Chapter Seventeen
Pool Day
Crew
Dallas in March is a coin flip. One day it’s forty degrees and raining; the next, it’s eighty-five and sunny, and everyone collectively loses their minds.
Today is the eighty-five and sunny kind.
“Pool day!” Emmie announced this morning, bouncing into the kitchen in a tank top and shorts. “It’s happening. I already texted Sadie.”
I looked up from my coffee. “I don’t do pool days.”
“You do now.” She stole my mug, took a sip, and handed it back like that was normal—like sharing my coffee was something we did. “The pool is literally in your building. You pay HOA fees for it. Have you ever even been down there?”
“Once.”
“Once.”
“I went down there to check that the gate lock was secure.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “That’s the saddest thing you’ve ever said.”
So now I’m standing on my balcony in swim trunks I had to dig out of the back of my closet, watching Emmie set up camp by the pool ten floors below. She’s got towels, a cooler, a stack of magazines, and what looks like enough sunscreen to protect a small army.
I can do this. It’s just a pool—water, concrete, lounge chairs. Nothing complicated.
My phone buzzes.
Foster: Heard there’s a pool party. On my way.
I didn’t invite Foster. I didn’t invite anyone. This was supposed to be—
Another buzz.
Emmie: Stop stalling and get down here!! I have snacks :)
I grab a towel and head for the elevator.
* * *
The pool deck is mostly empty—a few residents I don’t recognize, an older couple reading under an umbrella, and Emmie, stretched out on a lounge chair in a yellow bikini.
A very small yellow bikini.
My brain takes approximately three seconds to process this information before it completely shuts down.
She’s on her stomach, head resting on her folded arms, and the bikini ties at her neck and back. There’s so much skin—golden skin, sun-warmed and slightly freckled across her shoulders, the curve of her spine, the dip of her lower back.
I forget how to walk.
“Crew!” She lifts her head and smiles, waving me over. “You made it.”
“Yeah.” My voice sounds like I’ve swallowed gravel. “I made it.”
I force my legs to move—one foot in front of the other. Don’t look at her body. Look at her face. Her face is safe. Her face is—
She rolls onto her side to face me, and suddenly I’m looking at the front of the bikini, which is worse. So much worse. Because now I can see the swell of her breasts pressed together, the flat plane of her stomach, the curve of her hips.
Blue screen of death. Total system failure.
“You okay?” She’s squinting up at me. “You look weird.”
“I’m fine.”
I drop my towel on the lounge chair next to hers and reach back to grab my t-shirt, pulling it over my head in one smooth motion.
When I look up, Emmie’s watching me.
Her eyes trace down my chest, my stomach, and the trail of hair disappearing into my swim trunks. She’s not even trying to hide it—just openly staring, lips slightly parted and sunglasses pushed up onto her head. Her cheeks are flushed pink, and it has nothing to do with the sun.
Good. At least I’m not the only one struggling here.
I drop onto the lounge chair next to hers, grateful to be sitting because my knees have stopped working properly. “It’s hot.”
“It’s only eighty or so.”
“I run warm.”
She grins, as if she knows exactly what’s happening to me. “Sure you do.”
I need to look at something else. Anything else. I grab a magazine from her stack—some cooking thing—and pretend to read it while my pulse slowly returns to normal.
“Can you do my back?”
I look up. “What?”
She’s holding out a bottle of sunscreen. “My back. I can’t reach.”
This is a test. This has to be some kind of cosmic test designed to break me.
“I burn easily,” she adds. “And I really don’t want to be a lobster tomorrow, so…” She trails off, waiting.
I take the bottle.
She rolls onto her stomach again, and I squeeze sunscreen into my palm with hands that are definitely steady. Completely steady. No trembling whatsoever.
I start at her shoulders. Her skin is warm and soft under my palms, and she makes a small sound when I press into a knot near her neck.
“That feels good,” she murmurs.
I’m going to die right here at this pool, rubbing sunscreen on a woman in a yellow bikini. They’ll find my body and have to explain to my coworkers that I was taken out by SPF 30.
