Chapter Three
There was a bottle of wine on the patio table when I got home from work the following day, pinning down a note that said “Thanks again for letting me swim” and signed with a large ‘K’.
I assumed he’d taken advantage of having the pool to himself, though the cover was safely closed and the heat of the day had dried any wet patches he might have left behind.
Smiling, I put the bottle into the fridge, and then poured myself a glass from what was left over from the night before.
Out of sight didn’t mean out of mind, though.
Sitting on the edge of a lounger, glass cradled in both hands, I pictured Kai’s movements through the water.
The crisp, controlled way he’d cross from one side of the pool to the other, always with the most economical outlay of energy.
Setting a pace that seemed to be something he might keep up for hours on end.
The benefit of imagination was that I could watch him do that without qualms, or second-guessing what he might think of my attentions. Focus on how the water flowed around him and over him; of the different glimpses of his body afforded as he moved and turned.
Only draining the glass brought me back inside, and back into the real world.
Part of me wanted him to come around when I was home.
Kai was easy conversation - well, at least he had been up until the point he’d stripped down for his swim, at which point my side of it had stumbled into tongue-tied awkwardness - as well as being easy on the eye.
I’d not felt myself particularly starved for company, but having experienced the back and forth with him, the memory of it had dug in its claws.
I wanted to see him, but I feared seeing him too, or more specifically I feared my reaction to his presence.
With no way to contact him, bar knocking on my neighbors’ door, however, I was forced to wait. Passivity inflicted upon me. Whether I was to see him or not was down to Kai.
It took a week or so before it happened. I’d taken my laptop out onto the deck to work on a project, reasoning my eventual dip into the pool would be a just reward for completing the presentation.
A knock at the side gate distracted me, and then the sound of the gate itself opening a moment after. Kai’s head poked around the corner, a smile already in place.
“Is now a good time?” he asked.
“Sure,” I replied, half-closing the lid of the computer. “Like I said, any time is fine by me.”
He grinned again as he moved to sit on the other lounger. “Well yes, you did, but maybe you were being polite, or would rather I came when you were out. I didn’t want to presume.”
Hearing him speak, it sounded a lot like the second-guessing I was prone to myself. I couldn’t help but smile at that thought.
“It’s honestly fine either way. If it’s a bad time, I’ll tell you, okay?”
“Promise?” he queried, eyes searching my face to make sure I was being sincere.
“Promise,” I insisted.
“Well, okay then.” He settled back on the chair, slipping his bare feet out of his sandals. “I’m so glad, because this place is like an oasis.”
I smiled, recognizing again that tension I could only presume was down to going a little stir-crazy in his parents’ place. I’d known it well myself, when I was closer to his age.
“Drink?”
He shook his head. “I’m just going to swim, if that’s okay.”
Rolling my eyes, I gestured dismissively at the pool. “What did I just say? It’s all yours.”
Kai chuckled, then abruptly sat forward and pulled his shirt off. I forced myself to push open the laptop screen again and look at its contents.
The sound of him standing, just to my side. The sound of his board shorts unzipping, and the soft rustle of fabric as it slumped down his thighs. And then a pause.
I couldn’t help myself, I had to look. Just a glance, I chided, one quick glance to get it out of your system, and then that would be it.
The red fabric clung to him like a second skin. No more covering than the black suit had been; in fact, it was probably less so. Closer to a traditional swim brief in cut than the squared-off silhouette of the other day.
Kai half turned to me, a playful expression across his face. “I love this moment, when you’re about to go in and the anticipation is everything.”
I nodded my appreciation, inwardly guilty that my own enjoyment of the moment was for a very different - far more base - reason.
When he stepped forward, it was with a focus that seemingly blanked out the world around him.
Attention only on his entry into the water.
I watched the way the muscles in his thighs flexed, the way his arms swept up - fingers pointed like daggers - and how his whole form tilted at the last second.
