Chapter 2

I didn’t actually learn Nao’s name until a few days later. Each day after practice we had to haul in the lane markers, clearing the pool for the university water polo team to practise. Coach rotated through a different age group each day, and made boys and girls alike go through the process of heaving out the massive storage reels and hauling in the cables with the plastic floats.

Usually, the boys did the heavy work of turning the wheel whilst the girls made sure that the lane markers fed evenly onto the reels. Nao ended up working on the same end of the pool as me. It was the first time I’d seen her up close since she’d beaten me the few days previously.

There was that incredible bum, sadly fully covered by her swimsuit this time. Unlike most of the other girls on our swim team, her thighs weren’t thick with muscle, even though she was proving to be an exceptional talent in the water. She was broad across muscular shoulders, like most of us were. Her chest was slight, her breasts barely swelling her swimsuit. However, as she turned to check the lane rope’s progress, I noticed two small points. I felt a shiver as I realised I could see her nipples outlined. She’d taken her swim cap off and her wet hair was dark brown, almost black. She wore it in a short bob, and it hung in damp tendrils, framing her face.

I introduced myself.

“I’m James.”

“Nao,” she replied.

“Now? What now?” I was confused.

“No, Nao. My name. It’s Japanese. From my mum.”

“Oh,” I mumbled. I felt really dumb. “Sorry.”

She laughed. It touched her eyes, a deep soft brown.

“That’s okay. I’m kind of used to it.”

“So ... that was pretty cool the other day. You know, when you beat me in sprints.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said evenly.

“How long have you been swimming for?”

“Since I was old enough to hold my breath in the water.”

“Oh, that probably explains it.”

Her eyes flashed--something. I couldn’t read it.

“Explains what?”

“How you beat me.”

“I beat you because I got dropped in a pool earlier than you did?”

If I hadn’t been fifteen years old, blessed with enough talent to have a bit of an ego, and had made a bit more of an effort to understand my older sister, I would have been better equipped to understand the warning signs. But I was fifteen, and a bit full of myself, so I ran straight into the firing line.

“Well ... yeah.”

“Oh, so it has nothing to do with years of disciplined training, or early mornings, or hours spent perfecting technique?”

With an epic level of adolescent male oblivious bravado I replied “Well no, but I mean–I only started swimming halfway through elementary school, so...”

“So?” The pool should have flash frozen into ice at this point, her tone was so cold. If I hadn’t been entranced by Nao’s eyes and hadn’t been so stupid as to misread the lethal flames within them as a twinkle of her amusement at my line of questioning, I would have realised that all the conversation surrounding us had stopped and that people were staring at me like I’d grown a second head with a seven fingered foot sticking out of the forehead.

“I don’t mean to be rude--” the perfect precursor to an insult, even an unwitting one “--but you beat me and you’re just a girl.”

So. Dumb