to me the second we were linked, and it made me feel like something from a Sci-Fi novel, but it was true. I wasn’t sure why him hugging me yesterday hadn’t fully worked, nor did I understand why this morning in the pool hadn’t either—but this? Did.
Fate.
Again.
Fuck.
Why wouldn’t it leave me alone?
I gnawed on my lip some more, finally breaking free of the connection to stare over the lane. It was still, so serene and perfect that it was such a complete contrast to the crowds watching us, it was almost obscene.
My stomach churned for a second—nerves fighting with the eagerness I always felt when water was nearby. My preference would have been to start the race off, but preferences meant shit when it came down to strategy.
I was the fastest.
Therefore I went last.
As we huddled together, I barely tuned in to Rachel’s speech. She seemed to think she was our leader or some crap like that because she was going first—BS. Total BS. Disregarding most of what she said, I cast another look at Adam, almost like I was sending a net out into the ocean, hoping for a good catch.
Of course he collided with me once more.
Just like he always would.
The thought stymied me. Made my past choices and his past decisions blur and seem so pointless. There was no free will where we were concerned. None at all.
And that was the power of the image that had gone viral, I thought.
We were helpless in this fight, and it showed, and that was why it was so poignant.
The love was there. Like the word was etched on our foreheads or something.
My throat felt thick at the thought, and I knew I needed to get my head in the game when Lori shoved me in the side twice and I didn’t push her back.
“You okay?” she whispered, the second I removed my AirPods—rude, but I’d definitely carried on listening to my music through Rachel’s so-called pep-talk.
I cast her a look. “I’m fine.”
She studied me for a second, her eyes concerned. I knew why—last night, I’d been freezing. We had the AC on all the time at the moment, but I’d begged her to switch it off.
She thought I was coming down with a cold, and I preferred for her to think that. Especially because, when the race was over, whether we lost or won, she’d forget all about it because the cold would burn away now that I’d reconnected with Adam. Proving something I’d only thought about before—that after a healing, it wasn’t enough for him to take me in his arms. We had to reconnect, and the fire would burn in our souls, heating me up nicely.
But, in close quarters, Adam and I were incapable of letting our guards down so freely. Only at this distance was it possible.
Water and Adam… my two fates, just about to twine together, creating a puzzle I didn’t think I’d ever be able to solve or, hell, even unravel partway.
All of us were ready when the initial whistle called the first swimmer in the relay up to the mount, and in a flash, so quickly that it always made my heart skip a beat, another whistle pierced the air, and Rachel went soaring into the water. Beside us, an Indian team had a false start and was immediately disqualified.
A German team, two lanes over, had Rachel at a shortcoming, and I knew it was only going to grow further and further—Mercedes Lotke had a wicked freestyle.
Adrenaline buzzed through me, further chasing away the cold, and my eagerness to win, to excel, to make a name for myself, overpowered everything else until I forgot Charles Linden, he of the shared surname with a man I had truly cared for, I forgot about healing him, and for a second, I even forgot about Adam.
I was focused on the water.
On the distance between Rachel and Mercedes.
She touched the wall, dove back under in a neat spiral, then surged forth. She was about twenty meters behind Mercedes who touched the wall on the other side in a flash, and was back at our end of the pool in no time at all.
As the second swimmer was halfway down the length, Lori was just diving in. She didn’t manage to recoup the time, and I looked up at the board, saw the seconds ticking by, saw how fast she was swimming, and knew it wasn’t enough.
Thankfully, Mercedes’s third swimmer was a weak link. By the time Jamie