Chapter 3 — The Meeting I Didnt Call #2
I caught her under the thighs before she slid off and set her down, but she didn't make it easy. Her legs wrapped my hips for half a second. Her citrus bikini shifted. Her laughter hit my ear, bright and shameless.
"See?" she called to the others. "He likes pool games."
"He likes catching you," Shay said.
"I'm trying," I said, pushing wet hair back from my forehead, "to have a conversation."
Shay surfaced beside me and put both hands on my shoulders. "Are you about to give us the 'we're all adults and this is inappropriate' speech?"
"Something close to that."
"Great." She grinned. "If there are punishments, I volunteer first."
The pool erupted.
Tatum splashed backward laughing. Reese covered her mouth and failed to look scandalized. Penny lowered her sunglasses from her float, clearly enjoying the show. Kiki bit her lip, sweet and pleased. Eden looked at Shay with fond patience, like this was exactly why Shay had been brought.
"Relax, Lake Luke," Shay said, squeezing my shoulders once before swimming away. "I'm making you uncomfortable on purpose."
"Successful," I said.
"I know."
I tried again ten minutes later, when everyone had migrated to the shallow end and Penny was stretched on a float like my pool had been built for editorial work.
"This summer can't turn into," I started.
Penny lifted her head. Her emerald top shone wet in the sunlight, her platinum hair slicked back enough to make her green eyes impossible to avoid. "Into what?"
"That's what I'm trying to explain."
"Something fun?" she asked.
"Something reckless."
Penny smiled slowly. "You say that like fun and reckless are enemies."
I opened my mouth, but Reese drifted closer before I could answer. She rested her elbows on the pool ledge beside me, honey-brown eyes soft and bright at the same time.
"Is it bad that being here feels right?" she asked.
I looked at her.
She gave me a smile with no shyness in it, only warmth. "I mean here, at your house. The lake right there, the music, all of us. I used to think your place felt like summer from the outside. Now it feels like what I wanted summer to turn into."
My chest tightened.
That was how Reese got me. Not by being quiet. She wasn't quiet. She was bright and affectionate and dangerously direct in the way she let happiness become pressure. She made wanting me sound like the natural ending to a story she had been waiting to tell.
"Reese," I said.
"What?" She leaned closer, water shining on her shoulders. "You invited us."
I had.
That was the problem.
The next attempt died when Kiki caught me by the outdoor shower.
She had followed me while I pretended to rinse chlorine from my arms and clear my head. She leaned against the tile, white bikini damp, golden hair darkened at the ends, blue eyes watching me with a private shine.
"You keep trying so hard," she said.
"Somebody has to."
"You don't have to try with me."
"That's exactly the kind of sentence I need you not to say."
She smiled. "Yesterday, you didn't push me away when it mattered."
The words went straight through me.
"I stopped it."
"Paige stopped it."
That landed because it was true.
Kiki stepped closer. Not touching me this time. She didn't need to. Her voice stayed low enough to get lost under the music and splashing.
"You kissed me back, Luke. Your hands were on me. You wanted more."
"This is why I asked you here."
"I know." She looked absurdly pleased by that. "You wanted to tell us to stop."
"Yes."
"And how is that going?"
She left me there with the question and went back to the pool, hips swaying, white bikini bottoms riding high on her perfect, golden ass, every inch of her sweetness turned sharp by memory.
I returned to find Eden had rearranged the patio.
Reese was on my towel. Tatum had my drink. Shay had the chair closest to the grill. Penny had moved her lounge to a better angle of light. Kiki sat at the pool edge with her feet in the water. Eden stood by the outdoor table with a stack of cups, looking not at all surprised that I noticed.
"You moved everyone," I said.
"I adjusted the flow," Eden said.
"The flow."
"You had Reese in too much shade."
Reese lifted one hand from my towel. "I burn and then I get dramatic."
"That's true," Tatum said. "Reesie sunburn drama is a four-act tragedy."
"I don't get dramatic."
"You once said your shoulders were a public health crisis," Shay said.
Reese pointed at her. "They were."
The argument dissolved into laughter, and Eden gave me a look over the rim of her cup.
"You keep thinking you're hosting," she said quietly.
"I'm hosting."
"Of course."
There it was again. Cooperative doom.
I lasted another half hour.
Not because I found discipline. Because every attempt to gather them turned into another version of losing.
