Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, they belong to the wonderful Charlaine Harris.

Chapter 2

My brain had turned to mush and I was just standing there drooling over this hunk of a man standing in front of me. My eyes made their way back up his tall frame to his face and saw that he was watching me, his lips curving up into a knowing smirk.

Shit! Get it together Sookie! I thought as I quickly closed my mouth and tried to pull myself back to reality. Who is this guy, and what is he doing down at the poolside when it's club time? He looked slightly too old to be a new member, but I could dream right. Oh shit! Just then, a thought popped into my head. No, no, no, no, no...

"Hi everyone. I am Eric Northman and I am going to be your new coach." He said, grinning at us all. I felt my stomach drop. Why did this have to happen to me? Was it just me or did his eyes linger on mine slightly while he was looking everyone over. I shook that thought right out of my head, that was just wishful thinking.

The girls standing around me were all just staring at him with sappy grins on their faces, while the guys were looking at each other warily.

"Well what are you all waiting for? Into the water with you. Start warming up." He slowly raised his eyebrow and challenged, "Show me what you can do."

This was going to be a long two hours.

Most of the girls all jumped into action and were ready and swimming in seconds – most definitely a new record – while the guys all rolled their eyes and slid in behind them. Trying not to look as ridiculous as some of the girls, I slowly slid into my lane gasping as the cold water surrounded me and quickly ducked under the water to wet my hair leaning back to pull it up into a bobble as I did so. I pulled on my cap, making sure that all my hair was safely tucked away, and put on my goggles. I kicked off from the side ignoring the other people in my lane. I decided that since Eric had neither told us what to do nor put up a schedule yet, that I would just do the normal 1000m warm up. As this is a 25m pool that's 40 lengths, I figured that would give me some greatly needed time to calm down.

You know when you're running on a treadmill, how you're running as fast as you can, but you're not really going anywhere. Well I really dislike treadmills for that exact reason; I feel that if you're going to run it's much better if you are running to somewhere. For the first time ever, that was how I was feeling about swimming. I wanted to swim far away from here, but I was stuck just swimming back and forward, confined to my lane.

Why did he have to be our new coach? Why, why, why? I new this would happen the moment that I realised he was taking over as our coach. I could feel myself doing it already. I was swimming considerably faster than I normally would for a warm up and I was hyperaware of every move my body was making as it was gliding through the water. I was purposely putting in the effort required to kick my legs from my hips and not my knees (Alec had been trying to get me to do just that for years and never managed it, and now I was doing it of my own accord). I was also making sure that my arms were moving elegantly, both inside the water, and when I brought them back up and round through the air. Last year I was awarded the prize for most graceful swimmer in the club and I was seriously trying to utilize that skill now.

This is so frustrating. I love swimming. The pool is my sanctuary, my place away from real life, where it is just me and the water. It is my Valhalla, the place where I could completely relax and be myself. That is, it was. Until Eric Northman crash landed, smack bang in the middle of it. Completely devastating it in the process. I was certainly no longer even remotely relaxed. In fact I was now just the opposite, I was on edge and self-conscious. Knowing that he was standing right there on the poolside but not knowing if he was watching me or not. It was driving me crazy.

Before I knew what was happening I was the only one still swimming. I quickly realised that I had forgotten to keep track of the number of lengths I had done. Oops!

I swiftly made my way to the shallow end of the pool and stood up. Everyone was looking at me strangely. I wondered just how long I had been going until I finally realised I had forgotten to keep count. From the way everyone was looking at me it must have been quite a while.

I made my way over to my water bottle grabbing it and taking a drink, trying to act like nothing was amiss. Ames was looking at me with a small smile on her face. She knows that when I get distracted by my thoughts I sometimes zone out. I would bet everything I owned that she had correctly guessed the reason for my lack of concentration this time.

"Nice of you to join us…" Eric stated, he looked down at the clip board in his hand, "…Sookie?"

Yes, emm…, sorry, I lost track of how many lengths I'd done." I reluctantly admitted, blushing a bright shade of scarlet.

