You hadn’t really expected him to say yes.

Avoiding P.E. had become an art. Injuries that healed suspiciously fast, periods that lasted too long, sick notes from your mom that she never actually wrote. You hated the feeling of eyes on you, especially because you had classes with boys, hated the cold shock of water, hated that the locker room always smelled like rubber and chlorine and somebody’s leftover anxiety. But mostly — you hated how you felt around him.

When you’d sent that email — hastily typed between classes, full of polite desperation and vague promises to “catch up” — you’d figured it would go straight into the void. But João Félix had replied. Quick. Direct. Almost too casual.

“Come after classes. We’ll work something out. Pool should be empty. — JF”

That should had haunted you all day. Because everyone at school knew: the pool was never empty. The swim team practically lived in it, coaches barking orders while water slapped tile and bodies sprinted underwater like shadows.

But today was different.

You walk into the humid air of the indoor pool area and freeze for a moment — not from the cold, but from the shock of silence. No voices. No splashes. Just the lazy hum of the fluorescent lights and the shimmer of sun coming through the ceiling windows.

And him.

Leaning against the side of the pool, swimming trunks and no shirt. João Félix — the kind of PE teacher who should be in a commercial for athletic gear, or on some ridiculous poster for gym memberships. Younger than most, sharper than all. He’s 25, but looks like he belongs on a magazine cover, not in this echoey high school.

His gaze lifts when he hears the door click behind you. His eyes — impossibly brown, unreadable, like they hold half a smirk even when his face doesn’t.

“Didn’t think you’d show,” he says, voice calm but teasing and low, as he straightens. “It’s been, what… a whole semester?”

You bite the inside of your cheek, adjusting the straps of your one-piece swimsuit. You can feel his eyes skim over you, not in a sleazy way — no, never that — but like he’s… assessing. Judging. Cataloguing.