A crisp, perfectly controlled dive; I fought the urge to applaud.
There was no pause as he surfaced, just a swift transition into the few quick, crawling strokes that would take him all the way to the opposite end, and then a neat pivot to set up its repeat.
The rhythmic swishing of the water reminded me of the subtly beguiling thrum of the dishwasher, a sound to which I’d fallen asleep on the couch more than once.
I didn’t get any work done. Zoned out, in fact, his perfectly timed strokes lulling my brain into a daze. Eventually I gave up on reading and re-reading the same sentence over and over, and allowed my eyes to defocus on the screen. A miasma of swimming pixels.
“You should come in, it’s perfect,” he called out.
I jolted at his voice, jarred from my daydreaming. Kai was clinging to the edge of the pool, arms crossed atop the side. His gleeful expression underscored his opinion.
“Maybe later,” I demurred, gesturing to the computer perched - pointlessly, though he didn’t know that - on my lap.
“Later it’ll be too late,” he countered, “or you’ll have had too much wine.”
I scowled, mock-serious. “Are you saying I have a drinking problem?”
He shook his head, smiling. “I’m saying it would be better in here than sitting out there, so you should come in with me. Bring your glass if it makes you feel better.”
I rolled my eyes, but still closed the laptop lid and pushed it onto the table next to me. “Fine, you persuaded me.”
“And all it took was the promise of drink,” Kai teased, chuckling.
I threw him a dirty look.
I’d expected him to go back to swimming, to pick up where he’d left off in his laps, but he didn’t.
Just stayed perched on the pool’s edge, watching me as I set down the glass.
Part of me wanted to say something, self-conscious of being observed as I undressed.
Even as I knew how hypocritical that was, given how I’d watched him both times.
Mentioning it would make it more awkward, would make that awkwardness something real and tangible, though. So instead I stood and, resisting the temptation to cross my arms across my chest protectively, pulled off my shirt.
Kai’s eyes followed me as I stepped up to the edge, a casual attentiveness that still made my skin tingle.
“You’re really self-conscious,” he observed, not unkindly. “You shouldn’t be.”
I snorted, as I sat down on the side and let my legs dangle in the rippling warmth. “It’s always the beautiful people who say that,” I pointed out, then instantly regretted it.
Kai, generously, didn’t call me out on that.
“If you committed to swimming a couple dozen laps every night, you’d notice the difference,” he pushed. “Though we’d have to get you out of those things.”
I frowned at him. “Which things?”
A laugh. “Those godawful shorts. They’re loose so they’re going to cause drag, and that will slow you down.”
“These are perfectly fine shorts,” I pointed out, a little defensively. Then resisted the natural reaction to jerk my leg away, when he reached out and tugged at the baggy fabric, pointedly.
“For running, maybe,” he countered, “but for swimming you’re only making things harder for yourself. Then you’ll get frustrated because you get tired quicker, and so you’ll give up. I’m trying to avoid that happening.”
I sighed at him. “So I’m meant to wear something small and tight, and that will make me less self-conscious, will it?”
Kai laughed again. “Well yes, you are. You can always just borrow a pair of mine if it’s easier, if you’re so averse to the idea of buying some yourself.”
The sudden thought of slipping on a pair of his skin-tight swim trunks - of having my cock filling the space where his had been - rushed through my head. I knew I’d never be able to wear them without getting hard.
“No,” I said, hurriedly. “You convinced me, I’ll buy some, okay.”
“Good man,” Kai replied, looking satisfied at having persuaded me.
I shook my head, tiredly, before slipping down into the water.
For all he’d just coerced me to take up swimming as my new exercise regimen, Kai didn’t seem in too much of a hurry to start me off training. Instead he trod water as I dunked my head, then bobbed, grinning at me as I wiped my eyes.
“What?” I asked him, feeling a little unnerved by his expression.
“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d cave so quickly. I was all ready for an argument.”
I scowled at him. “Don’t make me change my mind.”