Wingspan westbrook elite.., p.1
Wingspan (Westbrook Elite #2), page 1
WINGSPAN Copyright © 2022 CAMBRIA HEBERT
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All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Published by Cambria Hebert
http://www.cambriahebert.com
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Interior design and typesetting by Classic Interior Design
Cover design by Cover Me Darling
Edited by Cassie McCown
Copyright 2022 by Cambria Hebert
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Welcome to Westbrook University…
Wingspan
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
WESTBROOK ELITE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
ABOUT CAMBRIA HEBERT
Welcome to Westbrook University…
Where the only thing more elite than the Ivy League academics and exclusive enrollment for the monied is the swimmers.
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Some colleges might revere football, baseball, or even hockey, but not Westbrook.
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At Westbrook, it’s all about the water.
Or rather, who’s in it.
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More than one Elite swimmer has gone on to become a decorated Olympian and nationwide sensation, so it’s all eyes on the hot men who spend more time in Speedos than jeans.
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Eventually, though, these guys have to get out of the pool.
And when they do?
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Love, drama, and jealousy await.
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Westbrook Elite is a college sports romance series of standalone novels with sexy swimmers, suspense, and page-turning plots.
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The only promise the author makes is that each book will have a happy end… but who knows what it will take to get there?
Wingspan
a Westbrook Elite novel
Ever feel like you’re being watched?
It’s an awareness so familiar I adapted to it long ago.
Then I enrolled at Westbrook University to chase my dream
and make up for someone else’s lost one.
The prying eyes I’d known almost since birth…
They closed.
Even still, I never got too close.
I made friends with everyone but confided in no one.
My dates were carefully chosen,
meaning I went out with guys I didn’t really like.
And then I was attacked.
I slept in Jamie’s bed while he stayed near me on the floor.
He gave me his number, told me to call.
Oh, I wanted to call. But I didn’t.
Now those invisible, observant eyes that always seemed familiar have returned.
But this time? They chill me to the bone.
Someone is watching. Lurking.
And it’s only a matter of time until whoever is out there does more than stare.
The only place I feel truly safe is wrapped in the massive wingspan of an Elite swimmer.
The very man I know I need to avoid.
But as shit goes down, it becomes clear I’m going to have to surrender something…
My heart or my life.
1
Jamie
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You ever have sex to scratch an itch?
But then after you get some, the itch is worse?
Bro, WTF?
And no, the itch I’m talking about is not the kind you get from having sex. I’m not packing some kind of STD.
I got checked just to be sure.
Maybe it was bad sex. Is there such a thing as bad sex? I mean, I never thought so. But here I was… itchy as hell.
And yeah, maybe pissy as hell too.
The shrill sound of Coach’s whistle was sharp enough to cut through practice, but I didn’t stop instantly. I did a few more strokes and then dipped underwater before popping up to tread the rippling waves.
“Owens!” Coach blasted, stalking over to stand at the end of my lane. “What the hell was that?”
Shifting the goggles up onto my head, I wiped my hand over my face. “What?”
He made a rude noise. “Are you swimming butterfly or trying to Hulk out in the water?”
“Coach, if I was going to be a superhero, it would not be the Hulk.”
He rolled his eyes. “What’s with the aggression?”
Look, it was one thing for my best friend, Ryan, to point out my shit mood, but it was entirely different when Coach picked up on it. We were supposed to leave all our shit in the locker room, not haul it into the pool. I was usually stellar at this.
I shrugged. “I’m just tired. Guess I was overcompensating.”
“Engage your core. You look sloppy. You wouldn’t have to slap the water like that if you were swimming correctly. Technique, Owens. Worry about speed later.”
I was the best butterfly-stroke swimmer Elite had, but he was acting like I was the worst.
Ryan appeared, hooking an arm over the rope beside me. “I’ll swim this lap with you.”
I scoffed. “Your butterfly stroke sucks.”
Ryan was the best freestyle swimmer we had.
He grinned, looking like a deranged bug with those goggles and blue swim cap on his head. “All the more reason to practice.”
“You two wanna get out and go have tea? This is a pool, not a café!” Coach scolded.
I positioned the goggles back on my face.
“Do it right this time, Owens.”
“Bro.” Ryan beckoned. “Be one with the dolphin.”