Now that I was looking up at him from the pool I could seriously appreciate just how tall he actually was. He must have been at least 6 4", which was huge in normal terms but when looking up at him the effect was magnified ten fold.

He eyed me up and down critically, "Of course you did."

Ugh, what an ass! As if I could get any more embarrassed.

"Well now that everyone is here, we can get on with the sub set. I figured we could start of with IM 50s so that I can see what your like at all of the strokes and it will also give me an indication of how your turns are."

Well that didn't sound too bad. It was just 2 lengths of each stroke, but in between each two you did another two, one of the first stroke you did, followed by the one you were moving onto next. So it went; 2 fly, 1 fly, 1 back, 2 back, 1 back, 1 breast, 2 breast, 1 breast, 1 free, 2 free. Apart from having to do a few lengths butterfly and my fun but pathetically slow back to breast turn it should be fine. And I couldn't possibly miscount 2 lengths (thank God).

At least you started off with the butterfly so that you weren't already tired, then had to swim it. Everyone was pushing off from the side and I decided to go near the end as I wasn't the fastest at fly and back. I kicked off from the side and went for it. That was the only way to really do butterfly. There was no such thing as a half-assed attempt as it ended up taking more energy in the long run. I did the turn at the end, butterfly turns were pretty much the exact same as breast stroke ones so I was fine at those.

Butterfly had the added obstacle of ta k i n g up a l ot of s p a c e , and I only just managed to avoid cra s h i n g arm s w i t h Debbie as she was swimming up the other side of her lane.

I finished up the fly and went onto the backstroke lengths.

As I was on my back I could see Eric making his way down the pool out of the corner of my eye. I realised he was wanting to see our back to breast turn and started to feel slightly nauseous. My back to breast turn was completely useless and I knew it.

I mean I wasn't the only one. The newer ones in lanes one and two probably didn't even know about the turn as we really didn't do it much at all. However everyone in my lane and above would do it properly. Everyone, eventually me included, found it hilarious that when we were shown it for the first time and I was trying to copy what I had seen Claudine do, I had somehow managed to hit my head on the bottom of the pool. I had been at the shallow end and it really hurt. Ever since then I had refused to attempt it anywhere but in the deeper part of the pool.

I could just not do the turn.

No.

It had never bothered me before and if he wasn't here I wouldn't think twice about it. I actually liked the turn and I most definitely was not going to back out just because he was watching.

I saw the flags above me and counted my strokes to the wall. My hand touched the wall and I flipped myself over backwards. Although I couldn't see myself I knew that it was certainly not the most graceful thing in the world. And I may have actually been quicker just not bothering, but I'd never get any better if I didn't try it.

I twisted in the water and pushed off from the side. I surfaced from the water and spotted Eric walking back up the length of the pool with a huge grin on his face. He was laughing at me!

Ugh! He had some nerve! At least I tried it.

Well, I'd show him. It was breast stroke now and that, I could do. I was further behind the others as I wasn't as fast at fly and back but I knew I could more than catch up the distance on the rest of the people in my lane on breast stroke. Claudine was the only other girl that could match me on breast stroke and Claude, Claudine's twin brother was the only one who was faster in the club. As they were both in the top lane and I was in the middle lane three I was good to go.

I started powering through the water and quickly caught up with everyone. Ames let me go in front of her as we were turning as she knew I was faster, her stroke is back.

We finished off the subset, repeating the series once more. However, Eric did not watch the turns again, for which I was grateful.

Once everyone was finished and guzzling down their water – I wasn't the only one swimming significantly faster than normal tonight – Eric stood up from where he'd been sitting on the bridge steps.

"Good work guys, all in all that was nice swimming. A few of you need to work on your turns and a lot of you need to pick up your stamina but you are all pretty competent swimmers."

Competent? No shit Sherlock. The fact that we were in the top session kind of makes you hope that we could all swim competently.

"Anyway, everyone take five then we'll start the main set."

Everyone made their way over to the steps and started climbing out to go and either fill up their water bottles or nip to the toilet. When I realised I was going to be left alone in the pool area with Eric I quickly decided going to the toilet was a very good idea indeed.

