Jessie turned to me with an earnest expression. “Please promise me you’ll try it on? Not for us, but at least for yourself. Just to see. You might be surprised with how you look.”
I doubted that, and they could tell.
“Let’s make a deal,” Brock said.
I shook my head violently. “No more swim races. I’m not falling for that twice in a row.”
The others laughed as Brock continued. “If you promise to try that on at some point during this week, then we’ll show you something in return.”
Though his voice was neutral, my mind immediately went in the gutter, and I felt my cheeks heat.
Kincade, of course, noticed. “I’d love to know what you were thinking just now.”
“I wasn’t thinking anything,” I lied. “What will you show me if I agree?”
Brock leaned down to where Jessie and Kincade sat. They spoke quickly and quietly, almost as in code. I only caught a few words, one of which was “crisscross.”
Finally, they nodded. “We’ll show you a special trick we used to do, back in high school. No one’s seen it in years.”
“Because none of us have tried it in years,” Brock grumbled.
Kincade cocked his head to his side. “Do you have your phone with you? Because if we do it wrong, you can probably make a pretty penny uploading the video online.”
I laughed, but I had to admit, I was officially curious. I knew that putting on the bikini would be an exercise in low self-esteem, but they’d only said I had to try it on. No one said anything about me needing to look in the mirror. “It’s a deal. About the bikini, not about posting your epic failure online.”
Kincade grinned. “That’s the spirit.” He stood up and Jessie did as well. “Where shall we do this?”
Brock jerked his head to the deep end of the pool, and I followed them over there. I thought they were headed for the diving boards that were set at different heights. That was a pretty exciting thought. I had visions of athletic guys like these doing cool flips and stuff before hitting the water. But they stopped at the corner of the pool before we even got to the diving boards.
They conferred again, and then Jessie walked ten paces away from the corner of the pool. He turned so he was facing that corner and the diving boards. Kincade moved into position about ten steps away, too. He was facing the shallow end of the pool where we’d hung out yesterday. Then Brock took his spot, about hallway between the others. When they were all in place, they sort of formed a diamond with each of them one corner of the square and the corner of the pool the fourth one.
“Ready?” Kincade asked the others. “Stay back, Maddie.” I nodded, taking a few steps back, but not more than that. No way was I going to miss this. My eyes were glued to the guys as they seemed to all take a deep breath.
Brock did the countdown. “One… two… three.”
Jessie moved first, taking off smoothly and running at top speed toward the corner of the pool. Kincade started a half second after him, and Brock started to run right after that.
My heart pounded in my chest as I watched them. It looked like they were all going to crash into each other at the spot where the two concrete walls of the pool met. Then, when Jessie was a few steps away from the water, he crouched low and jumped, his body horizontal as he flew through the air. He looked like a runner trying to steal third base.
Jessie’s dive was so low that I was afraid he’d scrape his legs on the concrete, but he cleared it just as Kincade, coming in at a perpendicular angle, dived over him. For a moment, it seemed like they both hovered in the air with Kincade’s body sailing over Jessie’s.
And then Brock was there. He jumped high in the air and arced his body over Kincade’s. For a split second, almost too fast to see, they were right over each other, like three slices of bread. Then Jessie hit the water, moving toward the diving boards. Kincade entered the water and hugged the wall that led to the shallow end. Brock’s massive body cut into the water with almost no splash. He stayed under, heading diagonally across the pool.
It was the most amazing feat of athleticism I’d ever seen.
Who the hell were these guys?
They sure as hell weren’t on a high school swim team anymore, so how could they still be in such good shape?
From the chitchat last night, they’d made it sound like they spent most their time holed up in an office these days. As I approached the side of the pool where Kincade waited, I felt almost in awe of these men.