Page 21 of Depths of Desire (The Saints of Westmont U #4)

FIFTEEN

OLIVER

Spring was happening all at once.

Like someone had snapped their fingers and turned the world technicolor.

The wind still had bite in it, sharp and teasing like it hadn’t quite made up its mind, but the trees lining the campus sidewalks had started to bud anyway, stubborn little fists of green determined to exist. There were crocuses in the cracks between pavement stones, pale and purple and soft against the grit.

Light that used to slant cold now arrived warmer, lazier, like it had time to linger on your shoulder, your jawline, the back of your neck.

It made the whole world feel slower.

Except me.

Time didn’t linger for me. Not anymore. It came and went in hard edges and precision. Stopwatch clicks. Stroke counts. Intake and output. Seconds measured like gold dust. I didn’t live in seasons. I lived in splits, recovery percentages, data, and pushing until something gave out.

Days blurred the same way water blurs over skin, fast and forgettable, unless you stopped to feel it.

Practice. Class. Gym. Recovery. Repeat. I tracked my life in intervals, heartbeats, seconds shaved off the clock.

Except now…there were gaps in the rhythm.

Bright ones. Disruptive, glorious breaks in the pattern I’d fought to maintain for years.

Texts. Sleepy voice notes. A picture of a half-eaten bagel captioned Your fault, too runny again. Memes I had to stifle laughter at in the locker room. One-liner messages that didn’t say much but said everything.

Sometimes I’d open a message from Lennox mid-training and not even read it—just see his name on my screen and close the app again, no reply, no need.

Just the sight of it was enough. It steadied me.

Made my world feel less like a race I was about to lose and more like something I might actually enjoy running.

That was what I was thinking about when my phone buzzed during cooldown. I was on the bench, chest still rising from the last lap, legs aching, arms loose with the good kind of soreness. The kind that came from doing something right.

It was Lena.

I answered as I laced my sneakers, one thumb pushing the knot into place.

“You’re a little hard to catch lately,” she said. No hello, just that sharp, observant tone she always used when she was already halfway to figuring something out.

“Hi to you, too,” I muttered, tucking the phone under my ear.

“Don’t hi me. This is the third time I’ve called without a reply. You’re slipping.”

“I’m busy.”

“You’re always busy. You’re also always efficient with your time. And you don’t forget things.” Her voice dipped on the last line, just a little. “So what gives?”

I leaned back on the bench, sweat cooling against my spine in the drafty hallway outside the pool. A drop ran from my hairline down the side of my jaw. “I’ve been…hanging out. More than usual.”

There was a beat of silence, then a knowing hum. “Hanging out,” she repeated, drawing out the words like taffy. “With someone who happens to be very good at hockey and once made you grumpy in a car for six hours straight?”

I sighed. “You set that ride up. This is technically your fault.”

“Oh my God.” I could hear the grin crackling through the phone. “You have been seeing him.”

“Can we not?—”

“No, we absolutely can,” she said brightly, ignoring the edge in my voice. “You’ve been seeing Lennox. And you didn’t tell me? I’m hurt. Betrayed, even.”

“You’re also nosy as hell, Snips.”

“Yes, but with love.” Her voice softened. “How long?”

“A while,” I said, after a pause. “Couple months. Not the whole time. We weren’t really…anything at first.”

“And now you are?”

“I don’t know what we are.”

“But it’s more than nothing.”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to. Silence on my end was its own confirmation.

She pounced. “Oh my God, have you kissed him?”

“Lena—”

“Have you kissed him more than once?”

“Jesus.”

“That’s a yes.” She was practically giddy now. “Okay, but is it good? Tell me it’s good. Tell me he makes you laugh.”

I closed my eyes and smiled, rubbing a hand over my face. “He’s ridiculous. And yes. He’s…infuriating. In the most charming way imaginable.”

There was a pause on the line. Then she said, “You sound happy.”

I looked out across the field behind the gym, where the sun was sinking low, thick and heavy like a yolk split across the sky.

The grass was patchy still, brown at the edges, but warming up.

I could feel the glow on my arms, even through the sweatshirt I hadn’t taken off yet.

And yeah. I was smiling. Quietly. Stupidly.

“I am,” I said. Then added, too quickly, “But it’s not…it’s not serious.”

“Are you sure?”

“I have goals, Lena. Deadlines. There’s a timeline, and I can’t afford to lose focus now.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I’m not saying you should drop everything for him. I’m just saying…the way you talk about him? It doesn’t sound like something casual.”

I didn’t respond. Not right away. Because I could feel it happening—the pullback.

The part of me that always flinched when something got too real.

Like seeing the Olympic gold two strokes away, freaking out, and letting someone else snatch it away from me.

I could practically hear the tide in my head, receding from the shore, dragging sand with it.

“You like him,” she said again, this time with awe. “You really like him.”

And suddenly, it was too much. I started pushing that part of me back down—tightening the walls, straightening the lines.

I hadn’t earned the right to feel this. Not yet.

