Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance Read online

  “I’m tenured,” says Beaumont, leaning further back in his chair. “Now go get them, Allison. Use everything we’ve gone over in our journalism classes.”

  “Thanks, Professor Beaumont,” I say, getting up to leave, grabbing my library bag that’s stuffed full of books.

  “Oh, Allison, one more thing,” says Beaumont, as I’m walking out the door. “If I were you, I’d focus on one swimmer in particular. He’s the one they’re always talking about, and he’s the main reason the swim team’s won nationals the last for years.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I forget his real name, but they call him Anchor.”

  “Anchor?” I say with some disgust. “Sounds like a typical idiot jock nickname.”

  Beaumont just smiles knowingly as I leave his office, practically tilting all the way over to one side, from the weight of all my books.

  As I walk through the campus, I think over all the work I have coming up. The school work won’t be too much of a problem, but I do need to devote some time to it, which is going to be tricky, since this new swimmer project is going to require not only a lot of planning, but a lot of ‘on scene,’ time.

  I know myself, and I know that if I’m going to do it, I’m going to have to do it right. That’s just the way I am. I’ll be spending a lot of time at swim meets, and probably hanging around the swimmers, to get a feel for who they really are. Professor Beaumont is almost certainly right—there’s no way there isn’t a juicer and dirtier story here than the image that the college wants to promote, which is squeaky clean and painfully boring.

  The adrenaline is already racing through me. It’s the thrill of the hunt. As much as I hate sports guys, and sports in general, this is going to be my first chance to do a real piece of investigative journalism. Not only will this ensure my place at one of the top papers in the country, after graduation, but it will help prepare me for what’s to come.

  Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve imagined myself working abroad in far away lands, filled with people speaking strange languages, wearing strange clothes. I knew I’d be there to do something good, to help people by exposing the corruption that as a kid I already knew existed around the world.

  This swimming expose is going to be a chance to get out some of my frustrations at jocks and sports guys, and also the whole college sports institution. I think of my interaction with those swimming “bros,” yesterday night, as I was walking back to the library. They looked so incredibly stupid, so moronic, yet so caught up with themselves and how cool and tough they were. I think they ended up fighting each other as I was leaving, probably trying to impress me.

  I’m aware of the fact that one of them was hot. Quite hot actually, but what I’m acutely aware of is that I’m not letting myself really be aware of that fact. It’s like I have something blocking my desires. I know on an intellectual level that he’s hot, and that I’m perhaps just a little bit attracted to him, but I’m not letting myself feel his hotness, or feel my desire. At least I’m aware that I’m caught up in my intellectualizations of everything, rather than my emotions. Anyway, I’ll have time to sort that all out once I get out of college and get my first real job, hopefully for The Journal, if this expose piece on the swimmers goes well. I’m imagining something really big, really dirty, exposing these college jocks for what they really are. I mean, do they really think they have any kind of future after college?

  3

  Anchor

  “Holy shit,” I say. I can’t believe it. I really can’t believe it. “Are you serious?”

  “Very much so, Mr. Belver. “We’d love to have you on the training team starting this coming summer, right when you graduate. We’re just going to send out another scout at the next meet to make sure you’re still swimming as excellently as when we last saw you… And just so you know, the deal isn’t completely sealed. The scout is going to need to see that you’ve made some improvements on the finer points of your form, like what we talked about last time.”

  I don’t think the words are coming through clear. He’s saying something about finer points, about it not being a done deal, but all I’m hearing is that I’m going to the Olympics next year. No office work for me after college!

  “Holy shit, I’m going to be a famous swimmer,” I say.

  “While we are very excited about the possibility of having you on the team, Mr. Belver, I want to stress that, like I said, the scout is going to need to see some improvement in…”

  “Gotcha,” I say. “No problem at all. It’s all been worked out already. I think I’m in the best shape of my life right now. I broke a personal record last practice during a mock race.”

  “That’s excellent to hear, Mr. Belver, but just remember, it’s not a closed-and-shut deal yet…”

  “Awesome, thanks so much,” I say. “I’ll let my coach know that the scout’s going to be there at the next meet.”

  “Very well, Mr. Belver. I’ll let you go now.”

  I close the phone and let out a whoop. “Yeee-haaw,” I yell, the sound echoing through the room I share with Dave in the swim house. The swim house is right on the edge of campus, although technically it’s not campus property. It’s a house that’s been passed down from a long line of swim team members for the past decade. The landlord is just some old guy who lives out of state, which is perfect, since he’s never around to bother us, or complain when we have parties. Of course, since the house has been inhabited by nothing but swimmers for the last decade, it’s completely filthy.

  “Shut the hell up!” yells Dave, throwing the covers off of himself. He’s on the other side of the room, in his bed, an erection pointing practically straight up to the ceiling. “What the hell are you so happy about, Anchor?”

  “You’ve been having a wet dream?” I say, laughing, and pointing to his erection. I take a little half-deflated basketball that’s been lying around the room and toss it over. Of course, it lands right on his dick.

  “Don’t mess around,” says Dave. “I’m hung over as shit. What the hell happened last night? Did we have a party or something?”

