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While my grades were not stellar, I was a killer swimmer, and gotten into USC through the Trojan Swim Team. We’d finished NCAA dive finals at the end of March, but slacking off wasn’t in the cards, not with the Olympic Swim Trials coming up in June. I had to be at the top of my game and Coach Anderson was not going easy on me.
My life consisted of swimming, eating four thousand calories a day, studying for finals, and crashing in the guesthouse at the back of the estate. Most people thought my life was glamorous, but once I’d entered college, I’d known I needed to buckle down.
That didn’t mean I didn’t let off some steam now and again. My friends and I knew how to get into trouble when we needed it, though I was making an effort to straighten my ways.
Plus, on the days I was required to get glammed up for the obligatory paparazzi shots, I’d get decked out in my finest, go pick up Zoey, and swing by notorious Los Angeles hot spots to mingle with other celebrities. Zoey and I would usually end up in the next edition of US Weekly or People Magazine.
It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but it came with the territory. Being a Vaulteneau came with certain responsibilities.
The Vaulteneau Malibu estate boasted thirteen bedrooms, twenty bathrooms, a ballroom, spa, theater, and an outdoor venue for charity events. You’d think I’d live in the main house, but I’d moved into the detached guesthouse three years ago. I’d always been independent, and it allowed me to come and go without disturbing Dad, or his guests. He frequently entertained movie stars and business associates. I’d rather not be in the way, or worse, get caught up in the events and have to schmooze.
The guesthouse was a two-bedroom, two-bathroom mansion with its own living room, full kitchen, bar, and outdoor entertainment spaces. A family of five could easily fit within the walls of the guesthouse. So it didn’t hurt that I had the place all to myself, especially when I brought someone back home for private one-on-one time.
The guesthouse’s patio had an Endless swimming pool and hot tub. After a long day of swimming or surfing, I’d soak my stiff muscles in the hot tub and watch ESPN on the overhead television installed in the corner of the patio.
Both bedrooms were on the second floor and shared a large deck with the same vista views of the ocean.
Dante used to live in the second bedroom, but he moved to Singapore to run Dad’s business enterprises there, so the other room was vacant unless my friends crashed on the premises, which happened with enough frequency that when Dante visited, he stayed in the main house.
There was an underground tunnel that led to the main house, but I rarely used it. It also led to a safe room as well as the underground garage. Dad had a fleet of twenty cars to match any occasion. I made do with three vehicles—a beat-up SUV that I used to haul my surfboards around, a nondescript sedan for in-town driving, and a custom cherry-red Ferrari Stradale for the days that called for attention.
Today, I hopped in my nondescript sedan and drove to school. Once there, I met up with my best friend, Filipe Hernandez, went to classes and then practice, where Coach Anderson seemed to enjoy torturing us.
After grueling laps and what felt like hours of one tirade after another, Filipe said to me at the end of our swim lane, “You’d think Coach believed none of us ever swam a lap in our lives.”
“He’s just nervous about our chances at Nationals.” I lifted my goggles to my forehead and wiped water from my eyes. My right shoulder was screaming at me but I ignored it, like usual.
Filipe lifted a dark eyebrow as we climbed out of the pool and made our way to the locker rooms. “Keep telling yourself that, Matty. Coach is out to either kill you or kiss you. Still can’t tell which.”
This had been Filipe’s argument since our freshman year.
“Coach is not my type,” I said under my breath with a shudder. There were way too many ears here in the locker room, even with the open bay showers hissing to life, not that that stopped the team from chirping me.
A chorus of guys already soaping up laughed at us. It wasn’t like my antics weren’t well known with the team and they knew my proclivities. Thankfully, no one on the team gave a single shit when disrobing in front of me.
“Who’s not Matty’s type?” asked Jason Strickland, our team captain. Jason, with his dark hair and rugged good looks, was a senior and in his last year with the Trojan Swim Team. He was gunning to earn a spot on Team USA, like me. “Isn’t anyone with a pulse your type, Matty?”
I flipped him off, and he offered me a sarcastic smile.
“You calling me a whore, captain?” I asked without heat.
“We’re all whores to some degree,” Jason replied before he turned into the spray of his shower.
Everyone in the shower hollered their concurrence. There was something humorous about a group of naked college guys wholeheartedly agreeing to being whores.
It was brave of Jason to chirp at me considering he and I had gotten a little handsy in the showers last year. But I wasn’t one to kiss and tell, which he knew all too well.
Snickering in the stall next to me, Filipe said, “Okay, so maybe Coach isn’t your type, but maybe you’re Coach’s type,” he said, a mischievous gleam in his brown eyes. “Ever think of that?”
“Oh fuck off, all of you.” I laughed as the conversation turned to other topics, namely the girls they were dating.
That night, Filipe came over to the house for beers. Filipe was working on a degree in the environmental science field, but he didn’t have to be a sports medicine expert to shoot me a You’ve got to be kidding me look as I rubbed an absurd amount of Biofreeze gel into my shoulder. As soon as the cool, menthol-scented pain reliever absorbed into the skin, I let out a sigh of relief.
We parked our butts in lounge chairs on the patio and tuned to an NHL hockey game on ESPN. The Stanley Cup finals were well underway. I wasn’t a huge hockey fan, but I had a second cousin who’d been playing in a minor league team for a few years, and every once in a while he’d get called up to the big team when there was an injury. I checked the Capitals roster, but didn’t see his name listed.
Filipe glared at me as I put my sweatshirt back on.
“I don’t want to hear it,” I said in response.
