Deep End: A Bad Boy Sports Romance by Roxeanne Rolling Page A

down at the swim team . Somehow, I spot Anchor first. It’s like my mind is zoomed onto his body.
    He’s doing the freestyle, moving powerfully through the water.
    He does seem graceful on land, but it’s nothing compared to how he appears in the water, as if he can move through it without any effort at all.
    His muscles are moving in perfect unison. It seems like he’s doing what he was made to do, what he was destined to do.
    I can’t help admiring his body and his muscles , his chiseled face that’s turning just slightly to the side to come up for air every other stroke or so.
    But I catch myself.
    How can I be admiring this idiot?
    He may be good at swimming. He may be good at moving through the water, but that’s probably the only thing in life he’ll ever be good at. When my damning article eventually comes out, and attaches itself like a plague to the swim team , I doubt Anchor will even be capable of reading it or understanding it. No matter what I write about him, his head is so swollen, that he’ll probably take every word as a compliment. He doesn’t seem to understand that people might not like him , or might not think he’s God’s gift to mankind the way he apparently does.
    I’m spen ding too much time stari ng at Anchor, and not enough time writing or watching what’s going on with the swim team . Whatever, I think, these are n’t the important details anyway. I really don’t care what the swim team’s tactics and strategies and training practices are. What I care about is exposing their dirt, the dark underbelly that I know exists.
    Better just to get started writing, I think.
    I get up and leave, walking down the stairs, hoisting my heavy bag as always .
    I go home to my dorm room, walking through the campus dusk by myself, like I’ve done so many times before.
    I open my laptop and open up a b lank word document that I stare into for a good twenty minutes, my mind racing with possibilities . But I have the feeling that it’s impossible to actually commit a word to the page. After all, I think to myself, I don’t really know anything yet about the swim team . The only things I know are that A nchor is an arrogant womanizer, and that he stole a famous campus statue, seemingly without any repercussions .
    My phone buzzes on the desk next to me. It’s a text message. The vibrating buzz breaks me out of my trance.
    I take my phone. It’s a text message from Anchor. We exchanged numbers earlier today.
    “Swim party tonight,” he writes. “Swim house at 11pm. I want to show you the fun side of the swim team . It’s not all boring practices and laps at the pool.”
    I smile to myself. Then I catch myself wondering why I’m smiling.
    Am I falling for Anchor? Am I smiling just because a hot jock is texting me, inviting me to a party? Or am I smiling because this is what I’ve been waiting for: Anchor might call it the “fun” side of the swim team, but I’m going to call it the demented, perverted side, at least if half the rumors are true, that is.
    The party starts at 11pm. I’m a classic night owl, but I haven’t been out that late since I was a freshman. Normally at 11pm, I’m here in my dorm room studying, reading, or writing, living my monastic life style that’s gotten me so far academically .
    “Meet you there,” I write, with my fingers actually trembling against the cell phone screen.
    I look in the mirror, somewhat nervously. I’m a mess. I’ve got to look better if I want to extract any good information out of Anchor.
    As I frantically go looking through my closet, tossing clothes around, trying to find something suitable for the party, something hot, I make mental notes of my plan for tonight. I’m going to flirt a little bit with Anchor again, make him really think he has a chance with me. By doing so, he’ll tell me everything. There’s no way a guy like that, who’s so full of himself , could ever think that a girl is just tricking him. He’s simply not going