The first day of class was hard for Jack, much harder than he thought it would be. He'd gotten used to having Kelsey by his side all day, to waking up with her soft warmth next to him and having time to slide over for a cuddle if he wanted. He loved watching her wake up, seeing her eyes open and focus on him, recognize him, seeing her smile as her love for him filled her up.

He didn't realize how comfortable and comforting it was to be with her all the time until he no longer had that luxury. It just underscored for him how unutterably lonely he'd been until he'd met her. A person who's colorblind doesn't miss the vibrant colors of the world, just like a person with no sense of taste feels no more than perhaps a fleeting wistfulness when seeing the people around him enjoying their food. For him food is sustenance, nothing more.

But now, after months and months of being with her nearly 24/7, of being bathed in the light and  humor and simple physical presence of her, Jack felt like he'd been cast outside without enough clothes on. As he woke up for morning practice, trying to move quietly so he wouldn't wake her, for the first time in his life he was resentful of swimming, even though it had brought him so far, given him so much.

He went around to her side of the bed, carefully avoiding the boxes that were piled haphazardly around the room. They had officially moved into the "bungalow" in Hollywood a few days before, but hadn't finished unpacking yet. He pulled the duvet over her, covering her exposed shoulder after dropping a soft kiss on it.

He pulled the bedroom door shut so he wouldn't wake her up and blended up his pre-practice smoothie, and took it to drink in the car. As he drove the nearly deserted streets he calculated how many hours it would be until he saw her again.

Thirteen hours. At least. Wow. Jack knew that he'd gone thirteen hours without seeing her before, but he'd never known that it would be thirteen hours, never actually calculated the time out like that.

It sounded like forever.

He swam, showered with the guys and joked around like he had before, grabbed breakfast with them, and headed off to his first class. It was an upper division course recommended for anyone applying to law school, called "Women and the Law," which was supposed to be amazing.

Jack told everyone he was "Pre-Law" when asked what he was studying, and many people did go from UCSM directly to law school, but there was no pre-law major there per se. He was actually a political science major with an eye toward going to law school after. He took as many philosophy and law oriented classes as he could, and was preparing for the LSATS as well.

He got a lot of looks as he took his seat, and as other students came in after him, which was new. He was famous now, because of Kelsey, because of the fight at the hotel. A few people even smiled and waved at him. He smiled back, hiding his surprise.

He couldn't hide it, however, a few minutes later when three girls came to sit by him. He blinked in shock as they took seats all around him, even going so far as to scoot their desks closer to his, one on either side, and one in front of him. There was a blonde with curls, a redhead, and a brunette, so at least he'd have no problem telling them apart.

"Hi there," the brunette said, smiling. She was wearing bright red lipstick, and bore a striking resemblance to Natalie Wood in West Side Story, one of his mother's favorites. "I'm Teresa Chavez, and these are my friends, Rain Gibson," she gestured to the redhead, "and Nadine Larson." She pointed at the curly-haired blonde. They both nodded hello and smiled.

"Uh, hi," Jack returned, still staring.

"I know, and I'm sorry to be so forward," Teresa continued. "But we know that this professor wants us to divide up into study groups, and we were hoping you'd be in ours?" She smiled again.

At Jack's silence, she continued. "We're all straight A students, I promise, hard workers. Last year we were in a similar situation, and we got stuck with a total loser, never showed up, shirked her share of the work, I mean, it was awful." The other girls were nodding. "We didn't want that to happen again, and, well, everyone knows who you are, and we know you're a good student as well, and that you take the issues we're going to cover very seriously."

She looked at Jack, and he realized she, and the other two, were waiting for an answer.

"Please say yes," Rain, the redhead, begged him. She put a hand on his arm. "We don't know anyone else in here, and who knows who we'll get stuck with if you don't?"

"Unless you know someone already?" Nadine spoke for the first time. "You already have a group set up?"

Jack looked around the room, but didn't see any familiar faces. He looked back at the three young women, who were watching him expectantly.

What could he do?

"Okay, yeah, sure," he finally said.

"Great!" The girls around him smiled at each other, high-fiving and just being generally happy.

Jack just sat, feeling a little weird. This never happened to him. Swimmer's body notwithstanding, pretty girls usually didn't go out of their way to sit with him, let alone engage him in conversation and recruit him for their study groups. He was always the quiet one in the background, usually working alone, only really comfortable swimming.

The professor entered and everyone got quiet, giving her their full attention. As Jack was opening his laptop and getting set up to take notes, Rain passed him two sticky notes. One had all three of their names and cell phone numbers on it, presumably so he could enter them in his phone. The other one just said "yours?"

Jack wrote his cell phone number on it and passed it back to her.

********************

Kelsey turned off her alarm and rolled over for Jack. She felt only the cold sheets, and remembered that classes had started today.

Shit.