Not when I hadn’t finished what I came here to do.

Not after what happened last season. Not after how hard I’d fought to prove I could win.

I wasn’t ready for something that felt like falling.

But later that night, I saw him again.

We met at this bar near campus, low-lit, tables worn soft from years of elbows and drinks and laughter. The air always smelled faintly of fryer oil and someone’s cheap cologne, but it was warm and familiar and comfortable.

He was already there when I walked in, curled into the corner booth like he’d been poured into it, one arm slung lazily along the back, a soda in front of him, and that flannel shirt I liked best wrinkled just enough to drive me crazy.

His jeans were tight in that way that made me forget what words were.

His hair curled at the ends, a little too long, like he hadn’t gotten around to cutting it, and I didn’t want him to.

His laugh was the first sound I heard before I even reached him.

Loud, bright, unfiltered. He was trying to tell Rhett some ridiculous story and cracking himself up halfway through it, shaking his head and swatting at the air like it was someone else’s fault.

“Okay, wait,” he gasped, waving his hands, “I’m gonna finish it this time—no, stop looking at me like that!”

He caught sight of me and lit up like the moon just winked on. Wide smile, eyes crinkling, joy without hesitation. He waved me over like I’d been missing for days instead of hours.

I sat down across from him, caught in the gravity of his grin. He tried to keep going with the story but gave up halfway through, laughing too hard, half apologizing. His hands kept moving. His face flushed. His shoulders shook.

And I just stared at him.

I wasn’t thinking about Nationals. Or times. Or records. Or the weight of expectation on my back like a wet towel.

I was thinking about him.

About how soft he made me feel. How quiet.

And then something warm and sharp bloomed behind my ribs. Something I didn’t know how to name yet. Something bigger than want. Bigger than fear.

And for one terrifying second, I realized: I was already in it.

Not falling.

Not wondering.

Already there.

And he had no idea.

The rest of spring came in soft glances and slow build.

Finals loomed like thunderheads, but somehow everything felt lighter.

Maybe it was the way sunlight lingered longer on the pavement.

Maybe it was Lennox, stretching out across my weekends, curling himself around the quiet hours between practices, around the gaps I didn’t realize were waiting to be filled.

We didn’t need much. A couch. Takeout containers. The backs of our hands brushing as we reached for the same fry. We never said what are we again. It didn’t feel like a question anymore. It just was.

Sometimes I watched him sleep. Sometimes he caught me watching, and instead of teasing, he’d reach for my hand and pull it under the covers like it belonged there.

He always ran hot. He was a furnace under every blanket, a sun-warmed stone on chilly mornings. I liked being near it. I liked being near him.

And then, one night, he texted.

Lennox: You home? I’ve got something for you.

I opened the door to find him standing there with that familiar bounce in his knee, a folded envelope in his hand and an impossible sparkle in his eyes like he couldn’t believe he’d kept it a secret this long.

He stepped in without waiting for an invitation—he never needed one—and handed it over.

The envelope was unsealed. Inside was a printed reservation. A lodge. Ten days, early June. Same mountain resort. Same place we’d gotten snowed in during winter break.

I looked up.

“Tell me you didn’t.”

His grin was boyish and proud. “I did. Right after you said their pancakes were the best you’d ever had. I figured, you know…might be cool to go back when we’re not stranded.”

I didn’t speak right away. My heart was doing that thing again—flipping over itself, getting ahead of the beat.

I stared at the paper, at the bold black text and the little confirmation number at the bottom, and I didn’t know what to do with the fact that someone had thought this far ahead. That he had.

“I figured we could go after finals,” he added, rubbing the back of his neck.

“I know you’ll be fried. I will, too. I thought…

maybe we could unwind. Not think. Just be.

Be before we have to get back into it. You have to train hard after.

I have to visit family. It won’t be a pretty summer. But we can have this.”

He wasn’t asking for anything with it. Not commitment. Not promises.

Just time.

Just me.

I stepped forward and kissed him before I could think twice. Soft, slow, with my hands on either side of his face and something in my chest so swollen it nearly split me.

When we pulled apart, he laughed against my cheek. A low, breathless sound that made my skin tighten in the best way. “So I’m guessing that’s a yes?”

I didn’t let go. Just pressed my forehead to his and closed my eyes for a second, like that contact could steady the thrum in my chest. “It’s more than a yes,” I murmured.

Because it wasn’t just a lodge.

It wasn’t just nine nights.

It wasn’t just a scenic break from the weight of deadlines or drills.

It was him remembering every word, every detail, the exact curve of the moment that changed everything between us.

It was him wanting not a flash of affection, not a convenient stopgap for lust or loneliness, but something real, something longer than just now.

It was him saying, without saying, this mattered to me too.

And somehow, that landed harder than any love confession ever could.

He didn’t need to wrap it in poetry. He didn’t need to say it out loud. It was right there in his eyes, in his grin, in the envelope clutched between my fingers.

And yeah, I fell for him a little more that night.

Maybe more than a little.

Definitely more than a little.