The Carlyles by Cecily von Ziegesar

second.” Coach hopped off the stand and walked over to Rhys, his Adidas slides making a squishing sound against the wet deck. He had a square jaw, skinny legs, and a buff chest that he claimed the ladies loved.
    Rhys dragged himself up on the damp pool deck with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
    “Sterling.” Coach Siegel ran his hands through his shaggy reddish-brown hair. “You were late,” he stated.
    Rhys nodded and glanced down at the water pooling on the tiles. One puddle looked sort of like a heart. Rhys put his foot in it, and the water scattered across the blue tile in runny droplets.
    “Sorry, I just had some things to take care of,” he said, not looking Coach in the eye. In fact, he had spent the first fifteen minutes of practice crying in the rarely used bathroom near the upstairs science labs while he looked through all the camera-phone pictures he’d taken with Kelsey last spring. She’d looked so thrilled to have his arm around her shoulders. What had gone wrong?
    “Oh-kaaaaay,” Coach Siegel said slowly, drawing the word out to several syllables. Rhys winced. It wasn’t enough that his girlfriend had stomped all over him, but now he was getting heat for it at practice? “I know it’s the first day of school and stuff comes up, but it’s not just you missing the first few minutes. You were off the whole practice. The new kid, Carlyle, clocked you!” Coach Siegel narrowed his mouthwash-blue eyes at him, waiting for more of an explanation.
    “Sorry, I’m dealing with some personal stuff,” Rhys mumbled. The phrase there’s another guy kept banging around his head. Was that true? Who could it possibly be? Some Cape Cod kid? A Riverside Prep guy Kat had met at a party?
    “Lady trouble?” Coach perked up.
    “No, just . . . school stuff,” Rhys said quickly.
    “Okay, well, hopefully this was just a rough start, because I can’t have my captain perform like you did today.” Rhys nodded and Coach clapped him on the back. “And let me know if it’s lady trouble. Girls can kill you,” he said knowingly.
    Yeah, but we’re so worth it.
    Rhys trudged to the locker room, where Jeff Kohl and Ian McDaniel were passing around a silver flask of Maker’s Mark. The room was super-humid and smelled like chlorine, BO, and feet.
    “Is niiiiiiiice .” Ian did a ridiculously bad Borat impression as he offered the flask to Owen. Owen shook his head. Just then, Rhys stormed through the door and tore open his locker.
    “So, dude, I sucked.” Rhys pulled a Vitamin Water from the side pocket of his overstuffed Speedo swim bag and took a long swig.
    “You seemed fine.” Owen wrung out his towel distractedly. Now that he was out of the pool, he found it impossible to stop thinking about Kat or Kelsey or whatever the hell her name really was. How long had she and Rhys been dating? Were they in love? Was that why she hadn’t even told him her name? Did Rhys have any clue she’d been unfaithful to him this summer?
    “No, I really sucked,” Rhys repeated.
    “Hey, dude, you need a beer,” Hugh Moore, a muscley junior, yelled. He threw a Budweiser over from the next row of lockers. The can hit the floor, sputtering as it released a hiss of carbonation and foam.
    “Not now, man,” Rhys said, knowing that, as captain, he should give some half-assed speech about how they weren’t supposed to drink in season, let alone in the locker room. Except he really couldn’t get himself to care. Instead, he wanted to cry.
    Again.
    “So, you know the girl I introduced you to at lunch? Kelsey?” Rhys asked, his face contorting as he sat down heavily on a worn wooden bench.
    Owen nodded and pushed his wet blond hair out of his eyes. How could he forget? He pretended to root around in his Speedo bag, not looking at Rhys. On the other side of the locker room Hugh, Ian, and a few other guys grabbed Chadwick Jenkins, one of the freshmen. “We’re going to shave off your eyebrows, man!” they shouted gleefully,