Michael Phelps was up early. After getting very little sleep, this wasn’t exactly how he wanted to start the day, but he was prepared, as always, and determined to do his best. He was tired, yes, but the adrenaline was keeping him going…even as he moved through the day on no sleep.

He was stretching out his leg muscles, preparing for an early practice before an early swim, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.

“Mornin’.” Ian Thorpe’s cheery disposition in the morning was a source of great grumbling for most of the other swimmers, but not for Michael. He preferred seeing a friendly face on the blocks beside him, rather than a pissed off one.

“Hey.” Michael nodded in greeting and stood up straight to stretch out his arms.

“You ready for the big swim?” Ian asked, his lips curved in a slight smile; Michael nodded, concentrating on the feeling he was getting as his back muscles stretched to their limits. “We’re rivals you know, so we shouldn’t be seen together.”

Michael raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Rivals, my ass.” He laughed whole-heartedly. “They’ve just gotta keep digging for something that isn’t there.”

“Poor fools,” Ian agreed, grinning as he started stretching.

“You didn’t have some underwear go missing, did you?” Michael questioned as nonchalantly as he could.

Ian stood up slowly, his brow furrowed in confusion. “Did you get any sleep, mate?”

“Not much,” Michael admitted, swigging from his bottle of Gatorade. “But I’m not delirious or anything. I’m completely sane.”

Ian nodded, looking as if he didn’t believe a word of it. “Have you eaten? Maybe your blood sugar’s low.”

Michael snorted, setting his bottle down. “I had a HUGE breakfast, man.”

“That makes sense,” Ian replied, bending to pick up his water bottle. “I‘ve never known you to eat anything less than a horse.”

The look Michael gave him was one that would send lesser men cowering for their lives. “My underwear, last time I checked, was all present and accounted for,” Ian said, eyeing Michael skeptically. “Why do you ask?”

“I met these really…” he struggled to find the right word to describe the events of last night. “…interesting girls last night.”

“Yeah?” Ian smirked.

“They were on a hunt for your underwear.”

Ian raised an eyebrow. “Really.”

“Not ones you wear,” Michael assured him quickly. “Ones you sell.”

Ian reached out and put his palm against Michael’s cool forehead. “I think you need some rest.”

Michael laughed and pushed his hand away. “I’m serious.”

“Well,” Ian said briskly, exhaling sharply as he stretched out his arms. “I don’t wear underwear, so they’d be hard pressed to find some.” Ian flashed him a cheeky grin.

With one last laugh, Michael dove into the water and began his practice.

*

“ADELAAAAAAIDE!” Sydney was half-dressed wearing pajama shorts and a t-shirt; her toothbrush was in her mouth, and a hair brush was in her hand. “I need to use the sink!”

“What?” Adelaide called out, her voice muffled.

Sydney pulled the toothbrush from her mouth so she could be heard properly. “MY TURN!”

Adelaide pushed open the bathroom door, steam flowing out over Sydney and making her shiver.

“Did you have enough hot water?” Sydney joked, stepping past her friend to the sink. Adelaide, standing with a towel wrapped around her, took Sydney’s brush and began brushing out her thick dark hair.

“You might want to put on something other than your Eeyore shorts, Syd,” Adelaide commented, hopping up onto the wide sink across from her friend.

The bathroom was rather large, and extremely well-equipped. This was good considering both girls were bathroom whores (a phrase coined by Sydney in sixth grade) and needed ample room to spread out their many bottles of perfume and makeup. Not that either of them wore makeup, actually. They just liked to have it there as a backup. You didn’t really need makeup in Greece, if you needed it at all. As they spent the whole day in the sun, all they wore was sunscreen. And what’s the point of putting a pound of makeup on when you’re going to wash it off as soon as you dive into the sea, anyway?

Though neither of them had taken advantage of all the lovely bodies of water Greece had to offer, they intended to before their two-week vacation was up.

“I faf thinkink abouda creskir.”

“Excuse me?” Adelaide asked, leaning forward slightly to peer at her friend’s reflection in the opposite mirror; she hoped to read her lips, if she couldn’t understand her.

Sydney spit into the sink and put the toothbrush away. “I was thinking about the cream skirt.”

Adelaide nodded in understanding. “Ah, of course that’s what you said.” She hoped down off the counter, giving the back of Sydney’s head a look as if to say ‘You have really lost your mind this time’ before she began rummaging through her large bag, looking for something to wear.

“What time is the first swim?” Adelaide questioned, holding up two t-shirts against her towel and admiring her reflection in the wall-sized mirror.

Sydney, having just finished pulling on her skirt and tying up her long wet hair, looked at her purple Harry Potter watch. “In about five minutes.”

“FIVE minutes!?” Adelaide exclaimed, throwing down one shirt and reaching for a pair of shorts without considering if they would match or not.

Sydney pulled a tube of lip gloss leisurely out of her makeup bag and stuck it into the pocket of her drawstring skirt. “Well, you did take about eight hours in the shower. I was in and out in ten minutes. I shampooed and conditioned.”

Adelaide was busy fumbling for the zipper of her jean shorts. “Okay, okay. I get it. You have superior shower skills.”

“And I shaved!” Sydney announced, sliding her feet into a pair of flat sandals.

“Thanks for that,” Adelaide replied dryly, pulling her shirt over her head and running a hand through her hair. “No time for blow drying. It’ll be a ball of frizz by the time we get there.”

Sydney turned around and vacated the bathroom. She flopped down onto her bed and began flipping through a Sports Illustrated. “There’s time. It doesn’t start for a half hour.”

Adelaide poked her head out the bathroom door, and her face didn’t look terribly friendly. “You suck.”

Sydney grinned at her, and went back to the magazine while Adelaide busied herself with drying her hair and applying sunscreen at the same time. If there was one thing Adelaide was good at, it was multi-tasking.

“Do you think there’s any way we can run into Michael again?” Sydney called towards the bathroom, her voice as loud as it could go.

She was still not heard over the sound of the old hair dryer. Sydney sighed and jumped off the bed; she padded into the bathroom and leaned a hip against the doorjamb.

“ADDY!”

Adelaide spun around, a glob of sunscreen on her face and her hair being blown into it from the force of the hairdryer. She angrily whipped the offending piece of hair behind her ear. “What?”

“Do you think there’s any way we can see Michael today?” Sydney repeated, looking earnest as she watched her fingernails in concentration.

The hairdryer was shut off. “I thought you were going on the great Ian Underwear Caper later.”

“Don’t think so.” Adelaide gave her an appraising look which Sydney didn’t see.

“I need to dry my hair,” Sydney said, back to business as she fingered a lock of hair, which was curling slightly at the end. “When you’re done.”

The other girl nodded and flipped the switch on, drowning out their conversation with the sound of persistent hot air being blown across the room.