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My eyes widen, cheeks flushing as a guy in a tiny speedo walks by. “You want me to talk to them?” Why has my voice gotten so much higher? “Why?”

His eyes narrow at me. “Because no one knows what a pool needs and doesn’t need more than a swimmer. Is that going to be a problem?”

Another guy walks by. This one is in low-riding shorts but no shirt. Does anyone in this sport ever wear clothes?

Josie laughs. “Lighten up, Bryce. She’s never been to a swim meet before.”

Mia is also grinning at us in amusement. “Yeah, it took your girlfriend several before she could talk to anyone without blushing.”

Josie gasps, turning to her best friend like some secret had just been revealed. “Mia!” she hisses her name under her breath, and I feel the smallest bit better.

“Wait, who else made you blush?” Bryce demands, looking between Mia and Josie. “It better not have been—”

Josie is quick to calm him down. “It wasn’t! It was just everyone. It takes time to get used to talking to half-naked people.”

So that answers my previous question about whether people wear clothes.

“Although she definitely blushed the first time we met Ronan O’Brien.”

Bryce gawks at his girlfriend and Josie goes back to glaring at her best friend.

Mia is completely indifferent, though. “Can you blame her, Bryce? The man was beautiful.”

I’m just lost. Completely and totally lost. I have no clue who they’re talking about, but I don’t miss the way Mia talks about him in the past tense. Which instantly pulls my focus from everything going on around me—clearly there’s some kind of history there. I’m not privy to the information and something tells me Mia wouldn’t give me any if I asked.

“He’s still beautiful,” Bryce relents with a sigh. “And I’m comfortable enough in my masculinity and sexuality to admit that.”

Josie pats his arm as Mia scoffs.

“I’m glad at least one person knows what he looks like,” she snarks. “He kind of fell off the face of the earth, didn’t he?”

His brow furrows. “What are you talking about? Ronan—”

“I see some seats,” Mia cuts him off. She doesn’t wait for a reply before she walks off.

Bryce says something to Josie about going to talk to someone, while I follow the dark-haired woman who brought up a topic she doesn’t want to talk about.

Josie catches up with me in a couple of strides, her arm linking with mine as she leans in. “Just so you know, that was Mia code forwe are not talking about this.”

“I figured,” I admit. “What happened between her and this Ronan guy?”

Josie frowns, looking ahead at her friend who is climbing the bleachers. “No one knows. Bryce has asked Ronan and I’ve tried talking to her about it. She won’t budge.”

Josie releases my arm as she climbs up behind Mia. I follow suit, stunned there’s something these two inseparable friends have kept from one another. But I’m not going to ask Mia about it. If she doesn’t want Josie to know, she won’t tell someone who’s practically a stranger. I take my seat next to Josie, who has a stapled stack of papers in her hand, skimming what looks to be a long list of names, and look at the new view I have.

As I scan the deck, I’m realizing several things about the design at once. First, Bryce is right about the amount of seating they’ll need for spectators. We are early, but the benches are already crowded, some families basically in each other’s laps. Hopefully, with the amount of seating we’re installing, that won’t be a problem during any meet they host. Another thing I notice is how the windows are going to massively help with natural light. Right now, everything feels hazy under the too harsh florescent lighting.

I should talk to Bryce about the kind of lighting we’re putting in the pool.

As I type a note to myself, I feel a pair of eyes on me. When I look up, there are literally a hundred people around, but I keep looking until my eyes connect with someone else’s. He’s standing beside a starting block, looking directly at us with his mouth gaped open. He’s tall, but not quite as tall as Bryce, and he’s wearing the world’s tiniest speedo. Now we’re just staring at each other like two idiots who don’t know what they’re looking at.

Which makes sense because I’m not sure I do.

He’s living up the fantasies I’ve created in my head.

“Who are you—Oh, that’s Carter!” I can practically hear the smile in Josie’s voice and see the shadow of her arm moving in a wave, but I can’t look away. “The two of you haven’t met yet, right?”

I shake my head, and then my heart sinks at the thought of her calling him over. I grab her arm and wrench it down in what is a completely obvious gesture. She looks at me, startled.