The Natatorium
The week after the blowout win over Monroe, I almost convinced myself I could live like a normal pledge.
It started Monday night at the DKE house. Instead of the usual alumni schmoozing, it was just the pledges and a few brothers in the main lounge, a pile of pizzas on the table, and a movie: Step Brothers blaring on the big-screen TV. It was dumb, loud, and for two hours, no one cared about networking, legacies, or my last name. Miles, the usually glassy-eyed brother, threw a piece of pepperoni at me. I threw one back. In that sliver of time, it wasn’t a performance. It felt like the brotherhood Tate was trying to offer me: easy, stupid, and uncomplicated. That day, the tightness in my chest loosened. Maybe this is enough, I thought. Maybe I can just get through freshman year.
Back in my dorm, the glow faded. I pulled the prepaid Samsung from its drawer. The screen lit up, a grid of the usual thirst: faceless torsos, “sup?” messages, a dick pic from a profile named “Bamabottom4u.” I scrolled through the noise, my thumb moving faster, a familiar disappointment settling in my gut. None of them was what I needed, and I thought maybe my reset didn’t work. The messages felt cheap, a hollow echo of the dangerous, real SEC encounter I found with Jordan.
I locked the phone and shoved it back into the darkness. A resolution formed, clear and firm. I wouldn’t check it again until Thursday, my one free night. I needed control. This wouldn’t be a daily itch to scratch. It would be a scheduled release.
By Thursday, the resolve had hardened into a low, constant hum in my blood. After my last class, I didn’t go back to my room. I went straight to Mal M. Moore, the donor pass a familiar weight against my chest. I found a secluded corner in the atrium, pretending to study my econ notes while waiting for someone. The real textbook was in my pocket.
I powered on the Samsung. The Grindr app bloomed to life. I tapped it open, and the grid refreshed with the few profiles closest to me, right here in the athletic facility.
An unfamiliar profile, near the top, .2 mi away.
The profile pic was a masterclass in anonymity: an extreme close-up of a pasty white thigh, a quad muscle sharply defined under a sheen of sweat or pool water, the edge of a black swim brief just visible at the top of the frame. No face, no torso, no distinguishing marks. The handle: bluehenginger82.
But it was the distance that stopped my heart. .2 mi. That wasn't just somewhere on campus. That was here. On this block. The Mal M. Moore facility and the adjacent Aquatic Center. He was, or at least his phone was, in the pool area.
I scrolled up to refresh again when I went out that same door that I had seen Adam. The little number updated.
.1 mi.
My head snapped up from the phone, my eyes scanning the parking lot, then darting toward the street entrance of the Aquatic Center. Every guy who walked past was a potential suspect. My pulse thumped in my ears, loud enough to drown out the clang of weights from the gym.
The profile didn’t need a headline. The shrinking distance was the only message I needed. It was an invitation. A summons.
The squeak of sneakers on tile seemed to fade as I got closer to the Aquatic Center, replaced by the low hum of traffic on Paul W. Bryant Dr. I couldn’t just walk into the Natatorium itself; that was too bold, too exposed, especially after almost being caught by Adam that first time. But I didn’t need to go into the pool. If I wanted control, if I wanted to understand what I was walking into, I needed to go to the source.
I shoved the phone and my notebook into my backpack and went inside the lobby of the aquatic facility, trying to look like a student looking for information on the recreational swimming hours. I followed the signs pointing toward the Aquatic Training Pool, the air growing thick with the distinct, sharp scent of chlorine. The hallway ended at a set of heavy double doors marked ‘University of Alabama Swimming and Diving Administration– TRAINING FACILITY. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY’
A staff member in a crimson polo shirt was just coming out of the door, scrolling on his phone. He looked up as I approached, his expression shifting from boredom to mild inquiry.
I didn’t break stride. I lifted the lanyard from my chest, letting the plastic donor badge swing forward. I flashed it with the same casual authority I’d seen my dad use a thousand times, not a request, but a presentation of a right.
