Chapter Ten Alex
R OME CRASHED INTO the swimming pool as a geyser of water erupted from his cannonball.
I snapped the picture just as his rump split the surface, his face pinched together, arms hugging his exceptionally long legs.
He came up for air and sent an arc of water from his mouth as he pushed back wet bangs from his face. I snapped a second pic.
He bobbed in the deep end. “Did you get it?” he asked.
“One for the record books,” I said as I lowered my camera and slipped it back into the case. I slid the case under the umbrella-shaded table. The afternoon heat of a cloudless August sky would bake anything it touched. I had already turned red after only twenty minutes of exposure.
“Okay good. Enough stalling. Get in, already,” Rome said as he splashed the surface to get me wet. I danced back just in time.
I don’t know why but I had a sudden case of shyness when we strolled through the gate wearing flip-flops and towels hooked around our necks.
Rome wasted no time stripping his tank top off, which gave me plenty of time to ogle his hardened, athletic body.
But me? Yeah, I was a runner. But I was a noodle compared to this guy.
Would he judge me for a flat chest where he had over-pronounced pectorals?
Or my tubular arms where his were all bulk and cut lines?
“I’m not stalling,” I said as I put my hands on my hips.
“You’re stalling,” he retorted as he swam toward the shallow end and stood up. “Because you’re suddenly shy and I can’t for the life of me figure out why.”
He said that while standing with the water at his waist line, dripping and soaking, musculature glistening in the blaring sun. Then, he let out a frustrated sigh and made a dramatic show of turning around.
“Okay, okay. See? I’m not looking.”
“Oh, stop,” I said and stripped off my shirt, then strutted to the deep end. I presented myself to him in all my scrawniness, then shallow-dove from the edge and speared through the water toward him. I came up when I brushed by his legs and wiped the water from my eyes.
He had been smiling mischievously. “You run marathons, don’t you?” Rome asked.
I had been in the process of dipping back into the water to keep my body under the surface, but stopped. “How… how did you know?”
My running had come up in conversations before, but nothing more than me revealing that I liked to hit the pavement to relieve stress.
Rome shrugged. “Your legs. Your thighs. Flat tummy. So I’m right?”
“Very good. You are indeed right.”
A satisfied smile. We both slipped below, up to our shoulders, knees on the bottom of the pool. “Ever run the Boston Marathon?”
I held both arms out of the water. “That’s what these represent.”
His eyes went wide. “Get out! That is seriously impressive. You got one every year you’ve run?
” I nodded as his eyes tracked and counted the rings.
He knee-walked in the water to get closer and gently took my forearm.
His finger ran along the rings that started at my elbow.
I shuddered when his finger pressed against the inside of my elbow, something soft and sensual.
His finger came to a spot where I knew it would. Twelve rings total, six on each arm, all of them black. Except for one.
“Why is this one red?” Rome asked. I didn’t answer. His brow scrunched, then lifted. “Oh.”
When most people figured out what the red line meant, they had the same question. “Were you near the finish line when it happened?” would always come out of their mouths. Then they’d ask if I heard the explosion. If I knew anyone who died. If I saw the bombers. If I helped out the victims.
But Rome didn’t ask that. He pulled me by the arm with the red ring and wrapped his arms around me. “I’m sorry you went through that. It must have been so hard.”
I was so stunned that for a moment, I didn’t hug him back. My arms eventually draped across his back. “Thank you. It was difficult.” I pulled out of the embrace first. “That’s sweet of you to say that, though.”
Without preamble he leaned in for a kiss. He put his arms back around me and his hand cupped the back of my head. Our tongues danced slowly, a meandering waltz that had me spinning by the time Rome pulled away.
“I’ve been talking too much about myself,” he said as we pressed our foreheads together. “I should have known this about you on day one.”
I couldn’t help but grin. He did like to prattle on, but I had come to find it comforting. “Well what else do you want to know? You’ve seen my favorite pictures. My apartment. You know I run marathons…”
“Hmm…” His hand slipped under the water and suddenly pinched my sides. I leaped in place with a yelp and swam suddenly backward. “Ticklish. That’s something I wanted to know.”
“And are you ?” I dove under the surface and launched myself at his waist.
We wrestled in the water for awhile until it became too difficult to hide our tented swimming shorts.
