Chapter Five
Five
After Nina left, I ordered wings and sent the girls across the parking lot to the condo activities room to grab a board game. When they returned, they plopped an ancient taped-up box of Sorry! onto the table. Kitty lifted the top off the box, and Mia reached inside, pulling out a small silver boot.
“This is a Monopoly piece.”
“Oh, gimme!” Kitty said, nearly knocking over her chair as she leaned over the table to swipe it from Mia’s hand.
“Jesus,” Mia said. “You didn’t have to steal it from me. I was going to give it to you anyway.”
Kitty turned the silver boot over in her hands before placing it on the green starting space.
“Here, Jo, you can be . . . what is this?” Mia said, holding a small cardboard pawn depicting a leaping child.
“It’s from Chutes and Ladders,” I said. “You know, I’d bet anything this came from the set your mom and I had when we were kids.” Mia handed me the piece, and I set it on the red starting space.
“Well, I guess that makes me yellow, since there’s no blue piece,” Mia said. “And just to buck the status quo I will choose . . .” She rummaged around in the box. “The yellow pawn that actually came with the game.” She set down her piece with a snap, a smile breaking through her annoyed expression.
I rubbed my hands together. “All right. Let’s begin.”
“This game is really boring,” Mia said after Kitty won the first game. She rested her cheek on her arm, a strand of hair flopping into her face.
“We should get one of those thousand-piece puzzles,” Kitty said.
“Pass,” Mia said.
“No offense, Kitty, but that doesn’t exactly sound more fun than this,” I said.
“Let’s go looking for turtles,” Mia said, and so we grabbed a flashlight and set off for the beach.
Mia bumped into me as she and Kitty raced down the walkway.
It was a moonless night, growing darker around us with each step.
I could hear the girls laughing as they walked side by side ahead of me.
Instead of passing through the main gate to the beach, they turned left and raced past the shuffleboard court in the direction of the pool, and I found them standing beside the pool when I finally caught up to them.
I looked from one girl to the other, confused.
“You know turtles aren’t going to be in the pool, right? ”
Kitty giggled, and I caught the hint of a smile on Mia’s face. And that was when I realized I was in trouble.
Mia held the flashlight beneath her chin. “Before we go turtle hunting, why don’t you check off an item from the list?”
“I don’t . . .” And then I looked at the pool, realizing the whole turtle scheme had been a trick. “You want me to go skinny-dipping right now?”
Mia and Kitty grinned.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s against the rules to swim after dark.”
“Says the chick who snuck onto a yacht to go drinking,” Mia said.
“That’s not exactly—”
“Please, Aunt Jo?” Kitty pleaded. “It’s the easiest item on the list! You said you’d do the easy ones first.”
True. It was the easiest one, even easier than decluttering. When I’d come up with this item, I’d imagined skinny-dipping in the Caribbean or even the hot tub on the Serendipity. At no time had it crossed my mind to take a dip in the condo pool. What if Belva or Old Gary caught me?
“I don’t have a towel. We can do another night.” I turned to leave, but Mia cleared her throat.
“I thought you’d say something like that.” Mia held out a phone, my phone, and dangled it in front of me. I patted the back of my shorts in disbelief. She must have snatched it from my pocket when she’d bumped into me on the walk here.
“Give that back,” I said, giving her my best adult-in-control voice.
Mia held her thumbs poised for action over my phone. “What do you think we should text Hot Guy from the Bar, Kitty?”
Oh, no they didn’t. I cursed myself for not having a passcode on my phone and made a mental note to murder Nina as soon as I arrived at work the next day. I lunged forward, trying to swipe my phone from Mia’s hands, but she held it out of reach.
Kitty looked at me guiltily. “C’mon, Aunt Jo, it’ll be quick.”
I glared at them, weighing my options. The last thing I needed was Mia texting Hot Guy from the Bar, and him thinking I was some sort of stalker.
Not that I cared what he thought of me, of course, I just didn’t want him thinking he’d been kissed by a weirdo.
And besides, if I did this now, I’d never have to do it again.
“Fine. But only for a second. And you promise I’ll get my phone back after?”
Mia held my phone over her heart. “Promise.”
I sighed, resigned to my fate. “Turn around and keep an eye out.”
The girls obeyed, turning their backs to the pool.
I scanned the balconies of the nearby condos and spotted no one.
Stripping quickly, I peeled off my shirt and bra, then shimmied out of my shorts and underwear.