So funny to think that, even though she was just opening her eyes, Jack was already sitting in his first class, that he'd been awake for hours, had swum miles. He'd left in the wee hours, probably clutching a smoothie, off to face a day of students, professors, and taking notes.

Kelsey sighed and stretched, hugging his pillow to herself, inhaling deeply. It smelled like Jack, like his conditioner, his deodorant, his clothes, chlorine, and the mysterious scent that was just him, the masculine smell of man that made Kelsey want to crawl into it and die.

Even though she told him she loved him often, and made silly declarations like the one she'd made at Venice Beach, Jack couldn't possibly know the depth of her feelings for him, she knew. Jack loved her, she was aware of this, and she was his first love, she knew this too. He was a serious, deep person, so these were serious, deep feelings, of this she had no doubt, but there was no way what he felt for her could compare to what she felt for him, Kelsey believed.

She thought about this as she showered and got ready for her day. What she felt for Jack went way beyond anything she'd ever felt for anyone in her life. It was kind of scary, truth be told. Kelsey had always prided herself on being a realist, a pragmatist. In Hollywood, in her business, a person had to be self-centered, to a degree, had to be very focused on herself, especially at the beginning.

She'd had romances as a teen, with other models, photographers, and after she started acting, dalliances, affairs, whatever. But she always kept her head on straight, kept her priorities in order.

Then she met Jack.

It felt wrong, somehow, to set her heart on another living creature as much as she had on Jack. It had happened before she realized it, during those long hours they'd spent in the pool together, while she was learning to swim. And now, when she on the cusp of really making it big in her career, he owned her heart, he owned her, body and soul.

It was scary.

Kelsey drove to the studio, pondering how in the hell this had happened to her, sensible, level-headed Kelsey Carlisle. Certainly Jack himself had no idea how deep her feelings for him went, did he? Did he know how much power he wielded?

She wondered what he was doing now. She smiled, thinking of him sitting in class, clicking his pen between his teeth like he did, sticking it in his hair, right over his ear, so he could type on his laptop, brows furrowed in concentration.

She pulled into her parking space and sent him a quick text.

"What are you up to, right this moment? Miss me?"

He responded almost immediately.

"Nah. I'm surrounded by a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead, and they're doing a pretty good job of distracting me. Who are you again?"

"Dick. Jack LaGuardia is a dick."

Jack sent back a pageful of every romantic emoji, all the different colored hearts, the flowers, the heart eyes, even some of the food.

Kelsey smiled and typed as she walked.

"Haha, thank you, I guess that'll have to do for now. I expect you to tell me about the women with the different colored hair tonight, coach."

"Who said they were women 😉?"

Kelsey laughed out loud and put her phone away as she entered the soundstage.

*****************

Sure enough, the professor had asked them to get in groups of four or five for purposes of study and future assignments and projects. She had a clipboard at the front of the classroom for the students to write their groups down on, and Teresa wrote their names down when class was over.

"We're going to get some coffee," she said to Jack as they were walking out. "Are you free? Would you like to join us?"

Jack had two hours before his next class, so he agreed, and went with the girls to a nearby coffee shop. They all ordered coffee and pastries, and Jack, of course, got bottled water, a fruit and yogurt parfait, and a gigantic breakfast burrito.

"You should've told us you hadn't eaten yet," Nadine chastised him. "We could've gone to a place that served real food, like the student union or whatever."

"Why? This is fine," Jack replied, gesturing at his tray. "The burritos here are fantastic. Besides, I did eat already, this is my second breakfast." He grinned at the girls.

"Wow," Rain said. "I guess that's because of all the swimming, huh?" She looked admiringly at Jack's body. "Gotta feed that machine and all that?"

Jack nodded noncommittally. "Yeah. I'm always hungry when I'm swimming, that's all I know."

"Well, whatever you're doing, keep doing it, because it's working," Nadine said, giving his bicep a squeeze and smiling.

It took Jack a few moments to realize that these girls were flirting with him, that's what all the stares and muscle grabbing was all about.

It felt weird.

This wasn't like Tiff and the muscle cramps at the pool, or Amber and Jessica and the sexual propositions at the party when he'd fought with Kelsey. No, this was a different animal altogether, something he'd never encountered in his life.

How, after nearly twenty-two years on planet earth, had he suddenly become attractive to women? Jack was mystified. He still looked the same, didn't he? He was still the same person as well? So what the hell?

He looked around. All three girls were looking back at him, focused on him, pretty faces turned his way, nice bodies leaning in his direction. And Jack noticed, too, that even the people around them were different, that people were looking at him different. They looked at him, then at how the three girls were paying attention to him, then back at him, reassessing, kind of how everyone had been doing to him all summer long, when he'd been places with Kelsey. It was as if they wanted to know what he had that made him so attractive to them.

He felt like he was sitting with a harem.