I laughed under my breath, a little of the tension leaving me. And then we were swimming, and I shoved everything else out of my head to focus on my core, timing, and body movement. The butterfly stroke was the hardest in swimming. It required more muscle mass, more muscle work, but it wasn’t something you could perfect with brute strength. In other words, you had to not only have the muscle but use it correctly.
Hence Coach’s shitty comments.
It requires a lot of concentration, skill, and, honestly, force of habit to keep both arms, the head, shoulders, and part of the chest out of the water for each stroke.
It also helped to have Ryan swimming next to me because there was no way I’d let him look better at my stroke.
“Better.” Coach was gruff as if giving even a half-assed compliment would give him a raging case of diarrhea.
Then he blew the whistle again, calling practice. I started to pull myself up out of the water, but he stopped me. “Not you, Owens. Give me two more laps.”
“Why me?” I practically whined. I was fucking tired.
“Because you showed up late to practice.”
“The hell I did! I was here on time.”
“Yeah, well, it sure didn’t look like you in the pool. Two more.”
I cursed under my breath, letting go of the side and gliding into the cold water. The temp made it easier to swim faster, and while I guess I was sort of used to it when I wasn’t swimming balls to the wall, it was still cold.
Bubbles escaped my nose, rising overhead as I slid deeper beneath the surface. The dense water quieted everything, muting out life above and offering a moment of reprieve. The clear liquid sparkled, and light bounced around the ever-rippling waves. I hung out for a moment, enjoying the weightless, calm feeling as I stared at the wobbling shadows the lane ropes at the surface cast across the bottom of the pool.
Resigning myself to a few more laps, I broke the top to refill my lungs.
Ryan sat on the side, feet dangling in the water.
“Coach torturing you too?”
“I’d never leave you to suffer alone.”
“I love you, bro!” I hollered.
Ryan laughed and dropped into the water.
“Start swimming, or I’m adding another lap,” Coach ordered.
By the time we were done, my arms felt like Jell-O and my shoulder muscles were quivering under my skin. I showered off quickly, not even bothering with my hair. It had been under a swim cap and wasn’t even wet anyway.
Once dressed in a pair of gray sweatpants, T-shirt, and matching hoodie, I jammed my feet into my Air Force Ones and grabbed my bag. My baseball hat was barely on my head when a protein bar flew at my face. I snagged it o
“I’m so hungry I could eat a baboon’s ass through an electric fence,” I quipped, shoving more than half the bar into my mouth in one bite. Screwing up my nose, I said, “Why are these things so small?”
“Wes already ordered for us at the diner,” Ryan informed me as we stepped into the parking lot toward our Wranglers.
Ryan’s dad owned some of the biggest car dealerships in the state, so of course, the good bros we were, we drove matching four-door Jeep Wranglers. Well, almost matching. Mine was red with black. His was black on black with neon-green accents on the tires. We had different bumpers on the front too.
Thankfully, Shirley’s wasn’t far from campus, and within minutes, we were stepping into the diner and being waved toward two booths where the rest of the team was already eating.
My stomach growled angrily, and the second I slid into the booth, a plate piled high with a burger and fries appeared. Groaning appreciatively, I snagged the burger, shoving it between my lips. “Just go ahead and make me another one,” I said as I chewed.
The waitress, whose nametag read Shirley, laughed. “I’ll get the order in.”
“If I wasn’t already taken by this burger, I’d ask you to marry me.”
She laughed again.
“Anything else?” Shirley asked the table.
FYI, all the wait staff here wore nametags that said Shirley.
I was too busy eating to answer.
By the window, Wes laughed. He swam freestyle like Ryan. “We’re good, Shirley. Thank you for getting that ready for them.”
“You can call me Veronica,” she said, voice a little shy.
I paused in chewing, eyes colliding with Ryan’s, who was across the table from me. We both grinned, burger all up in our grills.
When she was gone, I swung to Wes. “Bro! She told you her name. Her real name.”
Wes’s cheeks pinkened, and I scooped up three fries and shoved them into my mouth. “These need cheese sauce.”
Ryan grunted. That meant he agreed.
“She probably tells everyone her actual name,” Wes replied.
“Never told me,” Ryan quipped.
“She brings you extra fries,” Wes pointed out.
It was true. Ryan always got extra fries. Frankly, it was offensive, so I reached over and took a handful off his plate. “There was a vibe,” I announced, shoving the rest of the burger into my mouth.