I said, "You all know why I asked you here," and Tatum slid onto my lap on the pool steps for no reason except that she could, all wet skin and red hair and Trouble grin, while Reese applauded the seating choice.
I said, "I'm trying to be responsible," and Shay told the group she loved Responsible Luke but was personally more curious about Turned-On Luke, which made Penny laugh so hard she had to cover her mouth with the back of one hand.
I said, "We need to be careful," and Kiki said, "We're," in a voice so sweet it took me a second to notice Eden and Penny exchange a look.
They were treating me like a shared boyfriend before I had agreed to be anything.
Touching my arm when they passed. Stealing my drink. Asking where I kept towels. Leaving gloss by the sink and sunglasses on the counter. Using my fridge. Wearing my house down minute by minute until it no longer felt like an invasion, which would have been easier to resist.
It felt like arrival.
I noticed it in the little things. Tatum knew where the ice was after one trip through the kitchen.
Reese had found the best outlet for her phone charger.
Shay had already decided which cabinet should hold more chips.
Penny knew the light by the diving board looked better after two-thirty.
Eden moved through the patio like she was testing how the house would hold all six of them.
Kiki kept appearing beside me exactly when my restraint had weakened enough for one smile to matter.
By the time I said, "We'll talk at dinner," even I didn't believe myself.
"Dinner Luke," Tatum announced. "New favorite Luke."
"Grill Luke," Penny corrected.
"Hot Luke," Shay said. "Let's not overcomplicate perfection."
Kiki looked at me, blue eyes bright. "I like all of them."
I retreated to the kitchen before I proved just how badly that line landed.
The kitchen was quieter, but it wasn't untouched.
That was the first thing I noticed. Reese's sunglasses on the island.
Shay's lip gloss beside the sink. Tatum's sandals near the slider even though I had no idea when she had moved them there.
Penny's gold phone case catching sunlight on the counter.
A wet towel draped over the back of one of my kitchen chairs.
The fridge not quite closed, humming with faint accusation.
My house had evidence now.
I set the steaks on a platter and reached for the salt. Through the open window above the counter, the pool sounds drifted in: water, music, laughter, six voices overlapping in the warm afternoon air.
I didn't step to the window to listen.
The window was simply there.
"Kiki almost broke him," Shay said.
I froze with the salt in my hand.
"Did you see his face when she got close by the shower?" Tatum said. "He was trying so hard to look responsible. Poor Hot Luke."
"He has that voice," Reese said, fond and bright. "The serious one. Like he practiced."
"He did practice," Eden said.
They laughed.
"He probably had notes," Penny added. "Something mature about boundaries and good judgment."
"He's trying," Kiki said.
That quieted them for a second. Her voice was warm. Not smug. Not careless. Warm in a way that made my hand tighten around the seasoning.
"He really is," Kiki said. "That's part of why I love him."
My chest went still.
Outside, the pool water splashed softly.
"Being here makes it worse," Reese said after a moment. "In a good way. I thought it would feel like visiting Luke's house, but it doesn't. It feels like..." She laughed, not embarrassed, just searching for the words. "It feels too right."
"That's because it's right," Tatum said.
"You would say that about a slushie machine," Shay said.
"I'd be correct about the slushie machine too."
More laughter.
Penny's voice came next, polished and amused. "He watches us like he's starving, and then acts personally offended when we notice."
"His trying-not-to-look face is my favorite," Shay said.
"No," Tatum said. "His serious face is cute."
"His scared face is cute," Penny said.
"He's not scared," Kiki said.
Another pause.
"He's careful," she said.
I set down the salt.
Eden's voice moved through the laughter like a finger tracing a clean line. "He still thinks he's hosting."
"He's hosting," Tatum said.
"No," Eden said. "He's being handled."
They laughed again, and there was no cruelty in it. No malice. No dark little victory. Just giddy affection, heat, and the bright satisfaction of six women enjoying the fact that their plan was working because they wanted it to work together.
They weren't competing.
That should have made this less dangerous.
It made it worse.
"He's closer than he thinks," Kiki said.
I wanted to know what she meant. I wanted to not know. Both desires sat in my chest at the same time.
"He hears better through that kitchen window than he pretends," Eden said.
Every muscle in my body locked.
Then Shay, louder, clearly for my benefit, said, "Good. Maybe the window can finish the speech for him."
The laughter that followed hit the glass, the counter, my ribs.