I work my way down her back, spreading the lotion in long strokes, trying to keep my touch clinical. Professional. Like I’m applying tactical gear, not touching the bare skin of a woman I’ve kissed and can’t stop thinking about kissing again.
My thumbs graze her sides, just below the bikini strap, and she shivers.
“Okay?” I manage to ask.
“No.” Her voice is muffled against her arms. “Ticklish.”
I file that information away for later—not that I should be thinking about later. I should be focusing on finishing this task and putting several feet of distance between us.
I reach her lower back. The bikini bottoms sit low on her hips, and there’s a strip of paler skin just above them where her shorts usually hit. I hesitate.
“You can go lower,” she says. “I don’t want a weird tan line.”
I’m being tested. I’m definitely being tested.
I spread sunscreen across her lower back, my fingers brushing the waistband of her bikini, and she arches into my touch just slightly—barely perceptible—but I notice.
I notice everything about her.
“Done.” My voice comes out rough. I clear my throat. “You’re good.”
She rolls over, and I’m treated to the full view again—all that glistening skin, bikini top barely containing everything, a lazy smile on her face.
“Thanks.” She takes the bottle back, and our fingers brush. “Want me to do you?”
I choke on nothing.
“Your back,” she clarifies, grinning now. “Sunscreen. For your back.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ll burn.”
“I don’t burn.”
“Everyone burns.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
She shrugs. “Suit yourself. But when you’re crying in the shower later, don’t come to me for aloe.”
I lie back on my lounge chair and close my eyes, trying to will my body into submission. The sun is warm on my face. The sounds of the pool—splashing, distant conversation, the hum of the filter—are almost peaceful.
I can do this. I can lie here like a normal person and not think about Emmie’s skin beneath my hands.
“Cannonball!”
Water explodes over me.
I’m on my feet before I consciously decide to move, my body tensed, scanning for the threat—
Foster surfaces in the pool, grinning like an idiot. “Hey, roomies.”
“What the hell?”
“You looked too relaxed.” He pushes wet hair out of his face. “It was freaking me out.”
Emmie’s laughing, water droplets sparkling on her skin. She wipes her face with the back of her hand. “Nice entrance.”
“I try.” Foster hoists himself out of the pool, water streaming off him, and I do not miss the way Emmie’s eyes track down his chest for a second before snapping back to his face.
I also don’t miss the way Foster notices—his mouth quirks into a grin.
“Looking good, Emmie.” He grabs a towel from my chair—my towel—and dries his hair. “That bikini is, uh. Yeah.”
“Foster.” My voice is flat.
“What? I’m complimenting your girlfriend.” He drops onto the lounge chair on Emmie’s other side, stretching out like he owns the place. “Relax, Jensen. It’s a pool day. You’re supposed to be having fun.”
“I was having fun.”
“You were lying there with your eyes closed and your fists clenched.” He gestures at my hands. “Look, you’re doing it right now.”
I force my fingers to uncurl and draw in a slow, steadying breath.
Emmie props herself up on her elbows, looking between us with amusement. “You two are adorable.”
“We’re not adorable,” I say.
“He’s adorable,” Foster corrects. “I’m ruggedly handsome.”
“You’re an ass.”
“Also true.” He reaches over and snags a beer from Emmie’s cooler. “So, what did I miss? Any good sexual tension before I got here?”
Emmie snorts. “We were applying sunscreen.”
“Ah.” Foster takes a long sip, eyes dancing. “The classic sunscreen move. Crew, buddy, I’m proud of you. That’s basically foreplay.”
“It’s sun protection.”
“It’s skin-on-skin contact under the guise of practicality.” He toasts me with his beer. “Oldest trick in the book.”
“I hate you.”
“You love me.”
Emmie’s laughter fills the air, loosening something in my chest despite my irritation. She looks happy, relaxed, golden in the afternoon sun.
“I’m going to swim,” she announces, standing up.
I watch her walk to the edge of the pool, noticing the sway of her hips and how the sun catches the water droplets still clinging to her stomach from Foster’s cannonball.
Most women would ease in, test the temperature, and worry about their hair and makeup.
Not Emmie.