The staffer’s eyes dropped to the badge, to the Briggs name etched in gold. His posture changed instantly. He gave a single, deferential nod and held the door open for me. “Mr. Briggs.”
“Just seeing where that $50k we donated to the reno went. I mumbled, slipping past him.
The door sighed shut behind me, sealing me into a quieter, more administrative space. The hallway was lined with offices, their doors adorned with nameplates for coaches and sports medicine staff. My heart was still thumping, but now it was from the thrill of the access. The Briggs key had worked again.
I scanned the hall until I saw it. A large corkboard, layered with memos, workout printouts, and team photos. My eyes locked on a centrally placed, laminated sheet: SWIM & DIVE – WEEKLY PRACTICE SCHEDULE.
I stepped closer, my breath catching. It was all there, in crisp block letters. Afternoon Practice: 3:30 PM - 5:30 PM. It was 4:20. They were in the water. Right now.
A plan, cold and precise, clicked into place. I didn’t need to be a ghost in the stands. I needed a command post. I pulled out the Samsung, its screen still showing the Grindr grid, and took a quick, clear photo of the schedule.
Then, I turned and walked back out, giving the same staffer another nod. “All set.”
Back in the atrium, the plan solidified. The next afternoon, Friday, I would be waiting. Not inside, but outside. Invisible. I had the intelligence. Now I just needed to choose the battlefield.
Early afternoon Friday, I cut my history study session short and headed to my parking spot. The Denali’s engine purred as I left the convenient location of the booster lot, driving across campus to a lot that faced the fence beside the natatorium. My view was partially obstructed by some bushes, but I could see the edges of the outside pool. Behind my tinted windows, I thought I was a ghost.
From there, the natatorium looked like a giant aquarium. I pulled out the Samsung. It was 3:20, the profile bluehenginger82 was close again, .0 mi. I took a breath and typed a simple, low-pressure message.
hey
This wasn't a desperate stumble into desire. This was a tactical operation. And I was finally learning how to run it.
The reply came faster than I expected.
hey yourself. what’s up?
My thumbs hovered. This was the delicate part.
Not much. Just saw you were close. You an athlete?
A pause. Then:
maybe. u?
Just a student at the pool, I typed back. The lie was easy. You got a pic that’s not a thigh? lol
The typing bubbles appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. A new image dropped into the chat.
It was a mirror selfie, but expertly cropped. It showed a torso, from the chin down to the low-slung waistband of athletic shorts. The skin was pale, the stomach flat and defined with a light dusting of coppery hair above his navel. And there, scattered across the pale canvas of his chest and ribs, was a constellation of faint, rust-colored freckles.
Something tugged at the back of my mind. The freckles were… distinctive. I felt like I’d seen this person shirtless before, but I couldn’t place it.
Not bad, I wrote back, trying to keep my tone light.
Your turn. Do those sweatpants come off? he quickly typed.
I angled the phone down, making sure my face was out of frame, and snapped a picture of my own torso still in the car seat, the crimson-striped white fabric of my polo shirt raised to show the waistband of my Armani briefs and part of my chest. I hit send.
The exchange was a game, a digital dance. But the freckles in the photo stuck with me. That specific pattern… it was itching in my brain. I minimized Grindr and opened my browser, pulling up the Alabama Swimming and Diving roster.
I scanned the headshots, my heart starting to beat a little faster. After a few flips back and forth on the page, I saw him: Luke Dennison. Freshman. Diver from Delaware. The photo showed a guy with a mop of red hair and a wide, easy smile. And across his nose and cheeks, clearly visible even in the small photo, was the same distinctive spray of freckles.
Then it hit me. It was the same guy. The guy from the viral TikTok videos, the ones where he danced with a goofy, effortless grace that had popped up on my For You page weeks ago. Luke the diver. He was a minor celebrity on campus for something other than sports with his 15k followers.
The realization was like the space shuttle exploding. This wasn't just some anonymous athlete. This was a guy with a name, a face, and a public persona bigger than mine. The risk was astronomically higher, but the thrill was sharper, more specific.