“A vibe,” Wes echoed.
Ryan nodded. “She’s into you.”
“No way,” Wes said, picking up his soda.
I leaned over, wagging my eyebrows at him. “You sure you don’t want to take a walk on the hetero side?”
Wes rolled his eyes, and Ryan choked on his food. “No. I like the homo side just fine.”
I was halfway through the mountain of fries when Shirley a.k.a. Veronica brought me another burger. “Yes!” I exclaimed, snatching it up to take a bite.
“Coach rode your ass tonight,” Wes observed.
I made a face and kept eating.
Ryan sat back in the booth, focusing all his attention on me. “I told you to go get laid.”
I took another bite.
“That’s why you’ve been in a shit mood?” Wes asked, leaning his elbows on the table.
“No,” I said, but at the same time, Ryan said, “Yes.”
The half-eaten burger dropped onto my plate, and I picked up my soda.
Ryan just wouldn’t let it go. “You should have listened. Now you’re getting distracted in the water.”
The plates vibrated under the force of my fist coming down on the table.
The guys in the booth behind us looked up. But when no one said anything, they went back to their conversation.
Ryan just sat there, waiting me out. Staring.
“I did, okay?” I hissed.
Surprise turned Ryan’s eyes wide. Leaning over the table, he asked, “You got laid, and you’re still like this?”
My lip curled, and then I drooped into the bench seat at my back. “It didn’t work.”
“Bro.” Ryan drifted back into his own seat.
“I know,” I said, misery dripping from the words.
“Am I missing something?” Wes asked, looking between us.
“You got it that bad?” Ryan whispered the question as though he couldn’t believe it.
I couldn’t even blame him. I recalled a time when I asked him the same thing. I hadn’t believed it either.
But it was true… He had it bad.
And I was very, very afraid I did too.
“Did you even get a sample?” Ryan asked.
I groaned.
Ryan shook his head, a laugh rushing out of him. “This is fucking classic.”
“Hello,” Wes said, waving his hand over the table between us. “Not cool having a convo and keeping me out of the loop.”
“Jamie has a thing for Madison,” Ryan told him.
Wes jolted a little. “Rory’s friend Madison?”
“That’s the one.” He confirmed.
Wes gave me a dubious look. “You asked her out, and she said no?”
I appreciated his clear disbelief in that. I mean, who says no to all this?
“She’s been avoiding me like the plague, and I haven’t even been able to ask her out.” I scrubbed a hand over my face.
“How do you know she’s avoiding you?” Wes wanted to know.
“I gave her my number. She never used it.”
“Maybe she lost it.” He tried.
“I put it in her phone myself.” And I was charming as hell about it too.
He grimaced and glanced at Ryan for help. But Ryan was sitting there looking like something crawled up his ass and died.
I squinted. “Where’s camera girl?” I asked about his girlfriend, Rory. She was into photography, and she always got annoyed when I called her bro. Didn’t know why. It’s totally gender-neutral. So anyway, sometimes I called her camera girl.
Ryan cleared his throat. “She, ah, had some stuff to do.”
“What stuff?” I pushed. Rory always met us here to eat after evening practices.
Ryan’s lips pursed, but then he sighed. “She’s having dinner with Madison.”
I growled deep in my throat. Swiveling my head in Wes’s direction, I raised an eyebrow. “See? Avoiding me like the plague.”
Ryan shrugged. “Some girls don’t have taste, bro.”
It was the same thing I said to him back then. He didn’t take it too kindly, and now I understood why. And also, I taste so good. I’m everyone’s taste.
I gave him the finger and went back to my burger. Rory must have known. I mean, Mads would have had to tell her why she didn’t want to come here tonight. Girls always talked about their feelings and shit.
Chewing, I leaned back to fish my cell out of the pocket of my sweats. Taking another bite of the burger, I unlocked it and called up her number.
Ryan had like ESP or some shit when it came to that girl because he said, “Who are you calling?”
“Camera girl.”
He snatched the phone out of my hand so fast it was already on his side of the table by the time I lunged for it.
“Give me the phone, Ryan,” I rumbled.
“Like hell I will. You are not putting my girl in the middle of this.”
“I don’t even know what this is. That’s why I need to call her.”
Wes nodded. “He has a point.”