I walked into the girls bathroom and it was a hive of activity in there. Everyone exclaiming over just how hot Eric is. Amelia bounced over to me saying,

"He is a God!"

She put her hand up to her forehead pretending to faint. I frowned at her and replied, trying to keep myself grounded,

"Amelia Broadway, he's our coach!"

"I know. But that doesn't stop us from looking and admiring. Anyway, you can't talk; you were so distracted by the gorgeous hunk of man meat that you completely forgot to stop swimming!"

She snorted and burst into hysterical giggles. I went bright red and tried to keep a straight face but it was futile. I gave in and laughed with her, it was pretty funny. Once we got a hold on ourselves she continued,

"And he's not that much older than us. He looks about what, mid twenties maybe. You could so get away with that." She grinned at me with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

Uh oh, I thought to myself. This cannot be good.

"No, I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm a complete idiot", I quickly tried to head her off.

"Oh, you didn't see what I saw", she announced confidently.

I cut her off. "What, first, me forgetting to stop and looking like a scatter brained little girl, and then him laughing at my turn." I replied indignantly.

"No…" She grinned at me. "When you were no doubt rather preoccupied with what I assume was you checking out that mouth watering figure of a man, he was doing the exact same thing back to you."

I shook my head at her. "Your wrong Amelia, I'm sure you just misinterpreted what you saw."

"I know what I saw Sook. But I'll drop it if that's what you want."

I nodded my head and smiled slightly in thanks.

I turned around and rolled my eyes at what I saw happening behind me. Both Arlene and Debbie, who were both in the lane below Ames and I, were frantically trying to adjust their costumes so that their cleavage was shown off to its best advantage.

I'd had enough. I made my way back out to the pool and saw that all the guys were already back in the water. I slid back into my lane and Lafayette turned and winked conspiratorially at me, glancing Eric's way as he did so. Eric was just making his way back over, carrying one of those ridiculous cone shaped disposable cups of water (you know the ones, where it's impossible to put the thing down and they always seem to get in the way). It looked tiny encompassed in his large hand.

Once again I was completely drawn into some kind of a trance just looking at him until Lafayette nudged me whispering,

"Drool worthy, huh?"

"Oh yeah." I replied absently. Lafayette had officially came out last year and although it was slightly awkward with the guys in their suits at first they soon got used to it. Him chuckling to himself broke though my daydreaming and I smiled back at him.

All of the girls had made their way back into the pool. That is all except two, they must be hoping to make some kind of big entrance. Sure enough two seconds later out came Arlene and Debbie. Both of them were slowly walking towards the pool, and consequently Eric, seductively swaying their hips as they came. It was ridiculous to watch. I turned my attention to Eric wondering what he would do.

I saw the moment he noticed what they were doing, they were about half way over when he glanced up and caught sight of them, his eyes widened ever so slightly in what could only be described as complete shock with a hint of panic mixed through. He quickly recovered though and clamped down his face, leaving it completely emotionless. He then frowned disapprovingly at them,

"Come on girls. We want to get started."

They looked a bit disappointed that they didn't get more of a reaction for their efforts, but gave it up for now, sliding back into their lane.

"What are we doing?" I asked.

"Oh, I put a schedule up in each of your lanes, we're doing split hundreds." Eric answered my question.

Yes! Split hundreds were one of my favourites. They were really quite easy. Swim one length, rest 5seconds, another length, rest 5, two lengths then go again when the red hand of the minute timer on the wall was at quarter to. You could swim any stroke you wanted but it was on too fast a time to do all breast stroke so I tended to do mostly front crawl with the occasional length of breast. Also the faster you finished the hundred the more rest time you got.

I made my way over to the side and sure enough there was a schedule inside a polly wallet stuck to the wall. I groaned as I read it, and the noise was quickly being repeated by other people as well as they realised that our rest time had been cut by 15seconds!

Looking up at Eric I asked, "Eric, have you made a mistake with these times, we usually get another 15seconds?"

"No, no mistake." Eric looked down at me with an amused expression. "I'm sure you can all manage these times just fine."

