When Chelsea got back to the cabin, she wasn’t at all surprised to see a note from her parents that they’d gone into Riston for the evening and that she shouldn’t expect them back until late. She took a quick shower to rinse off the latest layer of chlorine, even though getting rid of the smell entirely was sort of impossible, and put on a T-shirt and jeans. Then she wandered around the cabin aimlessly, looking at the copper pots in the gourmet kitchen that had given the cabin its name. She ran her finger along the selection of DVDs in the entertainment center, pretty impressed with the variety. Maybe she’d go have dinner in the dining room, come back and start a movie, and then finish it after her swim.
She headed over toward the main building, looking around for the first time at the mountains that edged the property. This really was a beautiful place—she’d just been too caught up in her own internal drama to appreciate it when she’d arrived. She was really happy with the care she’d gotten from both Dr. Michelle and from Maddie, the pool was a great length for training, and the cabin was homey and yet spotless. She had nothing to complain about . . . and yet she kept complaining.
Stupid knee.
When she entered the dining room and told them she was eating alone, the waitress gave her a sympathetic look and handed her the dessert menu first. That made her laugh, but it was actually a great idea. She limited her sugar intake during training, but it had been a little while since she’d had any, and that chocolate cheesecake looked really good.
Her grilled chicken Caesar salad was the best one she’d ever had, the cheesecake was out of this world, and she didn’t even mind the fact that she was alone. She was almost a little disappointed when she was approached by two of the other guests—or at least, she assumed they were guests. She’d learned that the employees tended to mingle quite a bit, and it was sometimes hard to tell who was who.
“Hi!” one of the girls said. “I’m Hailey, and this is Trina. We saw you sitting over here all by yourself, and we thought, hey, she’s all by herself! So we thought we’d come say hi.”
“Hi. I’m Chelsea,” she replied. “Do you want to sit down?” She didn’t think they’d take her up on it—if she had, she wouldn’t have offered. But they thought she was being sincere or something, and they plopped down across from her.
“So, we heard about this club in Riston that’s supposed to be really cool, and we thought we’d go try it out tonight. Do you want to come?” Trina asked.
A club? Chelsea hadn’t been to a club in a long time, and all she could remember about it was loud music and strobe lights. “I’m sorry, but I’m in training, and I have to swim tonight.” She hated being rude, though, so she added, “Do you want to come with me?”
“Swimming? Like, in the pool?” Hailey asked.
“Yeah. I’m preparing for the Olympic trials, and so I swim three times a day.”
“Wow. That’s so cool,” Trina said. “Sure, we’ll come. That sounds great.”
“I have to swim laps, so I can’t really hang out, but maybe afterwards we can get a snack or something,” Chelsea finished lamely. It had been so long since she’d made friends, she’d totally forgotten how to do it. The two girls didn’t seem to notice her awkwardness, though, and they chatted about swimsuits and diets and what time they’d meet at the pool.
An hour later, she walked over to the pool and found Trina and Hailey already there, talking to Joey. He seemed relaxed around them, totally the opposite of how he’d been around her, and she paused and just watched for a minute. One of the girls said something and he laughed, throwing his head back, and she realized that he’d gotten even handsomer over the last two years. He’d filled out a bit and seemed more mature. She’d thought he’d lost his spark of Joey-ness, but no, it was still there—it just hadn’t come out around her, and that made her feel bad. Seeing it now as he talked to the other girls, it also made her feel a little jealous, and that wasn’t like her at all.
“Hi,” she said, walking up to the small group. “So, you’ve met Joey.”
“He was just telling us that he’s like, your own personal lifeguard,” Trina said, her eyes huge. “That’s so awesome.”
Chelsea hadn’t thought of it that way, more like a nuisance, but she nodded. “Yup.”
“And he was telling us that he knows the club we want to try, and he has friends, and we can all go together,” Hailey added. “Unless you still don’t want to—and then maybe we could go and tell you about it later?”
Chelsea smiled at the eager look on Hailey’s face. “I’ll think about it, and of course you can go without me.”
Hailey turned back to Joey. “So, who are your friends?”
Chelsea listened in on their conversation while she stretched. There was Nick, Jamal, and someone named Reggie who was fun to hang out with, but he was pretty serious with someone else. The girls asked lots of girl-type questions, and Chelsea was reminded so much of hanging out with Sandi, she decided to give her friend a call when she got back to the cabin. She was getting just a little homesick.
Chelsea thought that Joey was totally distracted while he flirted with the girls, but as soon as she finished her stretches, he turned to her, focused. “Are you ready?”
“Sure am.”
He climbed the tower, the girls watching on with blatant adoration on their faces, and as soon as he was settled, Chelsea dove in.