  “There’s no time for that right now, Dave. Listen, I made the Olympics!”

  “Are you serious?” says Dave, the shock on his face making him look a little more awake. He sits bolt upright in bed, facing me. “Are you sure?”

  “I just got the call a minute ago. I just hung up with the guy… I’m going to be on the Olympic training team this coming summer, after graduation.”

  Dave’s face calms down for a moment. “Listen, Anchor, that’s really great. But remember last time? You thought you were on the team because the scout came to the meet and talked to you or something. It turns out he was just being friendly…”

  “No, really, Dave. This is for real.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “He said they wanted me on the training team. Then he said something about needing to make sure my form was improved for the scout that’s coming to another meet. I forget which one.”

  “You see? Dude, I’m happy for you. But you’re always misinterpreting things.”

  “Why you got to be like that?” I say, getting angry. I can feel the anger boiling up inside me.

  “Be like what?” says Dave, hopping out of bed. His erection is gone. He’s looking hung over and mean, ready to fight. I wonder if he remembers our fight last night. Something else happened last night, but I can’t remember what it was. Some kind of prank. I wish I could place it, because I’m sure it was hilarious, whatever it was we got up to.

  Dave suddenly trips, going flying across the room.

  Fortunately for him, he lands right on my bed next to me, bouncing a little on the cheap mattress.

  “What the hell is that?” I say, bursting out laughing, as I look down at the floor to see what it is that Dave tripped over.

  “Oh shit, dude,” says Dave. “That’s the statue! The statue of what’s-his-name. He was some kind
of campus founder or something. Remember we stole it last night?”

  “Oh yeah! Now I remember” I start laughing uncontrollably, doubling over with laughter. It’s the statue all right, lying face down on the floor, lengthwise. It’s the whole thing, looking like it’s about ten feet long. The bottom of it is completely sawn in half, somewhat crudely. I’ve got no idea how we did that. It would have taken hours of sawing that thing, and, anyway, what kind of saw would cut through stone like that?

  “How did we even get that thing inside here, and up all those stairs?” says Dave.

  “No idea,” I say, still laughing.

  Dave’s not laughing though. His face is stony. “Shit, Anchor. We’re going to get in a lot of trouble for this.”

  I’m not too worried. Maybe I should be, but I’m just not that kind of guy. “It’ll be fine,” I say, with a wave of my hand. “How are they going to find it in my room?”

  “What about Spellman? He’s always on our case.”

  “Shit…” Spellman is essentially the resident snitch, the resident swimmer goody-two-shoes who doesn’t seem to have anything better to do than to rat on the rest of us for having a good time. “We’ll just have to make sure he doesn’t see it. Shouldn’t be that hard, right? Just don’t let him in our room. Don’t keep the door open.”

  “It’s a good thing we don’t have morning practice today,” says Dave, looking at the clock on the wall.

  “But that reminds me,” I say, shaking my head a bit, trying to shake out some of the hangover. “We’ve got class right now.”

  “You’re right,” says Dave, getting up, and looking at himself in the mirror for a moment, before deciding he looks just fine, hangover hairstyle and all.

  “Let’s get going,” I say, grabbing my keys, and changing my t-shirt quickly.

  I open the door to our room a few inches, trying to see if anyone is out in the hallway. I don’t want someone passing by to see the statue we’ve stolen. Spellman has a way of finding out everything, but as long as we don’t let the news get out at all, we should be fine.

  Dave is behind me, standing on a pile of crushed beer cans. “Is the coast clear?”

  “Looks good,” I say, opening the door a little more.

  The hallway seems deserted as I step into it. Dave is behind me in the doorway, in the middle of pulling the door closed behind him.

  “Anchor, you bastard!” yells someone, a high pitch feminine voice, coming out of seemingly nowhere.

  I spin around, causing confusion, looking for the woman speaking. I knock into Dave a bit, and he falls down, crashing down into the heap of empty beer cans.

  “Asshole,” yells Dave, as he goes down.

  Now I see her. It’s another senior. I don’t think she’s on the swim team since I don’t recognize her face, although something about her does seem a little familiar.

  “Another fan, eh?” I say, looking at her. She’s quite cute, or even hot. She’s stacked, with a nice set on her. She’s not wearing much, although it looks like she’s slept in the few clothes that she does have on. “You been partying with one of the swim boys all night, and wanted to come pay your tributes to the team captain?”

  “You’re such an asshole, Anchor,” she says, puckering up her lips, and spitting a big gob of spit right in my face.

  I wipe it off slowly. Somehow, I’m not mad. There’s little a woman that hot can do to make me really mad.

  “I didn’t know my reputation was preceding me so much,” I say, making a fake little bow to the woman.

  “You don’t remember any of it, do you?”

  “Remember what?”

  “You really don’t have any idea who I am? I didn’t think you were that drunk.”

  “I wasn’t. I’m barely hung over right now,” I say, shaking my head and growling a little, to demonstrate the top physical condition that I’m in at the moment.

  “We slept together last night, asshole,” she says, her eyebrows practically reaching her hairline, and her eyes burning with anger.

