Watching Them Burn: My Rebirth Story novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: After Hours

Luka's POV

I closed the pool at eleven that night, the way I had every night for two years.

The only difference was that I left the underwater lights on.

Darby had texted me at ten.

I'm coming to see the empty pool. Don't turn off the lights.

I read it three times before I answered.

The side door opened at ten past.

She came in with her hair down, in a loose gray sweatshirt and a towel over her arm.

"The suspension is gone," I said.

"I heard. The dean's office sent your email to the whole aquatic staff."

"They apologized."

"They didn't apologize to me."

"You aren't staff anymore."

"That's the point."

She dropped the towel on a bench.

"Luka, I'm not your employee. You don't supervise me. You can't tell me to get out of the water, and I'm not on shift, so I can't be written up for anything I do in it."

I stood very still at the edge of lane five.

"What are you going to do in it?"

She pulled her sweatshirt over her head.

There was a black swimsuit under it, plain, the kind the team wore for practice.

She had been in that suit every morning for three weeks, and I had never once let myself look.

I looked.

She walked to the edge of the deep end and dived in without a splash.

I watched her cross the pool underwater, a pale shape in the blue light, and come up at the wall by my feet.

Her hair was slicked back, and her mouth was smiling.

"Coming in?"

"I'm in my clothes."

"Take them off."

I took them off.

I put the keys on the bench, and my shirt on top of the keys, and the rest on top of that.

She was watching me the whole time.

I got in at the shallow end, where the water came to my waist, and she came to me across the pool with her arms moving slowly.

"You're nervous," she said.

"I'm not."

"Your hands are."

I looked down.

"I'd rather be nervous than careless," I said. "This morning his lawyer had a photograph of you leaving my building."

"Tonight there's no photograph. Tonight there's you."

She put both hands flat on my chest.

I picked her up by the thighs, and she wrapped her legs around my waist.

The water ran off us both.

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