He replied to my picture: not bad either. I thought you were at the pool tho lol. what are you up to tonight?
I stared at the message. The invitation was clear. I could end this now. I should end this now.
But the image of those freckles, now connected to a name and a face, was burned into my brain. He wasn't just a body anymore. He was a person. A recognizable one.
I typed back, my decision made.
Frat stuff tonight, weekend looks good tho. I’ll be around.
I put the phone down, the finality of the message still not letting me settle down. It was done. The hook was set. Through the windshield, I saw the first wave of the swim and dive team emerge from the locker room and fan out along the pool deck. Practice was starting.
My heart slammed against my ribs. This was my chance to see him, not as a cropped photo, but for real. I slouched lower in the leather seat, my eyes glued to the figures. Then I saw him. The coppery red hair was unmistakable. Luke.
He was laughing with a teammate, shaking out his arms. Then he started climbing the ladder to the high dive. With each step, his vantage point improved. He reached the platform and turned, surveying the pool, the campus beyond.
A shot of pure panic overwhelmed me. The bushes. From up there, the leafy barrier was nothing. He had a clear, bird's-eye view of the parking lot. Of the massive, black, unmistakable Denali.
If he looked this way, if his eyes just drifted from the water to the lot, he’d see me. The connection would be instant: the guy he was just sexting is the guy watching him from that SUV. The cover would be blown, the fragile anonymity shattered into a million pieces.
I didn’t even think. I pushed start, the engine roaring to life. I threw the SUV into reverse and then drove, pulling out of the spot with haste that was anything but ghostlike. I didn’t look back. I just drove off campus, putting as much distance as I could between me and the natatorium, my hands clenched tight on the wheel.
The operation was still active. But the battlefield had just become infinitely more dangerous.
Saturday passed indistinctly. Caroline dragged me to another brunch at the Kappa Delta house, all sunshine and designer sundresses. I smiled, I made small talk with her sisters, and I held her hand as we walked across the quad. It was the perfect picture, the exact life I was supposed to want. But the entire time, my mind was in my desk drawer, locked on the silent, prepaid phone. The real me was waiting for the curtain to fall on this act.
By Saturday evening, after a painfully boring DKE alumni BBQ where I nodded along to stories about my dad I already knew, I was finally free. Back in my dorm, the door locked, and I retrieved the Samsung. A familiar static buzzed under my skin, equal parts dread and desire. This was it, the next engagement.
hey. Free tonight?
The reply was almost instantaneous.
bluehenginger82: hey frat boy, yah. u got a place?
The question hit me like a dive into cold water, a shock that stole my breath. The Denali? Out of the question after bham196. But my room… my single room in Riverside… that was a level of exposure that made my skin crawl. Letting a stranger in here, where my life was on display? It was the ultimate risk.
But the thought of letting this chance slip away was worse.
Yeah. I can host. Riverside.
bluehenginger82: where's that? i'm at Bryant Hall
Bryant Hall. The athletic dorm. Of course.
Well, by the river obv lol. Meet me in the engineering quad in like an hour?
bluehenginger82: k. see u.
I stared at the screen, the reality of what I was about to do crashing down. I was going to bring a total stranger, an athlete from Bryant Hall, back to my room. The anonymity was terrifying. I needed something, anything, to make this feel like more than just a reckless, dangerous hookup. I needed to tie it back to the fantasy that started this.
My thumbs flew over the screen before I could lose my nerve.
Wait. Come ready.
bluehenginger82: ?
Wear your bama swim brief. Under your clothes.
There was a long pause. The seconds stretched. I thought I’d just ruined it, that my request was too weird, too specific.
Then, a reply.
bluehenginger82: …why?
U said Bryant Hall ur a swimmer, just do it pls
Another agonizing pause. Then:
bluehenginger82: …weird. but fine. c u soon.
The chat went dead. c u soon. Those two words echoed in the silent room. I had forty-five minutes.
