Free Between Heats (Downtown Aquatics Book 1) by Laney Castro

bingeing anyway.
    Conversations with him ranged from comfort food to Japanese
rock bands, something she decided, she didn’t mind at all. They’d also talk
about things from her own field—movies and industry politics and coffee
roasts—but their conversations also meandered to more mundane things like
weather, or what their days would be like, or where they’d eat next. It made
Madison happy to be on someone’s top-of-mind. They were strangely matched at
times, a girl who ordered the least fattening thing off the menu and the guy
who did nothing but eat, but they had found an easy and familiar rhythm with
each other.
    Aaron was a different man entirely when the topic revolved
around swimming. He would talk about it enthusiastically, how he loved being in
the water and he could spend hours in it. His life revolved around it so she
couldn’t blame him. Little by little, he opened up about starting at a young
age because his father had swum competitively. Once Aaron could keep up with
the older boys, he began competing seriously himself. Madison noticed that he’d
grow tense whenever the conversation shifted to his dad. From what she could
gather, Mr. Harding was an extreme perfectionist.
    She secretly read up on interviews and articles about him, and
also to keep up with the terms he kept mentioning. This was actually the part
that her sister Mackenzie was the biggest help; Mac was a bit of a fan, and
after Madison had convinced her that Aaron wasn’t the douche she first thought,
Mac was her constant source of info. She was thrilled that Madison was dating
an Olympian, a thought that never really entered Madison’s head until Mac
mentioned it.
    But she didn’t leave everything to her sister. She even visited
him once or twice during his morning practices, and saw how much he was really
into swimming. But whenever she asked him about the more technical stuff, he’d
just shrug and grin, “Simple. The fastest guy wins.”
    When he had time, and when she let him, he returned the favor
and watched her at a couple of shoots for small local magazines. Even if
shooting the covers for Quilt It Simple or Yoga Monthly wasn’t as exciting as
the Stroke campaign, he told her he enjoyed watching her work.
    Aside from always being hungry, he was always sleeping. There
were times she actually found it endearing, because he looked calm and adorable
when he dozed off, but it did tend to take up the time they could’ve been
spending time together.
    One time, she asked him to catch a foreign film at an art house
theatre on Santa Monica Boulevard. “Are you sure you wanna watch this one?” he asked with a frown when she
pointed at the poster.
    “Yeah, why not?” she asked him. “It looks interesting, and I
thought you’d like it since it’s Japanese.”
    Aaron simply shrugged. “Sure. Your call.”
    He made it sound like she was dragging him to watch paint dry.
And it felt that way, too, since he fell asleep fifteen minutes into the movie.
He had his head leaned back and didn’t seem to be moving, and so she had to
look closely to see that he really was sleeping. Madison even poked his
shoulder once but he didn’t budge. She shook her head and just leaned back.
With his training getting more and more intensive, she knew that Aaron needed
as much rest as he could get.   She
enjoyed the movie nonetheless, liked its quiet pace and characters, but she
just wished he was awake the whole time to enjoy it.
    So she decided to tease him when they walked to a small cafe
afterwards. With her hand tucked in his, they lined up for drinks, and after
they had gotten a cup of Darjeeling for her and a smoothie and slice of cake
for him, she nudged him. She wasn’t going to let him live it down.
    “So, Mr. Harding, what was your favorite part of that beautiful
movie?” she asked him in between giggle fits.
    She was all prepared to laugh at his confused expression when
all of a sudden, he leaned forward and looked straight
at her.