Fight Like a Tomboy - Stephanie Street

1

Kelly

(The day after graduation.)

My hands sliced through the water, pull, pull, while my legs kicked. Breathe. Pull. Pull. Kick. Breathe. I fell into a familiar rhythm. I was born in water. Literally. My mom gave birth to me in a blowup pool at the hospital. She liked to tell that story whenever anyone asked her about my swimming career. Like she’d had more to do with my success because she’d given birth to me in a tub of water than I did working my butt off since the age of five when I’d begun swimming competitively.

Still, I’d give credit where credit was due. After all, she did give birth to me and since that day, she’s supported me every step of the way. Taking me to practice, even at five in the morning. Showing up at every meet, even the ones that were several hours away. Signing up to make breakfast for the team after all those early morning practices. Mom was my biggest fan.

But my speed? My times? Those were all me. All my hard work. Hard work made possible because of her, but you get the point.

It never felt like enough. Which was why I was at the pool doing laps at 7 a.m. the morning after graduation.

I’d almost reached the end of the lane, prepared to do a flip turn, when a very large, very male, and extremely hot body plunged into the lane beside me, sending ripples through the water. I came up spitting. I knew exactly who it was.

“Jared!”

The hot body surfaced. Jared Oliver. My nemesis. I’d hated him with every fiber of my being since that day. But I never EVER allowed myself to even think about that. It didn’t help that he’d made it his lifelong mission to annoy me.

Water sluiced down his stupidly gorgeous, grinning face. I remembered that magical grin from that first day we met. He’d tried to charm me then, too. And it had worked—for about an hour. Before I realized what an arrogant jerk he was.

“Hey, Kell. I didn’t see you there.”

I squinted my eyes at him. “Then you might need to get your eyes checked because I was right there!” In a bright red one-piece.

He casually draped his arms over the lane divider, his lazy grin firmly in place. “Oops.”

Oops, my butt. He’d meant to do that. “You really should have a handle on pool etiquette by now, Oliver. However, since I know you’re a little slow sometimes, I’ll give you a helpful hint. Cannonballs when someone else is training is super rude.”

Jared’s blue eyes tightened just a fraction, but that was his only reaction to my verbal set down. This was normal for us after the incident-that-shall-not-be-named. I didn’t know what I would do if he was ever nice to me. Probably drop dead.

“You think I’m slow?” he asked, trailing his fingers in the water between us.

I didn’t. And we both knew it. He’d proven it with humiliating alacrity.

“I know you are.” No sense feeding his ego. He had a fan club for that, of which I was NOT a member.

His grin dropped into a small, challenging smile as he eyed me speculatively. “Fine. How about a race then?”

A race? My heart pounded at the mere mention of a race with him. And not purely out of competitive spirit. It was because of what had happened before, when he’d completely humiliated me, thus forging our destiny as mortal enemies.

“You want to race?” Again.

He shrugged, and his careless attitude prickled. It was probably the thing I hated most about him. He just made everything seem so effortless. Swimming. Training. Weightlifting. He and his family had moved here at the beginning of our senior year. Jared had become Mr. Popularity overnight. The jerk. It wasn’t supposed to work like that. I’d been going to school in this district my whole life, and I doubted half the people in my class knew my name.

Everyone knew Jared Oliver even before he’d led our boys’ swim team to their first State Championship ever. Once he’d done that, however, they all thought he was going to be the next Michael Phelps. Pssht. As if.

“Whadya say, Harris? You in?” Jared taunted.

Why? Why now, after all this time?

I’d already been swimming for thirty minutes and had planned to swim another thirty. Jared looked strong and fresh and ready to take on the world. There was no way I could beat him. There was also no way I wouldn’t try.

“Fine. Let’s do this,” I told him