He was right, I knew I could make those times if I wanted to, but I also knew that if I did I would be completely exhausted by the end of it. Well I sure as hell wouldn't be the only one not managing it. It looked like everyone else had come to the same conclusion as I had as they were all looking both resigned and determined at the same time.

"Right everyone, you're leaving at the next red top." Eric informed us.

Well here goes nothing, I thought to myself as I pushed off the side of the pool after Lafayette. I started off fast. Not too fast, but the kind of fast I could hopefully keep up for a while, we did have to do 16 of these.

After the first half I was boiling, even in the cold water. Luckily my face didn't go any farther than a dark pink shade when I was pushing myself. Some people weren't so lucky. Arlene was slowly turning a deep shade of red and I knew from experience that it would end up having a slightly purple tinge by the time we had finished.

By the time I got to the last three hundreds I was only just making it back in time before I had to go again

I finished and collapsed at the side. Eventually I managed to make my way to get my water bottle and slowly sipped from it until I got my breath back. No one in my lane was talking, everyone was completely drained. The lanes above had already started on their swim down and the ones below us were yet to finish their split hundreds.

"Well done! You all did great." Eric congratulated us on completing it within our time. "Now eight lengths swim down, nice and slow."

I floated off with my water bottle in hand and slowly glided the 8 lengths, using as little energy as possible. As I knew I would be before I started the main set, I was completely exhausted. But I was also quite proud of myself.

I gathered up my things and ducked under the lane ropes on my way to the steps to climb out. Eric was at the side of the pool collecting together his things and I caught him watching me. I blushed and looked away suddenly very self conscious of the fact that I was in only my swimsuit. I made my way around to the showers and had the quickest shower imaginable as I didn't want to run into Eric again and further embarrass myself.

I then took a long while getting dressed hoping that by the time I emerged he would have left. But of course it was not to be.

I'd just decided that it was safe to make a run for it, as it had gotten quiet and I was sure everyone else had already left. I opened the door and rushed out only to smack straight into none other than Eric himself.

I currently found myself pressed right up against his body, his hands on my hips steadying me, and my hands resting on his chest. Oh and what a chest it was too, I think I let out a small moan of appreciation. I was so close I could smell him, a wonderful concoction of masculinity mixed with something that was just Eric. I looked up and saw him watching me.

"Sookie," Eric breathed. I jumped back away from him.

"Oh, I'm so sorry Eric, I wasn't looking where I was going." I quickly apologised.

"Don't mention it." Eric replied nonchalantly.

I picked up my bag from where it had fallen when I'd collided with Eric. We made our way up the stairs to the exit in awkward silence.

"So..." Eric began as we got to the door, "I'll see you Thursday then." It wasn't really a question.

"Erm, yup. Bye." I walked over to my car, climbed in and started the engine, letting out a sigh as I drove away.

The journey seemed to take forever. I was more tired than usual and that probably didn't help. I also couldn't get Eric out of my head.

I went round in circles. Yes he was the living embodiment of a Norse god and probably the most gorgeous man on the planet. But he was also my coach and nothing was ever going to happen. Not to mention the fact that he probably thinks I'm some silly little girl. I'd lost count of the number of times I'd managed to embarrass myself tonight. It was ridiculous.

By the time I made in back onto Hummingbird Lane I'd decided that I wasn't going to let him affect me. He was not going to take swimming away from me. I was here first and I refuse to let him being there affect what I usually took so much pleasure in. I would pretend he wasn't there at all.

I pulled up to the house and went on in. Gran was already in bed. I emptied out my bag putting my towel into the washing machine and turned on the cold water to fill the basin to put my swimsuit in to soak.

Once that was taken care of I switched of the lights and made my way to bed. I was absolutely spent, and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

A/N: Hey, sorry about the long wait on this chapter. I was hoping to get it out before my exams but my laptop died and I had to bring up the desktop from home. Anyway just had my last exam this morning so hopefully I'll have more time to spend writing. Thanks for all the reviews and alerts/favourites, I realise what other authors mean when they say it gets addictive now, and I really appreciate them.