A frenzied energy took over. I moved around my dorm like a spy sanitizing a safe house. I grabbed the lanyard with the donor pass and stuffed it in my desk drawer. I tucked a framed photo of my family from the dresser into a closet. I scanned for any mail, any notebook, or clothing with Wyatt Briggs or DKE on it, hiding it all from view. I was erasing myself, creating a neutral, anonymous shell for the person bluehenginger82 was about to meet. The person I was about to become.
With the room stripped of my identity, the silence became unbearable. I had thirty minutes to kill. I couldn't just sit there. I opened TikTok on my personal phone, my thumb hovering before typing lukedennison_dive.
His feed lit up with the stuff I’d half-seen before: pool clips, goofy dorm skits, the kind of charisma that racks up likes without trying. One video stopped me cold: him in a Bryant Hall lounge, bare feet sliding across the tile as he lip-synced to a Charlie XCX track, party 4 u. He spun with a broom like it was a mic, shirt clinging from a workout, grinning at the camera like the whole world was in on the joke.
It wasn’t the cropped body from Grindr. It wasn’t the red hair on the high dive. It was Luke as everyone else knew him: public, magnetic, already half-famous. And that made the risk of mission failure weigh more deeply. This wasn’t just a stranger from an app. This was someone with a face people followed, and he was about to step into my room.
A notification popped up on the Grindr phone: a message from bluehenginger82.
omw
The letters were a starting pistol. I slammed the Samsung face down on the bed like it was on fire. The ghost of Luke's dancing body lingered in my vision as I stood, my hands slightly shaky. It was time to go meet the athlete and dancer from the video and bring him home to the blank space I’d created.
I pulled a hoodie from my closet, the one crimson one that just said A, and shoved it over my head. A white Callaway golf cap followed, brim low, hair tucked underneath. Then the final part, a pair of reflective wrap-around sunglasses. I looked ridiculous to be walking around like that at 9 PM, but I barely recognized myself in the mirror: a blurred figure, anonymous, unmarked. That was the point. Wyatt Briggs wasn’t walking across campus tonight. crimsonboi2648 was.
The campus air was sharp and humid as I cut toward the engineering quad. My phone buzzed twice in my pocket, each vibration pulling my pulse higher. Every cluster of students I passed felt like a threat: if someone looked too closely, would they recognize me under the hood? Would they connect me to the boy waiting at the other end?
The engineering quad was quiet, bathed in the orange glow of the streetlights. I saw him before he saw me. Luke. He was leaning against a bench, hands shoved in the pockets of a crimson Alabama hoodie, looking exactly like his TikTok videos, smaller in person, but with a tangible energy. He was scanning the paths, a slight nervousness in the way he shifted his weight.
I walked up, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm in my chest. “Hey.”
He turned, and those light green eyes appraised me quickly, from my shoes to my head. A flicker of recognition, but not of me, of the situation. “Hey. You’re the frat guy.”
“Yeah. C’mon,” I said, tilting my head back toward the path to Riverside. I kept my eyes forward, hyper-aware of his presence behind me, a secret I was escorting through the heart of campus.
After a minute of silence, he sped up until he was beside me. “So,” he said, his voice casual. “Do you know me from TikTok?”
The question was a landmine, but I didn’t flinch. “Somewhat,” I said, the lie smooth and noncommittal. “Seen a few videos.”
He nodded, seemingly satisfied with that. But then he asked the next, more dangerous question. “How did you know I was on the swim team?”
This one required a faster draw. I glanced at him. “You said Bryant Hall. That’s the athlete dorm.” I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, a casual piece of campus knowledge.
He let out a short, quiet laugh. “Oh. Yeah. Right.” He seemed to relax a little, the mystery solved for him. My explanation had built a wall between the reality of my research and the simple story he was now constructing in his head: He said he lived in Bryant, I hit him up on Grindr, and when I saw who he was, I must have seen him on TikTok before.
He had no idea about the laminated practice schedule, the photo I took, that I was sitting in the parking lot when he was climbing that diving platform. The power of that secret knowledge was a current running through me as I led him toward my dorm, toward the room I had stripped bare for him.
