Sadly, that one gold, along with every other medal he’d gotten at the January meet, was later yanked away.
“Un-fucking-believable!” Coach Keller bellowed at private practice. “You want to explain this text I just got?” He held out the phone as if we could see it. “Get out of my pool.”
“What?”
“What?” We weren’t in unison anymore. I’d asked first, and then Mathias.
“I said get out.”
Mathias must have known it was about him. As I treaded water with an expression of cluelessness, he climbed out on the side. Water ran off him, puddling on the concrete surrounding the perimeter as his chest heaved with heavy breaths. We hadn’t been working hard, so it had to be emotion. I wondered which one.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“You want to tell him, Webber?”
“I flunked a drug test.”
I wasn’t offered time for a reaction or a follow-up question. “Which means you’re disqualified from the last event,” Coach said. “That also means Reed gets gold in breaststroke.”