  “Nice,” I say, looking at her carefully up and down, soaking her body in.

  “Gross,” she says, catching my look.

  Dave is finally to his feet, his hair tousled again, and a beer can somehow stuck to his shirt.

  “Nice,” says Dave, poking me in the ribs and eyeing the woman, up and down just like I did.

  “Pigs,” says the woman, giving Dave and I a nasty look together. “You don’t remember how you made me help you carry that statue up into your room before we fucked?”

  I shake my head. “I wouldn’t mention that…” I start to say, lowering my voice.

  “What?” says the woman, raising her voice. She seems to understand that I don’t want anyone to know about the statue. And she wants revenge. This isn’t a good combination. “You say that you stole a famous campus statue, Anchor? You stole a statue?”

  A few swimmers are walking down the hall.

  “What’s this about a statue, Anchor?” says one of them.

  To my horror it’s Spellman himself. He already has a superior look plastered across his face.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Nothing to see here, Spellman. Don’t want to be late to class, you know?”

  “He stole the Friedman statue,” says the chick, the one who I apparently slept with. I’m not so pleased now with my decision. She’s a real peace of work. What, just because I slept with her and don’t remember her name—why is that enough to make her so mad she wants to rat me out to Spellman, the biggest rat of them all?

  “Well, well, well,” says Spellman, licking his lips, and pushing his way past Dave to look into our room. He’s gotten a look before I can stop him. “That’s the statue all right. What were you thinking, Anchor? Coach is going to love this one.”

  “We got a little drunk,” I say. “What’s the big deal? We’ll put it back.”

  “It’s sawed in half. There’s no way it’s going back on.”

  “Why you got to be such a dick, Spellman?” I say.

  “Why do you think you can break all the rules you want without consequences, Anchor?” says Spellman, a shit-eating grin on his face.

  I give him a shove in the chest, but he’s no pipsqueak. No one on the swim team is, really. He stands his ground, and we look at each other eye to eye. I want to fight him, and my blood is getting hot, basically about to boil over. But if we fight now… I don’t want to screw up my chances for the Olympics. I’ve got to hold it together. I don’t know how much longer I can hold out, though, with this piece of shit rat staring me in the face, with that smug look of infuriating fake superiority.

  “Let’s get out of here, Anchor,” says Dave, pulling me as hard as he can, and closing our door behind him.

  He drags me down the hallway, away from Spellman.

  “There’s nothing we can do now, man,” says Dave.

  The woman’s cackle follows us down the hall, through the doors to the outside. I can hear it running through my head. Why’s she so pissed at me? Just because I can’t remember her name?

  4

  Allison

  I take a deep breath before walking into the swimming building. I’ve never once covered a sports story on campus, and I’m surprised to find myself nervous. I’ve always considered myself the epitome of the cool, calm, collected reporter. I don’t exactly know why I’m nervous, but it has something to do with my hatred for jocks of all types. How have I let myself be tricked into doing this? I know Beaumont means the best, but I’m not sure I’m the right girl for the job.

  The pool building is huge and very new, one of the newest and nicest buildings on campus. I make a mental note to investigate exactly how much money the campus has poured into the pool.

  Even though I’m just in the hallway, which is filled with huge trophy cases (which I find rather off-putting and presumptuous), that chlorine smell hits me hard. I feel sick to my stomach now, and it’s not just the nerves.
>
  How can the swimmers stand this smell? No wonder they all seem so stupid. The chlorine must be affecting their brains, having completely saturated every cell in their bodies, down to their bones.

  I knock on the door to the coach’s office.

  “Come in,” says a gruff voice.

  A bald grumpy looking man sits behind the desk. He looks like the typical athlete completely gone to seed, with a big belly that stretches his maroon polo shirt to its very limits.

  “Tryouts were months ago,” he says, his voice deep and a little rusty, like he’s not used to talking to people. He’s probably more accustomed to barking out commands at the swim team.

  “I’m not interested in trying out for the swim team,” I say. This should be obvious, since we’re already well into the school year.

  He gives me a look without speaking, but it’s clear he’s trying to say, “Well, get lost then.”

  “I’m Allison Benching. I’m the editor and chief of the school paper, and I’m…”

  “Never heard of you,” says the coach.

  “Yes, well I’m…”

  He cuts me off again. “Why don’t you ever run stories about the swim team?”

  “Well, as I was about to say,” I say, trying to keep the tone of my voice even, as I feel the frustration building up inside of me. I would have thought the coach would at least have been a little more reasonable than the actual swim team members, but he seems like he’s just another idiot jock, bitter about having gone to seed. I take a deep breath, pausing before continuing, “I’m interested in running an in-depth story on the swim team. It’s going to be a big article, on the front page. A number of my stories have been picked up by national papers, and with the emphasis that the college puts on swimming, I have no doubt that the same might happen with this story.”

  “About time,” says the coach.

  “Sorry, what was your name again?” I say, extending my hand.

  He looks at my hand for a moment, as if he’s trying to decide whether he really wants to shake it or not. Finally, he takes it, and gives me a powerful squeeze and a shake. “Coach Smith.”