Chapter Ten
When I got back to Ruby’s apartment, the lights were dim, and a low thrum of jazz music curled out from under her bedroom door.
My desire to face-plant on the chaise longue was outweighed by the fear that the soundtrack to my face-planting might very well turn into sensual sounds coming from my grandmother’s bedroom.
I scooped up Marlon and one of my swimsuits and decided to give her and whoever she was hosting some privacy.
The sun had dipped below the horizon, and it was still stiflingly hot outside, but I was willing to take my chances on the outdoor pool. If anything, I’d have it to myself.
The pool was incredibly picturesque with a flamingo fountain and matching peach and mint umbrellas and loungers that were perfectly spaced apart.
There were even cabanas with fans and a heavy-duty pool chiller.
But I could see how during summer even with the heavy-duty pool chiller, that was a lost cause.
I took Marlon with me into the women’s changing room, where I slipped on the red swimsuit with white trim that I’d bought for my trip with Brody to Tulum.
We were there filming and I only got to use the swimsuit once, but I felt good in it.
I guess it didn’t hurt that my fondest memory of the trip was of him peeling the suit off me.
It had been one of those nights that left me naively hopeful.
The moonlight shone in through his balcony and I remembered thinking that in that moment we were so close to being what I’d always dreamed we could be.
But then Brody and I went back home and nothing ever felt quite as special or legitimate as it had that one night in Tulum.
When I walked out of the changing room, the whisper of a moon hung in the sky and I had to admit that back home in LA, I didn’t take nearly as much notice of the sky as I did here in the desert.
I guess if I had to choose one place to spend the end of my life, I’d want it to be somewhere like this with a sky big enough to make you feel the relief of insignificance.
I set Marlon up on a lounger, nestled in my towel, and then walked onto the diving board, sitting gracelessly on the edge so my toes dragged along the surface.
As I sat there, I tried calling Tess for a much-needed catch-up but got her voicemail.
I weaved my hair into a braid, my curls protesting the whole time, and then decided to swim laps back and forth across the pool. The water was warm, but without the sun, it felt inviting and not nearly as much like I were a tea bag dipping myself in boiling water as I thought it would.
Growing up, I didn’t do many organized sports or activities, but I was on the swim team for the local community center for a few summers.
Swimming up and down those lanes was the first time I could remember being fast. I loved the sensation of having my head underwater.
Especially my ears. Not only were sounds above the surface muffled, but so was the noise in my brain.
It was easier to untangle the jumble of thoughts.
Which made it especially unfair that my time underwater was limited to how long I could hold my breath.
But my anxiety found me, even under the water.
Today had been overwhelming, and it was very clear that I might be out of my depth.
Ruby had been right. I didn’t like group activities or big social plans.
What made me think I could be a professional social butterfly to a surprisingly horny and ruthless group of elderly?
My two options were clear: Go back to Brody.
Grovel. Ask for my job back. Make zero demands.
Or stay here. Become good at a new, terrifying thing.
Avoid Eli. And maybe even rewrite The Wunderkind so that I could at least show my face in the same room as Brody again one day and know that when I lied and said the deal had fallen through for my movie, there would actually be a script to speak of.
As I tilted my head for a breath, I heard the distinct hiss of a can opening. I stopped, tripping through the water a little as my momentum broke and blinking rapidly against the sting of chlorine.
The blurry figure solidified into Eli. He sat on a lounger with his legs crossed at the ankles, the collar of his shirt unbuttoned, and a can of beer on the table beside him.
His hair stuck up in various directions like it always had in college from him pulling his fingers through it while he was deep in thought.
That was a feeling I hadn’t forgotten. My hands in his hair.
“Do you want me to toss some diving rings in?” Eli asked, his gaze briefly dropping from my eyes to my bare shoulders and then quickly over the top of my chest. “Play mermaids?”
I dipped down lower under the water and floated to the stairs near him, not wanting him to see my body because it felt like a million beestings to be perceived by him. “There’s the asshole I remember.”
He didn’t argue, but instead raised his brows expectantly. After taking a long sip from his brightly colored can—probably some bitter IPA that he didn’t like, because anyone who said they liked IPAs was lying—he said, “What are you out here running from, Vera Stein?”
My hair was beginning to frizz, so I dipped my head back and used the moment to consider my answer. “Who said I was running?”
“I don’t know that grown women leave their jobs in Hollywood to jet off to their grandmothers’ retirement communities if they’re not running from something.”
“I wouldn’t have called it a Hollywood job,” I said.
“Looked like one,” he said with a shrug, as though he didn’t actually care and was just passing the time, toying with me.
“And what would you know about my job?”
His lip twitched. “How’s our old friend Brody, anyway?”
“He’s great,” I said, my words coming out like a squeak. “We’ve parted ways, but it was very amicable.”
“I’m surprised he let you go.”
“He didn’t fire me,” I shot back.
“I never said he did. I only meant that Brody needed you and he would do whatever it took to keep you around.” Eli leaned back against the lounger with his head resting against his hands, his body so full and wide that it practically hung off the sides.
Brody would do whatever it took to keep me around? What did he even mean by that? Because giving me a raise certainly wasn’t on that list of things Brody would do.
Before I could figure out how the hell to respond to that, Marlon shot up from a dead sleep and began barking at Eli like he was an intruder. And he was! An emotional intruder! Good boy, Marlon.
The elderly pup scrambled down the side of the lounger and began to circle Eli, attempting to nip at him.
“You’re an angry little guy, aren’t you?” Eli asked.
“He doesn’t like men,” I said as I stepped out of the pool. I felt incredibly exposed in my wet swimsuit even if it was just a one-piece. It was less clothing than anyone besides Brody and my gynecologist had seen me in for quite some time.
Eli’s eyes followed me, his lip nearly curled, as I grabbed my towel, which of course was too small because every fucking towel on the shelf by the entrance was the size of a washcloth. I dried off in a hurry while Marlon continued to bark, exerting more energy than he had in the last three years.
“Except Brody,” I said pointedly as I pulled on my cover-up. Marlon quieted at the sound of Brody’s name. Mainly because he always fed Marlon table scraps when Brody thought I wasn’t looking.
I scooped Marlon up, putting him in what I affectionately referred to as air jail (the best and quickest way to tame my absolutely perfect little asshole dog). I walked out of the pool area without another word as I tossed my micro-towel in the dirty bin.