Luke shoved his hands deeper into his hoodie pocket, the hood shadowing his face. “So… is it cool? Us going to your dorm?”
I kept my tone flat. “It’s fine. I’ve got a single.”
He nodded, like the answer was enough, but I caught the way he glanced at me sideways, quick and curious, as if measuring what kind of guy I was beyond a torso pic and a handle.
We crossed the pedestrian bridge to Riverside, the dull hum of the light traffic underneath us. His stride matched mine now, shoulder brushing close. I felt the current of it: his body heat, the possibility under the cotton of his hoodie, the swim brief I’d made him wear.
By the time Riverside came into view, brick rising pale under the night lights, I realized something I hadn’t factored into my plan. He was relaxed now, almost buoyant, like this was just another hookup. But for me, every step closer to my door felt heavier.
Because once I let him in, once the lock clicked behind us, it wasn’t just my room he’d be stepping into. It was the firewall itself. And I wasn’t sure how long I could keep him from breaching it.
The walk up Riverside’s steps felt like climbing a stage. My pulse spiked with every keycard swipe, every door I passed. I kept my hood up until we hit the front door of my building, praying no one I knew would round the corner.
By the time we reached my floor, the silence in the hall felt surgical. No music bleeding under doors, no voices. Still, I scanned left and right before sliding my key into the lock. My hand tightened on the handle. Anyone looking out now would see me, hooded, slipping a stranger into my single.
I opened the door fast and ushered him in. The room smelled faintly of detergent from the frantic cleaning. My bed was neatly made, desk cleared, every photo and name scrubbed from sight. It wasn’t my room anymore; it was a blank stage.
Luke stepped in, dropped his backpack by the wall, and turned. His hood was still up, but his grin had a dare in it.
“Okay,” he said, tilting his head. “Lemme see your face. You haven’t even told me your name. You know mine, if you’ve seen my TikTok.”
For a split second, my throat locked. The whole point was that he wouldn’t see me. But there was no way around it now that we were this far. Slowly, I tugged the brim of the cap up, removed the sunglasses, and pushed the hood back.
“Wyatt,” I said, my voice quiet but steady. “That’s my name.”
His eyes narrowed, a spark of recognition or calculation, I couldn’t tell which. “Wyatt,” he repeated, like he was trying it out on his tongue. Then: “Wait. Are you a freshman too?”
I gave the smallest nod.
His gaze flicked around the stripped room, then back to me. “How the hell did you score a single here? Random freshmen don’t get singles.”
The question landed like a test. He didn’t mean it as interrogation, but that’s how it felt, like a spotlight cutting through the hoodie, the cap, the firewall I’d built.
I shrugged, forcing nonchalance. “Guess I got lucky,” I said. The lie slipped out smoothly, the same way I’d said my first name.
He smiled faintly, not convinced but not pushing. “Lucky,” he echoed. He let the word hang, as if he wasn’t sure whether to believe it.
Luke stepped closer, tugging his hoodie up over his head in one smooth motion. Static crackled through the quiet as he peeled it off and let it drop onto my chair. His shorts hung loose on his hips, elastic waistband shifting with the twitch of his thigh.
“Here,” he said, voice teasing. He hooked his thumbs under the band and pushed them down. The fabric puddled at his ankles, and there it was, the gleaming black Bama arena swim brief, the white A cutting across his hip.
“You wanted me to wear it,” he added, the words half a challenge, half a dare.
My chest tightened. It wasn’t just that he’d done what I asked; it was the way he owned it, standing in the center of my stripped-down room like he was about to film a video. The swimmer’s body I’d chased through rosters and parking lots was right there, close enough to touch, and he was offering it on his own terms.
Heat flushed under my skin, and I realized I was still standing there, fully dressed, like I was the one intruding. I pulled my hoodie off, tossed the cap onto the desk, and let my shirt fall away. My jeans followed, until I was down to my CK boxer briefs, the cotton stretched tight across my hips.
