Chapter 14 #2
“This pool and the neighbors’ are freshwater.”
“Yeah, I know. But that’s the word that pops into my head. Salt . . . and Theo.”
“You think you remembering knowing Theo?” But he didn’t know her, or so he’d said.
“I know him, somehow, for sure. It’ll come to me. So uh . . .” She lowered her voice. “Speaking of Theo . . . he’s behind me, in the pool house. He told me not to come out here, but it seems like maybe you guys should talk?”
“Ah.” So he was hiding back there.
“He won’t shut up about you. Owen said this, Owen did that, Owen, Owen, Owen. No offense, you’re nice to look at, an’ all, but it’s not helping me remember where I’m supposed to be.”
“Is he angry?” I asked quietly.
“More . . . frustrated, maybe? So, if you could just fix whatever went down, then we can get back to figuring out why I’m here.”
“Fleur . . .” Theo grumbled from the pool-house doorway.
He leaned against the frame, arms folded, his dark clothes contrasting with all the brightness outside.
“It’s true, though,” she told him.
He sighed, pinched his lips together, and finally lifted his gaze to me. “Can we talk?”
That sounded serious. “Sure.” I dried my hands on a towel and followed him into the pool house, while Fleur stayed outside and stared at the water.
The TV was on, playing the local news. Theo grabbed the remote and turned the volume down.
“If you want anything kept a secret around here, don’t tell Fleur,” he said, stopping at the back of the room by the fold-down bed, away from the wall of windows. The blinds were closed, but the day’s heat still radiated through them.
His clothes were baggy and loose, his hair unstyled. I’d had my fingers in his hair, my tongue down his throat, his body firmly against mine—
Oh-kay. Not going there.
I’d been trying very hard not to think about that rooftop kiss, and I’d been doing okay, until now, with him right in front of me. “So . . . uh . . . about the other night. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have made you do that.”
He raised a hand. “You didn’t make me do anything.” His lips twitched, and the hint of a smile showed through. “Some buildup would have been nice, but anytime you want to get down, I am here for it.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure if I was okay with that. He’d said it so flippantly that it couldn’t mean anything. But of course it didn’t mean anything. What had I expected? That Theo Witherborne was falling for me? Ha, right. “Yeah, I guess, it was just a drunken kiss, so . . . doesn’t matter.”
“Right.” He breathed in and sighed out slowly. “But I need you to tell me what’s going on with you.”
“What . . . what do you mean, going on with me?” I laughed too loudly. “There’s nothing going on with me. I’m just here, doing the pool.”
“The guy you kissed me to hide from. Big guy, knuckle-dragger. Yes, I saw him. Who is he?”
Shoot, he’d seen my stalker. “Oh, right . . . Uh, yeah, so . . . it’s nothing really. I kinda have a stalker. But I’m dealing with it.”
“By hiding in my face?”
“No.” Another squealing laugh. “I mean . . . it was a spur of the moment thing. I am really sorry about that. It won’t happen again.”
“Stop apologizing before you hurt yourself. I don’t care about the kiss.”
I swallowed and pinched my lips together. “Right.”
“That’s why you didn’t like the whole social media thing, because you’re trying to keep a low profile?”
“Yeah, but also, that was passive aggressively not okay, to throw me into a spotlight like that, but yeah, the whole hashtag labrador energy put me out there in ways I didn’t—don’t wanna be out there. And now I’m out there.”
“Because of your stalker?”
“Yeah, but also . . . I had a life, before, I told you about some of it, and I don’t want people from that life finding me here. It’s just . . . past me is not compatible with now me.” I felt my heart racing and worked to slow it back down again.
“Okay.”
“You’re alright with it?”
“Sure.” He pushed off the wall and sauntered over, stopped close, making me look up to meet his gaze.
“But just so you know,” he whispered. “If your stalker guy hurts you, I will hunt him down and make him suffer in some very creative ways, and it won’t be quick, Owen.
So, if he bothers you, you call me. Understood? ”
He said it casually, which shouldn’t have surprised me, considering the rest of his family, but it did.
I’d been so lost in his eyes and his words that when his fingertips brushed my jaw, I flinched. I hadn’t meant to. I wanted him to touch me. Wanted to be back on that rooftop, his body against mine, hands on me. The need roared back like a tsunami.
Theo pulled his fingers back then stepped away, misreading the flinch for fear.
With distance between us, I could breathe again and keep myself from jumping his bones. “You know, uh, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”
He laughed lightly. “It wouldn’t be a fight, trust me.”
I’d been around a lot of dangerous people, before prison and during, and none had made the threat of casual violence sound so appealing.
But the way Theo said it had that rooftop heat simmering in my veins again.
A piece of me, the old me, desired that violence, and wanted to see Theo unleashed.
I’d be right there with him. The power, the thrill, feeling like the most important person in the room, the one everyone should be afraid of.
But that was the old me. The Owen who no longer existed.
“Guys!” Fleur called. “You should see this! There’s something in your pool!”
I bolted outside and skidded to a stop beside the churning water. “What the heck?” The pool water thrashed, as though full of something beneath the surface.
Theo stood on the other side of Fleur, peering into the water. “That’s not normal, right?”
“No, it’s not.”
The pool seemed . . . angry. There was no other word for it. Its water thrashed like a wild animal that had found itself caught in a net. I could feel its rage. Which made no sense. But I’d return to that thought later when the pool wasn’t boiling itself dry.
Theo stepped forward, and the water thrashed harder, splashing over the sides.
“Theo, stay back . . .”
He ignored me, leaned forward, peering deeper into it. “What’s doing that?”
“Theo . . .” It was him. It wanted him. I could feel that too.
Fear tugged at the edge of the rage now. My fear. For Theo.
Something was coming. The thing I’d seen in the pools from the rooftop bar a few nights ago. The lurking, searching thing. It had found what it wanted, and it was here.
“Get back!”
A hulking, dark shape leaped from the water. Man-shaped, with arms and legs, but wrong, limbs elongated, skin rough like tree bark. It launched itself at Theo.
Theo dodged, moving fast. His reflexes seemed to make the creature hesitate, but then it lunged again.
Fleur roared, ran at it, then leaped onto its back and clung on, turning herself into a human backpack.
The pool still churned and Theo stared, watching Fleur ride a weird humanish monster.
That thing was why the pool was angry. It wasn’t supposed to be here. I could stop it. Maybe.
I dropped to my knees and thrust my hands into the water. The pull was there, like it had been next door, but it didn’t want to drag me in. It needed me. The water took my hands, wrapping around them, holding on, not threatening. The water wasn’t the threat. The creature was.