Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
Clay
Happy voices drift up from the water while the sun beats down on the pontoon. Now that we’re no longer moving, sweat beads on my skin. But I’m not jumping into the lake.
At Gina’s prodding, Milo blows up inflatables for everyone and tosses the rings into the water. I drink my cold beer, savoring the cool condensation until my palm warms the bottle. I could be drinking this beer in the bar, out of the sun, in the company of my millions.
Louisa laughs at something Gina says, and I grudgingly have to admit I wouldn’t be enjoying it much.
Where I’m sitting in the back of the pontoon, I can’t see Louisa easily.
I’d have to stand up, and it would be obvious, so I don’t.
From his position, Milo has a wider view and a harder time pretending he’s not interested in Briar’s white bikini.
He keeps turning the chair like a periscope searching for the enemy, only to immediately look away.
It would be an absolute act of stupidity to move to Briar’s seat and face the same problem.
I move to Briar’s seat anyway, and there’s Louisa, on my side of the pontoon, sunning herself on top of a pink donut-printed inflatable. She gives me a smug little wave and a matching smile.
This is hell.
“So you run your own business?” I ask Milo. I suppose he’s an arboreal specialist or something, and the business is some form of timber service. If I hadn’t been so preoccupied with Louisa, I might have remembered to look this up after speaking to Briar about it.
He shifts his seat to face me, possibly grateful for the distraction, and nods.
“Are you looking for any investors? If those investors are hands off, of course,” I add quickly when his expression darkens.
Milo glances at the swimmers, then leans forward in his seat. “You’re laundering money.”
“What? No.” Shit—did Louisa tell him?
“You bought a bar on a whim. And a vintage camper. You bought and then sold a boat that you never took out onto a lake. Either you’re loaded enough to spend recklessly, or you’ve got money to launder.”
I lean back. “I come from money.” Which has the benefit of being true, even if it’s not the whole truth. “Private school, remember?”
“Uh-huh.” He doesn’t look convinced as he leans back, too. “I don’t need money. Got plenty of it myself. So I’ll pass.”
Seems like a lie. But something about his tattoos tugs at a buried memory. His forearms are covered in a tangle of wild raspberries in black ink. As they travel up his biceps, the tattoos open out into a dark forest. It can’t be a common tattoo, yet I swear I’ve seen it before.
I’m about to ask when he abruptly leans forward, dark eyes narrowed on me. “For some reason, Lou is into you.”
Hell of a pivot. “Sure.” There’s no denying that. I had her moaning. She got her hands on me. She might even enjoy my company a little. “Why wouldn’t she be?” I ask.
Milo looks like he wants to strangle me, and the memory that he’s had her slams me from the side. The way he watches Briar with a palpable longing made me forget.
I shift in my seat, uncomfortable. It’s not jealousy—Louisa’s not mine, and anyway, I don’t care that they’ve fucked in the past. Hell, Louisa walked in on me with that kindergarten teacher, so I can’t throw stones.
Maybe it’s envy? He’s had something with Louisa that I can’t allow myself to have. Is that it? I want to have her to myself, too.
“Lou needs someone she can trust,” Milo says in a low voice. At least he cuts to the chase. “Can she trust you?”
I nearly laugh. “No.” No one should trust me. Ever. Hell, the will that would put full ownership of the bar square in Louisa’s hands is hiding behind a bookcase, and I have no intention of giving it to her anytime soon. Possibly ever.
Although now that Travis knows that I have it, I’ll need a place away from the bar to hide it. Briar’s RV, perhaps.
“Then leave her alone,” he says, clearly annoyed by my easy admission.
The thought of spending another minute on the boat with me must be more than he can stand, because he gets up and strips down.
He steps over the rail onto the sundeck before he’s even aware that Briar has climbed half up the ladder and is staring open-mouthed at all that tattooed muscle.
He stops. They stare at each other. I imagine the view from her angle.
Looking up at his slightly turned profile.
The intensity in his eyes. Does she know it’s only there when he looks at her?
Milo turns away, takes another step, and dives into the lake.
Briar stares after him for another moment, then realizes I’m watching.
The look she gives me is withering, which causes the counsel I was tempted to offer to dissipate before I can give voice to it.
I don’t tend to give advice—Benji must be contagious—so it’s her loss.
She drops back into the lake without a word, leaving me alone in the baking sun.
Being alone up here sucks. The lake is looking more and more tempting.
A few minutes later, Milo and Benji climb up the ladder to take side-by-side positions on the very front of the deck.
“On your mark, get set, go!” Gina calls from her aqua inflatable.
They both dive in, making the pontoon rock from the motion. When they break the surface, I follow their direction towards Louisa, who has drifted the farthest from the boat.
Milo might be stronger and bigger, but Benji is the better swimmer. He’s fast, his strokes clean and efficient. Maybe he didn’t play sports, but he clearly had swimming lessons as a kid. Which was like five minutes ago.
Benji clearly wins, and the ladies cheer for him. Milo doesn’t seem upset, but stays out by Louisa when Benji swims back. He climbs up the ladder again, standing there dripping, a cocky grin on his face. “Wanna race?”
“You’d lose.”
“You sure about that old man?”
“I don’t want to embarrass you in front of your wife.”
“You’re telling me you want to stay here and steam in your own sweat?” Benji shakes his head. “Nah, you’re scared.”
I laugh, but I’m already getting to my feet, taking my sunglasses off.
Benji claps his hands, clearly happy with himself, when all he’s done is give me a convenient excuse to stop baking on the boat alone.
I strip down to my black boxer briefs—I flat-out refused to borrow swim trunks from Benji earlier—and step over the railing.
The water glints in the sun, cool and beckoning, but still a lake full of creatures living, dying, and spawning.
Louisa is still floating in it—although she’s mostly sunning herself on top of that pink donut.
Is she looking at me the way Briar looked at Milo?
There’s too much glare off the water to tell.
My toes curl against the scratchy boat carpet as I try not to think about fish slime. Or what I’m about to dive into.
We take our positions and wait for Gina to say, ‘Go.’ When she does, we both dive.
I hit the water, coolness closing over me, the sweat-soaked husk left behind as I swim for the pink donut.
Benji is close when I break the surface, and for a second, I’m not sure I can beat him.
It’s been too long, and I’m not exactly spending my hours working out.
But I pull ahead of him at the end, slapping the pink donut first.
“Good race,” Benji says with a wide grin, shaking water from his hair. He doesn’t even sound winded.
“Told you I’d win.” Unlike Benji, I have to catch my breath.
“You did,” Benji agrees, the grin still on his face.
Did that fucker let me win? He lazily backstrokes to his wife.
Goddammit, he did.
I turn to Louisa, but the donut is empty.
Was it empty when I slapped it? My heart is still pumping wildly from the sudden race, but it ticks up as I scan the surface of the lake.
Sixty feet deep, Gina said. The water is clear enough that I can see the ghastly green tint of my legs in the sunlight filtering through, but there’s a darkness I don’t like below me, around me.
And there she is, surfacing next to the donut, a couple of feet from me, right where the glare of the sun hid her.
Water beads on her dark lashes. On her red lips as they part in a smirk. Sunlight glints off her wet skin.
Looking at her in the sunlight, I could almost believe a higher power made this woman just for me. I have never wanted anyone like this. I doubt I ever will again.
But Milo was right. She deserves someone she can trust, and that isn’t me. Maybe self-preservation isn’t enough to keep me away, but it’s remarkably easy to swim away from her when it’s for her own good.
And by easy, I mean it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.