A warm breeze blew in from the ocean, raising goose bumps on my skin.
I raced down the steps into the glowing pool.
“I’m in the water. Can I get out now?”
“It doesn’t count if you don’t do a full lap there and back,” Mia called.
“Says who?”
Mia put her hands on her hips. “Seriously, Jo. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
I groaned, gripping the edge of the pool.
I could do this quickly and get it over with.
I launched myself off the wall with as much force as I could, the water blocking out all other sounds as my arms and legs propelled me forward.
When I touched the opposite wall, I pushed off again, torpedoing back to where I’d started.
When I blinked the water from my eyes, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at first. But then I realized Mia and Kitty were nowhere in sight, and not only that, but my clothes were gone too. I’d been duped not once, but twice.
I looked wildly around the pool area. They were probably hiding behind the shower wall and waiting for me to freak out before they came back.
But then a minute passed and another, and still no girls.
I looked down at myself in the glowing water of the pool and cursed.
How had I let the girls bully me into this?
The gate leading from the parking lot creaked open, and I whirled around.
“What the hell was that?” I said, expecting to see Mia and Kitty.
But to my great embarrassment, I was met not by my nieces, or even Old Gary with his whistle and a safety float, but by the silhouettes of a man and a teenage girl who didn’t belong to me.
“Hey! You’re Mia and Kitty’s aunt, right? It’s me, Greyson!”
So not only had I been caught naked in the pool, but I’d been caught by a teenager and her supposedly hot dad.
“Hi, Greyson,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I cast a hopeful look over my shoulder for Mia and Kitty.
They’d be lucky if I didn’t ship them back to North Carolina on the next flight.
“Where are they?” Greyson asked. “I was just telling Dad I wished my phone would’ve been charged, so I could’ve gotten their numbers.”
“Uh, they went for a walk on the beach,” I said, wishing it were Old Gary who’d caught me after all.
“Looks like we aren’t the only rule breakers tonight. I knew you had good taste in friends,” Greyson’s dad said. He turned toward the pool. “It is against the rules to swim after dark, right?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said.
“Dad, can I go find Mia and Kitty, please?” Greyson said. “I promise I’ll use my head and won’t do anything reckless.”
“How about you wait until they come back?” he said, and Greyson groaned dramatically.
The two of them walked over to the table beside the pool.
I was frozen in place, my brain moving slower than I would’ve liked.
What was I supposed to do? If I said something, they’d know I was naked in the pool.
But if they came any closer, they’d also know I was naked in the pool.
Either way, they’d know I was naked in the pool, and I didn’t want to flash Greyson or her dad, who was about to strip off his shirt.
“Wait!” I called out.
He let go of the hem of his shirt, and both he and Greyson turned to me expectantly.
I hesitated. I hadn’t thought of what I was going to say. “Can I borrow a towel? I . . . lost my clothes.”
“You lost your clothes?” Greyson’s dad said.
“I lost a pair of shoes once,” Greyson said.
“I took them off in my room, and then they were just gone. Never did find them. Too bad, because they were really cool. They had these wheels on the bottom and I was always crashing into stuff. Dad hated them. Come to think of it, maybe they weren’t lost.” She turned to her dad. “Did you steal them?”
Greyson’s dad didn’t respond. He was looking at me. “Oh,” he said, and it was clear from his tone he’d put things together. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t . . .” He shook his head and backed into the table.
“Do you have a towel?” I said again, blushing so fiercely I probably glowed like bioluminescent algae.
“Oh, right,” he said. He grabbed his towel and started toward the pool, then hesitated. “Um, I won’t look.”
“What’s . . .” Greyson started, but paused. “Wait, are you naked in there?” She turned to her dad again. “Is this one of those places Marla and Tom like to go to? A naturalist resort?”
“Of course we didn’t move to a naturalist resort, Greyson,” her dad said as he walked slowly over, eyes averted, the towel in his outstretched hand. When he got within a few feet of me, he tossed the towel to the side of the pool.
“Turn around, Grey,” he said. He returned to the table, and both he and Greyson faced the parking lot.
I pulled myself out of the pool and hurriedly wrapped the towel around me.
“All right, I’m . . . decent,” I said, clutching the towel.
Decent didn’t seem like the right word. What was decent about getting caught skinny-dipping in the condo pool by a potentially hot stranger and his teenage daughter?