By unspoken decree, we cooled down on separate ends of the pool to toss a toy football.
Our conversation idled on random facts about each other that we thought might be interesting.
I steered clear of my childhood, not yet ready to dive into how those years had such an impact on not only me, but on the close relationship with my brother Devin.
After about an hour in the pool, we climbed out and air dried on the short walk back to Rome’s house, our flip-flops squeaking and squawking from watery feet.
The sudden blast of glacial air inside the house had me instantly seizing up and covering my still bare chest with a towel.
Rome laughed, grabbed a few seltzers from his fridge, and led me to his personal back patio that overlooked a green lawn bordered by thick forest. Together, we plopped down on cushioned patio furniture. I draped one leg over his thigh.
“Have you picked a date yet?” I asked as I sipped at the seltzer, a raspberry and lime mixture. This would have been the perfect situation for a light, crisp beer, but I was beginning to figure out that Rome didn’t drink much, especially when in between games.
“A date? For what?”
I had been looking at his necklaces, how they shined like liquid gold in the late afternoon sun. “Coming out. To your teammates?”
“The twenty-sixth,” he answered immediately. “Ten days from now.”
“So specific,” I said in a suave tone.
He snickered and grabbed underneath my knee to tuck my leg farther in between his.
“Starting tomorrow, I have a game every night until the twenty-eighth.” He ran his thumb along the top of my knee.
“Things are getting busier. The games are more important as we get closer to postseason. Our last game with Jacksonville is the twenty-sixth and we fly back that night. Break on twenty-seventh, then we play Pensacola here on the twenty-eighth.”
I nodded when I understood. “You’ll tell them on the plane after the last game.”
“You got it. A daylong break in between. It’s a good time. Nothing that will rattle. Hiroshi agrees with the timing, too.”
“And your bestie Emma?” I said her name with a bit more venom than intended.
He took a sip from his can, a blend of pineapple and cherry. “My number one supporter, if you can believe it.” Rome spied me with a sideways glance. “She wants to meet you.”
“Send her up to the family suite during your next home game,” I said without missing a beat. I smirked and looked into the distance.
We stayed silent while we sipped at bubbly water and dried off in the afternoon sun. By the time we finished our drinks, my skin was sufficiently lobster-red and we went back inside to cool down. I caught sight of myself in a mirror inside the living room and sucked air through my teeth.
“I’ve got aloe,” Rome said as he disappeared down the hall toward his room.
Over my shoulder, I called out, “You damn Sicilians. You don’t need much sunscreen, do you?”
Rome came back down the hall and wiggled a bottle of lotion at me. All logic drained from my mind and my libido decided to take over.
Hot guy. Lotion. Half naked.
My heart kicked into high gear as Rome said, “Here, come sit in the living room. Wanna watch a movie?”
I cleared my throat. “Sounds great.”
I followed him into the living room where he pushed the oversized ottoman out of the way and sat on the corner cushion. He reached down and patted the floor for me, then dropped a pillow. “Anything in particular you care to see?”
I plopped my rump down on the pillow, crossed my legs, and leaned back in between Rome’s legs. “Anything is good with me.”
“Here.” He dropped the remote in my lap. I heard the bottle top pop.
With numb fingers, I turned the television on and cycled through the myriad of streaming services Rome had. I sucked in air and flexed my butt as cold goop hit my shoulders. Rome let out a breathy chuckle.
“Cold?” he asked. Before I could answer, his hands glided over the sun-reddened skin of my shoulders. I forgot the television and dropped my head down as his hand moved up the nape of my neck, his fingers stretching into my hair.
I shivered. Behind me, Rome’s breath labored as his hands ran to my shoulders then partly down my arms. He palmed my upper back, then his hand ran lower.
I leaned forward as his fingertips ran along my obliques.
Goose bumps sprouted everywhere as his hands returned to my shoulder and then slid down my chest. Fingertips brushed my nipples and I shuddered.
Rome’s right hand pulled up while his left stayed flat against my pectoral.
The right hand glided up my neck, landed partially on my jaw, then tilted my head back to look up at him.
His thumb brushed over my lips. He leaned over me, this hulking man who had eyes only for me, though I couldn’t understand why.
“Kiss me,” I told him.