She reaches up, pulls out the claw clip holding her hair, and shakes it loose so it tumbles down her back in messy waves. She tosses the clip onto a nearby chair, backs up three steps, takes a running start, and launches herself into the deep end.
No hesitation. No delicate toe-dipping. Just a full-body plunge that sends water arcing in all directions, leaving me sitting here like an idiot with my mouth half-open.
She surfaces laughing, pushing soaked hair back from her face. Water streams down her neck and chest, pooling in the hollow of her throat before sliding lower.
“You’re staring,” Foster says quietly.
“I’m not.”
“Buddy, you are. And you look like you want to eat her alive.”
I tear my gaze away. “Shut up.”
“Just making an observation.” He’s watching me now with something that looks almost like concern. “You’ve got it bad, my man.”
“There’s nothing to have. It’s an arrangement.”
“Uh-huh.” He takes another sip of beer. “Is that why you nearly broke my nose at the gala for flirting with her?”
“I didn’t nearly break your nose.”
“You wanted to. I could see it in your eyes.” He leans back, crossing his ankles. “You know, it’s okay to admit you have feelings. It won’t kill you.”
“I don’t—”
“Crew! Foster!” Emmie waves at us from the pool. “Get in! The water’s great! Very refreshing.”
Foster’s already on his feet. “Race you.”
He dives in before I can respond, surfacing next to Emmie with a splash that makes her shriek. She retaliates by splashing water at his face, and suddenly they’re in a splash war, laughing like kids.
I should join them. That’s what normal people do. They get in pools, splash around, and have fun.
Instead, I sit here, watching Emmie’s wet skin glisten in the sunlight, watching Foster make her laugh, and yearning for something I want more than I’ve ever wanted anything with no idea how to reach for it.
“Crew!” She’s waving again. “Come on!”
I stand and walk to the edge.
The water is cool against my skin as I wade in, and Emmie swims toward me, her smile bright.
“Finally.” She splashes me lightly. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten how to have fun.”
“I know how to have fun.”
“Do you? Name one fun thing you’ve done in the last year that wasn’t work-related.”
I think about it but come up blank.
“Exactly.” She’s treading water in front of me now, close enough that I could reach out and touch her. “Lucky for you, I’m an excellent fun coach.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.” She drifts closer, her hand finding my shoulder to steady herself. Her touch burns even in the cool water. “Lesson one: stop thinking so much.”
“I don’t think that much.”
“You think constantly. I can see it happening behind your eyes.” She taps my temple with a wet finger. “Right now, you’re thinking about six different things. Am I wrong?”
She’s not wrong. I’m thinking about her hand on my shoulder, her mouth, whether Foster is watching, the way her eyelashes clump together when they’re wet, and how easy it would be to pull her against me right now.
“See?” She grins. “Busy brain. Let it go for one afternoon. Just… be here.”
Be here.
I don’t know how to do that. I’ve never known how to do that. My brain doesn’t turn off; it runs threat assessments, contingency plans, and worst-case scenarios on a continuous loop.
But Emmie’s looking at me like she believes I can learn.
“Okay,” I hear myself say. “I’ll try.”
“Good.” She pushes off my shoulder and floats backward, still smiling. “Lesson two: splash fights are mandatory.”
“I don’t do splash fights.”
“You do now.”
She sends a wave of water directly at my face.
I sputter, blinking, and she’s already swimming away, laughing. Foster cheers from somewhere to my left. Before I can overthink it, I’m chasing her, launching water at her back and hearing her shriek when it hits.
We’re splashing like children. It’s ridiculous. Undignified.
Somewhere between catching her around the waist and dunking her under while she clings to my arms, laughing, I realize I’m having fun.
Actual, genuine fun.
With people who want to be around me. In a pool I’ve paid for but never used. On a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Later, we’re all back on the lounge chairs, dripping dry in the sun. Her friend Sadie showed up at some point—I barely noticed when—and she and Emmie are flipping through magazines, debating something about celebrity outfits. Foster’s half-asleep, a beer balanced on his stomach.
Emmie catches my eye and smiles—a small, private smile.
I smile back.
And for one perfect afternoon, I let myself pretend this could be my life. Not just an arrangement. Not just a contract.
Something real.