Brooke laughed. "I don't know why they didn't give you guys more comfortable sleeping arrangements. You'd think they'd give you guys great beds and all the luxuries ever as you're the athletes and need your sleep."

"You'd think," was Laney's response, still rather hard to understand. "I'm just going to fall asleep and I'm not going to get up until the Short Course Worlds in a month."

"Don't expect me to explain that to your coach." Brooke said, unpacking her suitcase. "And your new boyfriend."

That made Laney look up. And narrow her eyes. "If you're talking about Aaron you are mistaken. If you're talking about anybody, for that matter, you're mistaken." Brooke turned to her and raised an eyebrow before turning back to her dresser.

"That's not what it looked like to me. You spent more time with Aaron Peirsol than you did with me. And I'm your best friend."

Laney sat up and glared at the back of Brooke's head. "You're joking," she informed her friend.

"I am not. You hung out with him everyday."

"I hung out with you everyday too, did you forget?"

Brooke sat down on the edge of Laney's bed. "Listen. I don't feel left out. In fact, I was kind of glad because it gave me more of a chance to hang out with Ian – " she was interrupted by a very adamant "EEEEEWWWW" from Laney " – shut up, by the way. I'm just saying that even though you may not realize it, you spend an awful lot of time with that backstroker. Ian asked me about you two, and so did Michael."

"Phelpsy?"

"Yes, 'Phelpsy.'"

"I'm not allowed to be friends with a guy without him being my boyfriend or whatever?"

"Laney..."

"I mean, what if he's just a really good friend? Or what if he's someone I can train with because we swim the same event?"

"Laney..."

"Just because maybe I used to flirt with a lot of different guys I can't just have a normal guy friend now, is that it?"

"Laney will you shut up? That's not what I was saying. Not at all. I just wanted to make sure you weren't..." Brooke trailed off at the look on Laney's face.

"I'll be back in a little bit. I need to take a walk," Laney said, getting up and leaving the room. Brooke flopped back onto her bed. "Shit."

*

Laney spent the next month avoiding Aaron like the plague so Brooke wouldn't get the wrong idea. Anytime she thought of calling him, she held herself back. She scheduled her training sessions around his so she wouldn't run into him, and she only said the polite, "hi, how are you," when she did see him.

She sat on a plane back to Texas after the Short Course Worlds, reading quietly and waiting for her latest swimming conquest to sink in. She'd won silver in the two hundred free and gold in the two hundred back. Brooke had gotten up to use the bathroom (or talk to Michael Phelps; Laney wasn't sure which) so Laney'd picked up a book she hadn't had a chance to read in over a month. "Shit, I don't even remember what happened," she muttered, sighing and starting the book over again.

She got about twelve pages in when the seat next to her filled. "Drown, did you?" she asked.

"I swim pretty well; it'd be hard to drown me," Aaron said. Laney jumped and looked up at him. He smiled. "I thought you said you were too clever to be distracted."

She grimaced at him and he let out a chuckle. "So how are you, Laney? I haven't talked to you in...what, a month?"

She looked away. "Yeah, something like that. I'm ok. How are you?"

"I've been better."

She cocked her head to the side but still didn't look at him. "What do you mean?"

"Laney," he said in a tone that made her look up. "You've been avoiding me. Don't think I didn't notice. What's going on?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked, giggling nervously and looking back at her book.

"Laney," he said again.

She sighed. "The thing you have to understand is that..." she didn't have a good excuse no matter how hard she tried to think of one. "Well..."

"If you can't think of an excuse, don't keep trying."

She sank back against the seat. "I wish you were stupid."

Aaron raised an eyebrow and then realized she wasn't looking at him. "I'm sorry. What?"

"I said I wish you were stupid."

"Why? Exactly?"

"Because then it would be so much easier to lie to you."

"If you trying to make this all better, you're not doing a very good job. I don't care if your cousin is Ian Thorpe, and I don't care what your excuses are. I thought we were friends, Laney, and then you just ignore me? For a month?"

"I'm sorry, alright? It's not like I wanted to."

"Then why did you? I don't understand."

"This is going to sound so bad; you're going to hate me."

"Try me."

"Brooke thought there was something...going on...between us. And I didn't want her to get the wrong idea." When Aaron didn't reply for almost a full minute, Laney ventured a glance at him and cringed at the look on his face. "Will you say something, please?"

"I... What can I say? You were ignoring me completely because you didn't want people to think we were dating. That makes me feel really good, Laney."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't want to. I thought about calling you a bunch of times, to see if you wanted to hang out or train."

"But you didn't."

She hung her head sheepishly. "No. I'm the world's biggest idiot," she said sadly. Aaron was silent. "You're supposed to say, 'No, Laney, you're not the world's biggest idiot.'"

"I'm not so sure how I feel about the truth of that statement right now," he replied softly. Laney looked up at him, surprised. "What do you want me to do? Lie?" he asked.

"No, I–"

"I'm going back to my seat. Maybe I'll see you around," he said, standing up and walking across the aisle and up a little bit to his seat. Sighing, she sat back in hers and rested her head against the headrest.

A minute or so later, the seat filled again. "Hey," Brooke said. "Are you ok? I saw you talking to Aaron."

"I really screwed up, Brooke."

"What do you mean?"

"I really hurt his feelings," Laney replied, glancing at the back of his curly blond head and sighing again. "I'm fairly certain he's never going to want to see me again," she said.

"Why?"

"I've been avoiding him." Laney looked out the plane window for a second and then looked back at Brooke. "Dammit, Brooke, I haven't talked to him in a month because what you said after Athens really freaked me out."

"Laney, I wasn't trying to freak you out. I was only trying to make sure you weren't missing anything that might have been there. I thought I saw something, and so did Ian. So did Michael. But if we were wrong we were wrong. You didn't have to–"

"You don't think I know that? I'm so stupid. I just went and lost another friend because I care too much what other people think." Sitting forward, Laney put her head in her hands. A few seconds later she sat up. "I don't want to talk about this anymore," she said matter-of-factly, reaching into her carry-on bag and pulling out a CD player and a pair of headphones.