Curve Ball Read Online Free Page B

though I know it’s not how you’re supposed to do it. You’re supposed to go further down, but whenever I try loads of water goes in my tube and by the time I’ve managed to sort that out I’m bobbing back up to the surface.
    Apparently, it’s really hard to stay down – which seems like the opposite problem to the one everyone else has. Other people sink the minute they step into the water, and then have to paddle frantically to remain afloat. Whereas I appear to be so naturally buoyant I’m surprised gravity is able to hold me down. I should shoot off into the atmosphere the moment I leave the house.
    All of which is embarrassing enough on its own, without Steven seeing me do it. Despite his massive size, he’s become really stealthy. He’s gotten creeping up on me down to a fine art, and this is no exception. I stop staring down at my toes and some random things that could possibly be fish, and am greeted by the sight of him, somehow suddenly in the water with me.
    I didn’t even hear a splash. Possibly he’s a champion diver, and I just didn’t know it – after all, there are a ton of other things I didn’t know about him before this holiday. I didn’t know he could be sensitive, and apologetic. I hadn’t realised that he enjoys having conversations with me, or at least is getting good at pretending he does.
    And most of all, I never knew that he had such a hairy chest.
    Because he does. It’s utterly and completely hairy in a way I’ve never imagined before – even though I haven’t been imagining, honest to God. It’s just that in most of my totally innocent mind wanderings, his chest is usually completely smooth. As though men as muscular as he is can’t possibly have body fur.
    They have to be waxed. It’s in the Mr Universe handbook.
    Only Steven doesn’t abide by the Mr Universe handbook. He’s not even into his body in that way – he just enjoys doing stuff that makes him all massive, like extreme rock climbing or doing that long walk Stephen King talked about. So I’m not sure why I assumed he was down the waxing place daily, getting stripped and buffed and coated in fake tan. He’s actually pretty pale.
    And very manly. Extraordinarily manly. Oh Jesus, he’s so manly I’ve lost the ability to greet him in a normal fashion. I just bob there for a long, long time, instead, thinking about his personal grooming regimen. Then, once everything’s turned weird and the silence is like a gong going off between us, the pressure to say something just overwhelms me.
    I can’t speak because I didn’t speak before. I’m relying on him, but he’s not speaking either. We’re just floating around in the brilliant blue Mediterranean, staring at each other in a way that’s starting to make my face heat, again . The cool water should be keeping me at an even temperature, but apparently it has no control over my disobedient cheeks.
    I’m so relieved when he finally breaks this bizarre tension and speaks.
    Even though he says the following:
    ‘I’ve never seen you in a swimsuit before.’
    Now I’m not only aware of this weird heaviness between us, but how bare my body is too. I thought I’d be safe because he was still sleeping when I got up, and I assumed he’d never come looking for me in the water.
    But I can see now how stupid that assumption was. I based it on the old feeling of Steven isn’t interested in me . Instead of the new feeling of Jesus Christ, he’s interested in me all the fucking time . He’s so interested that he’s bobbing about a foot from me at six in the morning, and the first thing he chooses to say is about something I’m wearing.
    And then he looks at the thing I’m wearing. He’s looking at me everywhere, in fact. His eyes feel like hands, slowly discovering my cheeks and my lips and my shoulders, in tiny sections. As though he’s somehow gone blind and needs to feel me out, despite the fact that his sight is perfectly operational.
    He can see me.