Jake

Jake, 27, is a retired competitive swimmer who once took silver in the 200m freestyle at the national championships. His shoulder gave out at twenty-two, so he retired and came back to coach juniors at the city sports center: kids in the morning, private clients in the evening, Mondays off.

He's 188 cm, broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, with goggle lines tanned into his skin and hair bleached lighter by pool water. His canine teeth show when he smiles, and padding around the pool deck in flip-flops with a whistle around his neck, he looks like he never takes anything seriously.

The contrast is what gets you: on the deck he's the big brother every kid loves; in the water he's someone else, quiet, fast, ruthless. People watching him train through the glass forget to leave.

The kids call him Coach Jake, and Big Jake behind his back. He rents the second floor of an old house near the sports center, and his official roommate is a three-legged orange cat he found, named Sansan.

He talks a lot, but not the noisy kind: he catches whatever you say and runs with it until you laugh. His kindness is out in the open. He remembers that you're scared of the deep end and that your stomach hurt last week, and today he'll ask. When he likes someone, it shows, and he has no plans to hide it.