing me into the deep end and my body sinking to the bottom like a lead fucking weight had my hands clawing at his chest and my nails digging into his bare skin.
It was a full-on panic moment, people.
“No, no, no!” I cried out, and scared tears pricked my eyes. “Put me down, Ollie! I can’t swim!” The words left my lips before I could stop them.
Instantly, he froze in his tracks, and his big brown gaze searched mine.
“You can’t swim?” he asked softly, tenderly, even, the tone of his voice lacking in its usual teasing, sarcastic quality.
I shook my head and swiped away the one rogue tear that had managed to slip past my lids.
“Shit, Lucky,” he muttered, and his eyes turned down at the corners with apology. “I had no idea.”
“It’s fine,” I whispered back and had the odd urge to bury my face in his chest.
He set me to my feet, but before I could step away from him and shield myself from feeling so vulnerable, he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me into his arms. “Shit, you’re shaking. I’m so sorry I gave you a scare like that.”
All I could do was nod into his shoulder. The emotion filling my throat made it impossible to form actual words. And the embarrassment seeping into my bones only urged me to accept the comfort he was so kindly offering.
Sure, his playful threat of tossing me into the water had been quite the jerk move, but his response to my panic had been the complete opposite. I couldn’t really be mad at him when he so eagerly provided his presence as a salve for my raw emotions.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly and leaned back to assess my face.
“Yeah,” I answered and stepped away from his embrace. “I just got a little scared there for a minute.”
“I saw that.” He offered a soft smile.
“I guess you could say I had a bit of a traumatic experience in a pool when I was a kid, and well, I’ve never really gotten over it.”
I had no idea why I felt the need to offer up such personal and private information about myself, but for some reason, the words just kind of fell from my lips.
“Will you let me teach you?” he asked, and my eyes went wide.
“Teach me? Like, teach me how to swim?”
“You know, I have a pretty good track record in the water,” he answered confidently and added a little wink to sweeten the deal.
“For surfing,” I retorted.
“Yeah, but how do you think I get out there?” he teased. “Give me an hour, and I bet I’ll have you swimming.”
“One hour? That seems a bit of a lofty goal, don’t you think?”
He smirked. “Fancy a bet on it?”
“What kind of bet?”
“If you’re not able to tread water in the next hour, I’ll let you take me shopping and pick out an entire day’s worth of clothes.”
“You mean, no flip-flops or cargo shorts for an entire day?” I questioned with a smile I couldn’t hold back. “Could you even survive?”
“I guess we’ll have to see,” he answered, and amusement hinted at the edges of his voice. “And, they’re thongs, by the way.”
“I refuse to call them thongs,” I retorted. “So, what happens if you actually achieve your insane goal?”
“Then I get the satisfaction of knowing you’ll never have to feel like you did ten minutes ago.”
His words, good God, they hit me straight in the chest.
[audible pause]
Truthfully, it was probably those words that convinced me to give in to his bet.
One handshake later and we’d brokered a deal.
Ollie made a show of setting the alarm on his waterproof watch for sixty minutes, and once the task had been completed, he grinned. “All right, little fire,” he said as he led us toward the steps that headed into the pool. “We’ll stick to the shallow end.”
I watched as he stepped into the water, and when he reached the bottom, I sighed in relief when I noted it only reached his waist.
“See?” he said and gestured for me to follow him in. “You can stand here, no problem.”
I steadied my nerves as I dipped my toes into the warm water, and by the time I stood beside him, my heart was damn near pounding out of my chest.
I know it probably sounds crazy to you, but I really was terrified.
Shallow end or not, I couldn’t swim, and I’d spent years fixated on that very fact.
You have no idea how many worst-case scenarios your brain can come up with in nearly twenty years of time.
[laughs softly]
It’s a lot, by the way. A whole hell of a lot.
But Ollie was in full gentleman-mode.
When he took in my deer-in-headlights facial expression, he asked, “You doing okay?”
The concern in his voice was evident and did nothing to slow my already pounding heart.
“Well…I’ve been better…”
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said. “You have my word.”
Now waist-deep in the pool, I nodded, but the anxiety clawing its way up my throat made it impossible to speak.
“The first thing we’re going to do is teach you how to float on your back,” he instructed, and I watched intently as he demonstrated. “Take a big, deep breath, hold it tight in your lungs, and then just let your back rest against the water as you stretch out your arms and legs like I’m doing right now. Does that make sense?”
“I think so.”
Did it make sense? Sort of.
Did I think I could actually do it without drowning? Not really.
But Ollie proved to be quite the mentor.
“I’ll keep my hands right here,” he said and pressed his large palms gently against the bare skin of my back. “And I’ll keep them there until you feel like you can do it on your own.”
