No Distance

Chapter 3: No Distance

Elias

Six a.m. and Asher was already in the water when I got there, which shouldn’t have bothered me and did anyway.

“Morning, partner,” he said, not even out of breath, like the word tasted good in his mouth.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What should I call you. Elias? Kann? Something else?” He grinned up at me from the water, easy, infuriating. “I’m flexible.”

Coach Reyes blew the whistle before I had to answer, which was the only good thing that happened in the next hour.

The set was brutal by design—mixed intervals, no rest between, meant to simulate race fatigue. Asher stayed on my hip the entire way, matching my splits stroke for stroke like it cost him nothing, occasionally surfacing just long enough to say something under his breath that only I could hear. Nothing dirty. Nothing he needed to be. Just enough to keep me from settling into any kind of rhythm that didn’t include him.

“You’re dropping your elbow on the pull,” he said at the wall, halfway through.

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Didn’t say you didn’t.” He pushed off before I could answer, and I hated how much faster that made me go on the next fifty, purely out of spite.

He kept doing it. Every turn, every push-off, his body stayed close enough that I could feel the displacement of water from his stroke. When we paused at the flags he didn’t give me space. Just hung there, breathing steady, watching me like he was waiting for me to crack first.

“You’re working too hard on the kick,” he said once, quiet enough that Reyes wouldn’t hear. “Save something for the end.”

“Mind your own lane.”

“We’re in the same one now.” He pushed off again, and I followed harder than I needed to, chasing the irritation more than the clock.

Reyes barked something about split times at the end of the set, told us both to tighten up our turns, and moved down the deck to yell at somebody else. Asher hauled himself out of the water beside me, dripping, unbothered, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine on the way to the towels.

“Good set,” he said.

“Get out of my space.”

“Can’t. We’re partners now.” He said it like a joke. It didn’t land like one.

By the time we hit the locker room my whole body was wound tight in a way that had nothing to do with the swim and everything to do with an hour of him existing four feet away from me on purpose. The room was loud at first—towels snapping, somebody’s music too loud on a speaker, Marcus doing an impression of Coach Reyes that got a laugh out of half the team.

“Careful, Kann,” one of the sophomores said, nodding at Asher and me toweling off next to each other. “Heard you two are basically married now.”

A couple of guys laughed. Somebody added something cruder about the two of us sharing a locker, the kind of joke that gets thrown around locker rooms without anybody meaning much by it. I didn’t look at Asher. Asher didn’t look at me. We both let it die on its own, the way we always did, and the room moved on to something else within thirty seconds.

By the time it was actually us, the room had mostly emptied. Last few stragglers grabbing bags, the door swinging shut behind them one at a time, until it was just the hum of the showers running somewhere and the two of us at opposite ends of a bench.

“You’re doing it on purpose,” I said.

“Doing what.”

“Staying that close in the water. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“I’m doing my job. We’re partners, remember.” He said it lightly, but he was already closer than he’d been a second ago, close enough that I could smell chlorine and the same soap from yesterday. “Not my fault it gets to you.”

“It doesn’t get to me.”

“No?” His voice dropped. “Could’ve fooled me.”

I should have walked away. I’d told myself I would, this morning, lying awake before my alarm even went off—new rules, more distance, nothing that gave him this much room. Instead I had a fistful of his shirt and his back against the lockers before I’d fully decided to do it, and the sound he made when I shoved him there went straight through me.

“There you go,” he said, breath uneven now too. “Knew you had it in you somewhere.”

I got a hand under his waistband to make him stop talking. It worked for about four seconds. Then his hand found the back of my neck and he flipped the angle, dragged me closer instead of letting me set the pace. I tried to keep the upper hand—pushed him harder into the metal, tried to keep my own body under control—but he was already dropping to his knees like he’d decided that was the only place this was going.

He yanked my shorts and briefs down in one rough motion. My cock sprang free, already hard, and he didn’t waste time. He wrapped his fist around the base, gave it one firm stroke, then opened his mouth and took me in.

The wet heat of it punched the air out of my lungs.

“Fuck—”

He hummed around me like the sound was funny, then sank deeper, tongue working the underside while his hand twisted at the base. The wet, filthy noise of it filled the empty locker room—slick, rhythmic, unmistakable. Every time he pulled back the head of my cock dragged across his tongue with a soft, wet pop before he took me again, deeper, until I felt the back of his throat.

I fisted his hair and tried to set the pace. He let me for three strokes, then locked his hands on my hips and took control right back, forcing me to stay still while he worked me exactly how he wanted. Slow, then sudden, deep enough that his nose brushed my stomach, then shallow and teasing until I was shaking with the effort not to thrust.

“Asher—”

He pulled off just long enough to speak, lips shiny, voice low and wrecked.

“Team thinks you’re too focused to even look at anyone. Wish they could see their you right now—cock down my throat, can’t even keep still.”

He took me again before I could answer, harder this time, one hand stroking what his mouth couldn’t reach. The wet sounds got louder and messier. Spit slicked down my shaft. Every time he hollowed his cheeks, the pressure dragged a sound out of me I couldn’t stop.

“Official partners now,” he muttered against the head of my cock, then sucked it back in, “and you still end up like this after every set. Keep acting like you can’t stand me on deck. Doesn’t change how fast you get hard for me.”

I dragged him deeper by the hair. He went willingly, throat working around me, and the next stretch of time was nothing but the fight—me trying to stay quiet, him making sure I couldn’t, both of us pushing for the upper hand and neither willing to give ground. When he added his hand, twisting and squeezing in time with the wet slide of his mouth, I almost lost it completely. My other hand braced against the locker hard enough that the metal bit into my palm.

He didn’t stop talking between strokes. Low, filthy, relentless.

“This the same guy who tells everyone to stay out of his lane? Look at you. Can’t even keep your hips still while I suck your dick.”

I came hard, one hand still fisted in his hair, the other still braced against the locker. The sound I made wasn’t quiet and it wasn’t controlled. He stayed on me through it, swallowing, throat working until I was shaking and oversensitive and still half-hard in his mouth.

Only then did he pull off, wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, and look up at me like nothing had happened.

Afterward the locker room felt too bright, too loud with the showers still running somewhere down the row. I pulled my shorts back up and put actual distance between us, real distance, more than the width of a bench. My legs were unsteady and I refused to show it.

“This doesn’t happen again during training hours,” I said. “Same rules as before. This still means nothing. The pairing changes nothing.”

“Sure.” He said it too easily, already reaching for his towel, not even looking at me. “Whatever you want, Kann.”

“I mean it.”

“I heard you the first time.” He slung his bag over his shoulder, unbothered, already walking toward the door like the last ten minutes hadn’t happened at all. “See you at six tomorrow. Partner.”

He left before I could say anything else, which was somehow worse than if he’d argued.

I stood alone in the empty locker room a long time after that, listening to a shower still running two rows over, my whole body still humming with something I refused to name. Rules. I’d tried to set rules. He’d agreed to every single one of them so easily it didn’t feel like winning at all.

Six a.m. tomorrow. Every day after that, for a full semester, no way to put real distance between us even if I wanted to.

I was starting to understand that I didn’t, and that scared me more than anything Asher had said in that locker room.