Luke’s gaze tracked me with a sly calm, like he was taking my measure now, not just my torso from a photo. Up close, the constellation of freckles I’d seen on his Grindr crop was clearer: scattered across his shoulders, trailing down his ribs, the kind of map you could get lost tracing. And that coppery hair, the same shock of red I’d seen high on the platform, caught the light of my desk lamp, glowing like it had been set on fire.
I stepped toward him, closing the distance until the space between us felt thin, dangerous. My hand brushed his, light but deliberate, then guided him backward toward the bed. He didn’t resist. He let me set the pace, but there was that grin again, daring me to follow through.
The mattress dipped under his weight as he sat, swim brief stretched taut over his thighs, freckles and red hair like signatures of the risk I was about to sign my name under.
My face hovered close to his. The kind of distance where I could feel the warmth of his breath, where all it would take was the smallest tilt forward and my mouth would be on his. My body screamed yes, but my head slammed the brakes. No. Not that. Not yet. Don’t give it that power.
So instead, I let the hunger bleed into my hands. I pushed him gently back, the mattress sighing under his weight as he stretched out, the black swim brief a dark slash across pale skin. My palms slid up his thighs, over the taut fabric, then higher, across his stomach, where the freckles spilled like stars against milk-white skin.
I traced them with my fingertips, slow and deliberate, the way a defensive coordinator might give the overview of a play. His chest rose and fell beneath my touch, a shallow hitch in his breath when I followed the freckles down his side. The light dusting of hair on his abdomen glowed in the light, and I wanted to bury my face in it, taste the salt of his skin, but I held back. This wasn’t about giving in. It was about control, about taking in every inch of him like a study.
Luke let me chart him, eyes half-lidded, body loose under mine. Not a word, just the steady rhythm of his breathing and the dare still curling at the edge of his mouth.
And me, bent over him, resisting the kiss but worshiping everything else.
His own hands weren’t idle. While I traced the constellations on his stomach, his fingers found the waistband of my boxer briefs, slipping beneath the elastic. His palm was warm, startlingly so, as it slid down, cupping me under the cotton. A sharp, involuntary gasp escaped my lips. The control of the defensive coordinator was shattered, replaced by the raw, simple need of the player on the field.
My hips bucked into his touch. Seeing the effect he had, Luke grinned, a flash of white in the dim room. He hooked his fingers and tugged, pulling the briefs down just enough to free me. His hand wrapped around my length, his grip firm and knowing, and my eyes nearly rolled back in my head.
A surge of possessive hunger roared back. I couldn’t just be touched; I had to take. My own hand, which had been gently tracing his skin, dove for the waistband of his arena suit. The black fabric was tight, slick. I didn’t bother trying to peel them down. Instead, I shoved my hand inside, my fingers finding the hot, hard line of his cock trapped against his stomach. I pulled it free through the leg opening, the head of his circumcised dick springing out from the tight confines of the briefs’ bottom seam.
The sight of it, him still mostly encased in the official team gear, yet exposed and straining in my hand, was the most potent thing I’d ever seen.
“Turn around,” I breathed, the command ragged. “Head of the bed.”
His light green eyes held mine for a charged second, a silent question and an answer. Then, with a fluid, athlete’s grace, he pivoted, scrambling up the mattress until his head was on my pillow. I moved with him, a mirror image, our bodies aligning in reverse. The world narrowed to the space between us, the scent of chlorine and clean sweat, and the overwhelming, mutual need.
I lowered my mouth onto him, and a moment later, felt the wet, eager heat of his engulf me. A guttural moan vibrated through me, swallowed by his own body. My hands gripped his hips, my fingers pressing into the firm muscle just above the black spandex, anchoring myself as I took him deeper. The taste was clean, sharp, uniquely his.
Below me, Luke was anything but passive. His mouth was relentless, his hands gripping my thighs, pulling me deeper into his throat with a hunger that matched my own. It was a feedback loop of sensation, a perfect, desperate symmetry. In the silent, stripped-down room, the only sounds were our ragged breaths, the wet, rhythmic friction, and the soft, creaking protest of the bedsprings, our secret anthem under the Crimson Tide of a Saturday night.
