Enigmatic: Sapphire City Supers

Chapter 16: A Case of the Feels, and Other Surprises

Thankfully, the rest of the week went by swiftly and uneventfully until Saturday, when it was time for Seb's big swim meet.

The whole crew piled into the stands to cheer him on; Tristan, Grant, Ewan, Lexa, Grace and Stu. I found myself packed in between Lexa and Ewan. It was a busy event and the stands were full of noisy, excited friends, family and fans.

We chatted through some of the other events until it was time for one of Seb's heats. He won this one handily, though he'd face faster swimmers in the final.

"Woooo Seb!!" Lexa shouted beside me.

"Are you ever going to do anything about this?" I asked in a low, amused voice.

Obviously not low enough. "About what?" Ewan cut in curiously from my other side.

"Mind your bees, Hamilton," Lexa snapped, and then she glared at me pointedly.

"That usually makes people more curious, you know," he said mildly.

I elbowed him, and he turned away trying to hide a smile.

"No, I don't even know if he's interested," Lexa hissed to me.

"Okay well, I'm related to him and I can tell you he's a dumbass in a lot of ways, so you're probably going to have to just take a leap at some point," I muttered back.

"I'll file that one away," she said grumpily, and I chuckled. I just hated seeing her pining away and never doing anything about it. They both deserved to be happy.

Finally it was time for one of my favourite events, the 400m relay swim. Seb was the anchor on his team, so he swam last. There was always something exciting about the relay, maybe because there were so many variables to it.

This time was no exception. Seb's team got off to a poor start and quickly fell to third place by the next lap. The two in between did some hustling and by the time it came to Seb, they'd worked up to second. My heart was in my mouth as he shot off the line, and I grabbed both Ewan and Lexa's hands and squeezed them tight. Lexa was cheering wildly and I was muttering encouragement, too tense to yell. Ewan squeezed back, and I could hear him laughing at me.

When, in the final few seconds Seb pulled ahead to win it, I jumped up, dragging Lexa and Ewan with me, then let go of their hands to bounce around cheering. I hugged Lexa first, and then Ewan, tightly and joyfully. It felt as though Ewan was surprised, before his arms came around me and his hands settled against my back.

"You make a good cheer squad," he grinned down at me.

"If you want, I can come to the reopening of your exhibit and shout and jump about a bit," I joked.

He made a show of considering it. "You know, it might unnerve people in that case, rather than get them fired up." His eyes twinkled with amusement.

"Well, the offer stands so just let me know." I fought back a sudden and confounding urge to push back a piece of his hair that had fallen down onto his forehead. It so disconcerted me that I let him go immediately and occupied myself with smoothing my own hair nervously as we all sat back down.

I turned round to find Lexa's eyes on me. "That was weird," she whispered suspiciously. "Do I have to have a talk with you now?"

"Nope," I said hurriedly. "Oh look, something else is starting!"

"Uh huh," she answered slowly, but let it drop.

Later, I walked alone in the twilight back to the apartment, since Seb had to stay behind to talk to Jo and do all of his cool down activities. I assumed some sort of security detail was hanging about, since this was basically the prime time for Morgan and his goons to try something. I could have hopped in a cab but I liked to walk.