“Okay,” I whispered and took a big, deep breath.
Hesitantly, I let my back rest into the water and stretched out my limbs like Ollie had coached. “Is this right?”
“It’s perfect,” he said, grinning down at me. “We’ll do it a few more times until you feel confident enough to do it without me guiding you.”
By the time I reached the fifth attempt, Ollie’s hands barely touched the skin of my back. “Holy shit…am I really doing this on my own?”
“This one is all you, little fire,” he answered, and I didn’t miss the way pride chimed within his voice.
I didn’t know what to make of it.
I didn’t really understand what I was feeling.
And, crazily enough, I didn’t want to stop doing whatever it was we were doing.
Yes, he was teaching me how to swim.
Yes, he was, in fact, a great coach.
And, yes, I was finally starting to feel comfortable in the water.
But more than that, I had the strangest feeling of never wanting my time in the pool with Ollie to end.
An hour felt too short.
I wanted more. Hell, we could have stayed in that pool for six straight hours for all I cared.
[laughs softly]
Which is completely crazy.
I mean, this is me we’re talking about here.
The girl who hadn’t stepped foot in a pool since, like, 2002.
And I have no idea why, but it just felt right…
The next thirty minutes or so sped by at lightning speed as I followed Ollie’s instructions. Each time I’d try something new, I could feel my confidence grow.
And his pride? Well, it grew too.
Next thing I knew, I was even doggy-paddling a few feet across the shallow end without needing to touch my feet to the floor.
Sure, it was all baby steps, but considering up until this point I had been a twenty-seven-year-old woman who avoided big bodies of water like the plague, I couldn’t deny it was a huge victory.
“Ready for the deep end now?” he asked, and my eyes went wide.
“What?” I damn near shouted, and my body followed that shock by reaching out with both arms and plastering myself to Ollie’s skin. “Do not even think about pushing me out into the deep end. I’ll sink to the fucking bottom!” I added and all but clawed at his shoulders.
“I’m just kidding.” He chuckled softly, and his brown eyes met mine. “I’d never do that to you.”
Thanks to my irrational reaction, and the fact that I’d wrapped myself around him like a vine, we were so close, our noses mere inches from another. And yeah, his body, well, like it had proven time and time again, it felt more than good against mine.
It didn’t take long for my traitorous body to respond accordingly.
My nipples hardened beneath my bikini top.
Goose bumps pebbled my skin.
And my stupid lips parted as if they were preparing to make contact with his.
He looked at me, and I looked at him.
And when his gaze flicked down to my lips, my brain developed a serious short-circuit and all but dared him to lean a little closer and press his mouth to mine.
My head had turned into a war zone, and my rational and irrational thoughts fired off like bullets.
Do it…
Don’t do it…
Fuck. It was tempting.
And then, like a goddamn miracle sent from heaven above, the alarm he’d set on his watch went off with several loud, successive beeps and startled us both.
“Looks like the hour’s up,” he whispered, and quickly, I untangled my body from his.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered for lack of anything better to say. I mean, what did you say to the man who made you feel way more than you should?
“So…” He paused and a little smile crested those perfect lips of his. “How’d I do?”
His question quelled my nerves enough for a laugh to escape my throat.
And I gladly took the small-talk reprieve he’d just tossed my way.
“Looks like you can rest easy knowing your cargo shorts and flip-flops are not in jeopardy,” I said over my shoulder as I waded through the water and made my way up the steps.
He laughed at that. “You know what I think?”
“Not really, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me anyway,” I said and snagged a complimentary towel off the rack near the door.
“I think you can swim.”
I looked down at the handsome man smiling up at me from the pool, and I really couldn’t deny that he was right.
I could swim.
Not perfectly.
Not gracefully.
But the idea of getting in the water again didn’t spur throat-clawing anxiety, frozen muscles, and fear anymore.
And the one person I had to thank for that was the very same person I’d been trying like hell to stay away from.
“I think, for once, I agree with you,” I said and added, “Thank you for teaching me how to swim.”
“The pleasure was all mine, little fire.”
Pleasure. There was that word again.
“And that’s actually two times now.”
“What?”
“That’s twice you’ve agreed with me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Shut up and swim your laps.”
He winked, and his responding chuckles filled my ears until he pushed himself under the water and swam toward the deep end.
As I sat back down under the umbrella, I couldn’t stop myself from being amused by the irony of it all.
Who would’ve thought Oliver Arsen would end up being the person who helped me get over my fear of swimming?
Sure as hell not me.
[soft sigh]
Maybe he wasn’t as big of a jerk as I’d originally thought…