Breathless

Pool chlorine still clung to my skin as I sat behind the bleachers, phone in hand. Again. 7:43 PM. Same as yesterday.

"You're literally stalking his Strava now," Marcus said, dropping onto the gym floor beside me with his usual dramatic flair. "That's not thirst, that's a restraining order waiting to happen."

"I'm not stalking," I protested, though the heat creeping up my neck betrayed me. "I'm just... informed. His running route passes by the pool center. It's basically public knowledge."

Marcus raised one eyebrow. The same eyebrow that had witnessed me fail at asking out literally anyone since seventh grade. "You watch his swim meets from the parking lot. You timed his 200 freestyle last week without being inside the building. Bestie, you're not informed, you're in full FBI mode."

The worst part? He wasn't wrong.

I'd been **running** from this feeling since September—the way my stomach did actual gymnastics whenever Liam walked past my locker, the way his laugh sounded like someone finally understanding a joke I hadn't even told yet. I'd poured everything into **swimming** instead, lap after endless lap, because water didn't judge you for not knowing how to say "hey, I think you're kind of amazing and also I'm terrified."

"I'm going to talk to him tomorrow," I said, trying to sound convinced.

Marcus snorted. "That's what you said yesterday. And the day before that, when you hid behind a vending machine instead."

Before I could defend my honor—or lack thereof—the gym doors swung open. Liam.

**Swimming** practice bag slung over his shoulder. Fresh from the pool, not cross country. Wait—

"Hey, Maya," he said, and suddenly my entire body forgot how to human. "I, uh, I noticed you at my meet yesterday. Behind the bleachers?"

My soul left my body.

"I wasn't—"

"It was actually kinda sweet," he continued, rubbing the back of his neck. Like he was nervous. Like I made HIM nervous. "I've been, uh, running past the pool hoping to catch you? But you're always in the water."

Marcus made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a victory scream.

"You've been what?"

"Trying to talk to you for weeks," Liam said, smiling now, and the smile was somehow better up close. "But you're always swimming, and I'm always running, and we keep missing each other. Until I realized you were at my meets, and I thought maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe you weren't just watching my times," he said softly. "Maybe you were watching me."

The air between us felt electric, charged, impossible. Months of overthinking, of breathless anticipation, of Marcus calling me out for being a coward—all of it crystallizing into this moment.

"I was," I admitted. "Watching you, I mean. The times were just... bonus information."

Liam laughed. It was even better up close.

"Well," he said, "now that we've established we've both been equally awkward about this... want to get food? My treat. Non-creepy promise."

"Yes," I said, before my brain could invent seventeen reasons to say no.

As we walked out together, Marcus fake-saluted me from the bleachers like the chaotic FBI agent he apparently was now.

Some spy operation I'd turned out to be. But somehow, I didn't mind being discovered at all.