My control, so carefully constructed, was dissolving into pure, animal instinct. The planning, the secrecy, the firewall, it all melted away under the physical reality of him. My hips began to move with a mind of their own, a steady, driving rhythm that met the suction of his mouth. The pressure built in my core, a tight, coiling spring. My fingers dug harder into his hips, my breath coming in sharp, ragged pants against his skin.
A low, warning groan rumbled in my chest. I was close, the climax tearing through me with an unstoppable force. My body went rigid, and with a final, thrusting pulse, I spilled into his mouth, a choked cry tearing from my throat.
The sensation triggered his own release a moment later. I felt his body tense beneath me, a sharp, shuddering gasp, and the hot, sudden spill against my own tongue.
For a minute or so, there was only the sound of our heavy, shared breathing, the air thick and spent. The frantic energy that had consumed us both slowly ebbed, leaving a profound, buzzing stillness in its wake. We untangled ourselves, the movement slow, clumsy. I collapsed onto my back beside him, staring at the blank ceiling of the room I had emptied for this. The fantasy was over. The operation was complete. And lying next to me, in the tangible, breathing form of lukedennison_dive, was the complicated, dangerous, and utterly real aftermath of getting him off my firewall.
I pushed myself up from the bed, the distance between us feeling suddenly vast. My voice was low, deliberately casual, as I gestured toward the small, attached bathroom.
“There’s a fresh towel in there if you need it.”
It wasn’t an invitation to stay. It was a dismissal, polite but firm.
Luke’s eyes, which had been heavy-lidded and warm, sharpened with understanding. He held my gaze for a beat, then gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod. “Right,” he said, his voice a little rough. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, turning his back to me as he reached for his discarded shorts.
The silence was thick as we both dressed. I pulled my jeans back on, the rough denim a stark contrast to the slick fantasy of the swim brief. The performative intimacy was over. We were two strangers getting ready to leave a crime scene. I walked to the door, needing air, needing to check the perimeter. I cracked it open just enough to peer down the hallway, my heart seizing in my chest.
Adam. Of course.
He was down the hall, talking to someone else in their room, still in his swim team sweats. If Luke walked out now, it would be a direct collision. Adam would recognize him instantly, the freckled diver from his own team, leaving my single room late on a Saturday night. The story would write itself, and by morning, it would be all over the natatorium.
I shut the door quietly, my back against it. “Wait,” I said to Luke, who had his hoodie in his hands.
He froze, his expression shifting from post-hookup calm to alertness. “What is it?”
“My RA. He’s on the swim team. He’d know you.”
A glimmer of something like panic crossed Luke’s face, followed by a grim acceptance. He got it. The stakes. We stood there in the silent, sanitized room, two co-conspirators waiting for the all-clear. I angled my head just outside as my body held the door open.
Adam finally went back to his room. As he stepped inside, he glanced down the hall. He raised a hand in a casual, neighborly wave.
I held my breath, giving a slight nod in return. He disappeared into his room, and the click of his lock was the sweetest sound I’d heard all night.
“Okay,” I whispered, turning back to Luke. “Go. Now.”
He didn’t need to be told twice. He pulled the hoodie over his head, shadowing his face once more. I opened the door just wide enough for him to slip through. He paused on the threshold, a blurred figure in the dim hall light.
“See you, Wyatt, I had fun,” he said, the name a loaded gun in the quiet.
Then he was gone, his footsteps fading quickly down the stairwell.
I closed the door, the bolt sliding home with a definitive thud. I was alone again. The room still smelled faintly of chlorine. I looked at my reflection in the black screen of my laptop: a guy in a rumpled t-shirt and jeans, his face a carefully constructed mask of nothing. The operation was a success. The asset was extracted. The firewall, for now, was still intact.
But as I stood there in the silence, I knew the mission parameters had changed forever. The threat was no longer just a name on a screen. It had a face, a name I’d spoken aloud, and it knew where I lived.
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