She was aware of Trina and Hailey watching for a few minutes, and then they went to swim on the other side of the pool. It was easier for her to concentrate with them gone, and she wondered if inviting them was a mistake, but they’d been so eager to reach out and include her that she didn’t want to brush them off. She could respect friendliness in others even at times when she didn’t feel much of it herself.
As she turned for the next lap, she couldn’t help but think about the look on Hailey’s face when she talked to Joey. It was like she was meeting a celebrity in real life, and Chelsea supposed she couldn’t really blame the girl for being star struck. He was blond and tan and had all those lifeguardy muscles—it was easy to mistake him for a hot movie star or something like that. But he didn’t have to flirt back, did he?
She flipped around and kept going. Of course he could flirt back if he wanted. He was single, Hailey was single, and they were all adults and could flirt with whoever the flirt fairy chose. For that matter, maybe she should flirt with Nick or Jamal or someone else here on the ranch. She’d seen plenty of great flirt prospects—she just hadn’t paid attention to them because she was there to train. Well, maybe she should be there to train and to flirt.
By the time she was ready for her first break, she couldn’t decide whether she was perturbed by the situation or ready to go find someone to bat her eyelashes at. But then she remembered that she’d told Joey she didn’t bat her eyelashes anymore. Drat. She’d have to come up with something else instead.
She pulled herself out of the water, grabbed her towel, and blotted herself off as Trina and Hailey came around the side of the pool to talk to her. “That was amazing,” Trina said, plopping onto one of the chairs next to Chelsea’s. “You’re so fast! And in that silver suit, you look like a dolphin or something. But not like a fat dolphin,” she hurried to explain. “Like a really fast dolphin.”
“Thanks,” Chelsea said with a chuckle.
Joey joined them a few minutes later, bottles of water for all of them.
“So, you swim all day every day?” Hailey asked. “Don’t you get bored?”
“I swim three times a day for about two hours each while I’m in training, and sometimes it’s hard to push myself through it, but most of the time, it’s not,” Chelsea said. “My mind is free to go wherever it wants, and I get a lot of thinking done.”
“I don’t know if I have enough to think about to take up six hours a day,” Trina said, and they all laughed.
“Swimming is a great way to connect your mind and body,” Joey added. “It also helps connect your left brain to your right brain.”
Hailey tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“When you do any kind of activity that has you using one side of your body and then the other, like crawling or walking while swinging your arms, it integrates the brain and makes the whole thing work better.” He glanced around, and Chelsea thought he was blushing, although it was hard to tell with the tan. “Sorry. It’s just something I’ve been studying lately. Thought it was interesting.”
“Oh, it is,” Hailey rushed to reassure him. Chelsea hid another smile. These girls were sweet—just maybe a little too eager to please.
When Chelsea said she was ready to go again, Hailey and Trina excused themselves, saying they’d go get ready to leave for the club. Joey caught Chelsea’s elbow before she got back in the water.
“Hey, are you okay about this club idea? I don’t want to be pushing you into something you don’t want to do. And this club’s probably not exactly what you’re thinking, either—it’s pretty laid back, as far as things like that go.”
“Is that going to disappoint the girls?” Chelsea asked with a smirk. Now that she thought about it, it was kind of hard to imagine a really loud, crazy kind of club out here in the middle of quiet Idaho.
“I thought I’d let them be surprised,” Joey replied, and she laughed. She liked seeing that little twinkle in his eyes, and her reaction surprised her.
She liked laughing around Joey.
***
It had taken nearly the entire second half of her workout for Chelsea to decide what she wanted to do. On one hand, the cabin was cozy and she could relax and enjoy the quiet all by herself. On the other hand, it had been a long time since she’d just gone out and had fun, and she’d been feeling really stuck in a rut lately.
“I’ll go,” she said when Joey climbed down from his tower.
“Great. I texted the guys, and they’ll meet us there in an hour. Trina said she has a car.”
Back at the cabin, Chelsea pawed through what she’d brought. A sundress and sandals would have to work—she hadn’t been thinking “club” when she packed. Of course, if this place was as tame as Joey said it was, a “club” outfit probably wouldn’t work anyway.
And she couldn’t picture Joey taking her to an actual club, either.
She sat down on the edge of the bed as memories started to overwhelm her. Joey had always kept her best interests at heart, no matter what the circumstances. He made sure to get her home early during training. He was careful to choose restaurants with lots of salad options if he knew she was focusing on nutrition. Anything she said she wanted to achieve, he was behind her one hundred percent, but he wasn’t overbearing about it at all. If he took her to a salad place and she ordered a double bacon cheeseburger, he didn’t even raise an eyebrow. It was always her choice—he just made things possible.
And that made her hate herself even more because she’d never done the same for him.