The Deal With Byrd and O'Neill

Chapter 3

Cody

"You're dragging your legs Benjamin! Move your legs!"  

Coach Carta's face had turned red with yelling effort. He was doing his "Sparta" nickname justice like always, but he wasn't yelling at me for a change. Since I had a big competition coming up, I had to take it easier. Coach's orders, and I followed them to a T. The T of tapering. Although I did find myself constantly wishing I had just a few more weeks to prepare, had trained just a bit harder. 

I reached the wall, and did a flip turn. One final lap to go, and I'd be done for the day. Sailing across the water at my own pace and with the coach's eyes off of me, I was left alone with my thoughts. 

I knew said thoughts should be focused on the swimming regionals, and the swimming regionals only. But no matter how hard I tried, they kept going back to last night at the bar. 

Mason and Zoey. Zoey and Mason.

I couldn't wrap my head around it. They just didn't fit together.

It's not because they had nothing in common. In fact, they probably had more in common than Mason and I did. They were both outgoing, both enjoyed clubs, festivals, and hanging out with lots of people all the time. They also had that similar 'cool' look to them, knew how fashion and stuff worked. 

For some reason, I still couldn't see it happening, and it really bothered me. Darn, I wasn't used to having the energy to focus on anything except going full speed ahead. Now I kept thinking of Mason, couldn't let it go, not even while in the pool.

I'd tried acting enthusiastic for Mace's sake, despite my doubts. If he really wanted to be with Zoey, then I hoped he'd get with Zoey. He had to be quite serious about her too. I'd never seen Mason so mad at Noel before. They bickered a lot and pranked each other all the time, but this had been a different kind of mad. For something so silly as being called gay in front of Zoey. Why had he told Noel before me that he liked her anyway? Didn't he trust me?

I reached the other wall of the pool, which marked the end of my cooling down. Lifting myself out of the water, I walked past the coach who was still shouting at Benjamin, and to the benches. Britt was already sitting there. She had a large towel wrapped around her impressive set of shoulders, which even I was kind of jealous of. She looked up from her phone and scooted over to make room for me when I approached. 

"Hey, what's up," she asked with a bright smile. 

I hesitated. 

"There's one thing up." 

I needed to talk about this Mason thing to someone, but how was I going to phrase what was on my mind? Britt was a great teammate and a good friend, but I felt uncomfortable telling her the whole story.  I didn't want to gossip and say bad things about Zoey, like how she didn't fit Mason, even if Britt only vaguely knew who Zoey was.