Chapter 26 #2
“I can do that.” He headed their way, sitting on the empty cushion next to them.
“Ev, why don’t you go pick out a couple more books?” Lydia suggested as she adjusted Maverick in her arm.
Everly scrambled off the couch in a pair of pink polka dot shorts and a white T-shirt, heading for the playroom. “Okay.”
Ty snagged Lydia’s hand, frowning when he felt her slight hesitation as her fingers tensed against his before they relaxed. “Hey. What was that?”
She shrugged as she shook her head. “It was nothing.”
Clearly, this was about earlier this morning—about the awkwardness that still lingered between them. “Don’t do that. I don’t want what happened between us to take us backward.”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know why it would. We’re friends. More like co-workers, really.”
Whatever this was between them was a hell of a lot more complicated than that, especially when he couldn’t stop thinking about Lydia half-naked and whimpering in his arms, but it was probably better to leave things there. “So, we’re good, then?”
“Never better.” She cleared her throat as she pulled her hand from his, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I’m assuming you know that Will left already.”
He nodded, letting her not-so-subtle subject change slide. “How did things go in here?”
“Okay. Mac’s exhausted and burnt out, which is why she’s upstairs sleeping. She said Will’s anxious and always has his phone close by. I think she’s still convinced that he’s cheating on her.”
He sighed. “That’s tough.”
She nodded. “I tried to tell her that he isn’t, or as much as I was able to…”
Everly hurried back with two more books in her hands. “I picked these.”
Lydia smiled. “They look like great ones.”
“Yup,” Everly said as she set the books on the cushion, then climbed onto Ty’s lap. “We can find stuff on the pages.”
He nodded, settling his arm around her back as she rested against him. “Sounds good.”
Lydia gave him her attention. “Mac and I are taking the kids to the zoo tomorrow. We’re having a girls’ day. Or sort of anyway.”
“That sounds like fun.” And he couldn’t deny that he was more than a little bummed that he wasn’t invited.
“I get to see the animals,” Everly told him.
“What animals do you think you’ll see?”
“Um, unicorns.”
He raised his brow as he blinked at her. “You’ll have to let me know if you find one.”
Lydia laughed as he grinned. “Ev, you should tell Ty that we’re going swimming later.”
Everly frowned. “I don’t like the pool.”
“I’m definitely going swimming,” he told her, remembering his conversation with Lydia about Everly and the water while they’d snuggled on his couch in DC. “I love the pool.”
Everly’s eyes grew wide as she held his gaze. “You do?”
He nodded. “Heck, yeah. Maybe you can swim with Lyd and me.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you’ll change your mind.
” Then he moved over, so he and Everly sat much closer to Lydia, making a point of capturing her hand and intertwining their fingers as he held her stare.
They would get things back on the right track.
“So, what are we looking for in the book?” he asked Everly.
“You have to pick stuff out. Then I’ll find it.”
“You’ve got it.” He opened to a random page, happy to be part of the cozy picture he’d craved only minutes before.
Lydia stood in the shallow end of the big pool, wearing her black bikini and sunglasses, watching Everly sit on the lounge chair with her mom while Mac nursed Maverick in the shade.
Top 40 music played through the outdoor speakers as the sun and warm breeze kissed her skin. “Do you want to come play with me?”
Everly shook her head in her pink-striped one-piece that was covered in sparkly hearts. “Nope.”
Lydia snagged her lip with her teeth, a little surprised that she hadn’t been able to persuade her miniature partner in crime to come into the water.
Ty walked out of the pool house in his black swim trunks, looking just as delicious as he had when he wore the same outfit on the Fourth of July. He headed for the diving board and dove in, coming up seconds later at Lydia’s side. “Hey.”
She smiled. “Hi.”
“What’s going on around here?”
“We’re swimming. Or I am anyway.”
She and Ty had spent the last couple of hours apart. Ty had been in the gym, doing his thing with his “client” while she’d been chatting with Mac during Everly’s nap.
He looked at Everly. “Are you coming in with us?”
Everly shook her head, in full-on stubborn mode. “Nope.”
He shrugged. “Okay.” But he started to move his head to the beat of Justin Bieber’s “I Think You’re Special” as the playlist rolled into the next song.
“Lyd, I think we should have a dance party.” As he said so, he wrapped his arm around her waist as he held her opposite hand in his, moving with her in the water.
She tried to ignore the brush of their bodies and how amazing he looked while water droplets still trailed down his excellent face. “This was a little easier when we were on the side of the interstate.”
“Psh,” he said as he snagged her under her legs and scooped her up, spinning her in a circle.
She laughed, forever finding Ty to be a ton of fun, even as they tried to navigate their way through the remnants of a regrettable situation.
He chuckled as they smiled at each other. “I love that sound, Lyd.”
“You’re going to make me dizzy.”
“We don’t want that.” He set her legs back under her, holding her like he had in their original dance, staring into her eyes as he walked them farther away from Mac. “Are we okay?”
She nodded, very aware of what he was talking about.
“Really okay, Lyd?”
She shrugged. “I’m embarrassed.”
He adamantly shook his head. “You don’t need to be embarrassed. Not even a little bit.”
She raised her brow at him.
“Not even a little bit,” he repeated. “That wasn’t just you, Lyd. That was both of us.”
She nodded because that was true. She’d certainly started things, but Ty hadn’t exactly fought her off.
“I want us to be okay, Lyd. Truly okay.”
She nodded again. “We’re okay.”
“I wish things could be different.”
“But they’re not,” she told them both, but mostly she was reminding herself.
He stopped their dance, wrapping her up in a hug. “I’m sorry, Lyd.”
Helpless to do anything else, she returned his embrace, settling her head on his shoulder as he slid his hands up and down her back. Everything about her relationship with Ty was confusing, but every moment that they spent together made her happy. “We’re all right.”
Everly walked over to the edge of the pool.
“Careful, Ev,” Mac said as she sat farther up in the chair.
“I want to have a dance party.”
Ty let Lydia go. “You’ll have to come in if you’re going to dance with us.”
“Okay,” she said, holding her arms open to him.
He plucked her off the edge, letting her toes touch the water as he moved them around to the beat as Taylor Swift’s “Opalite” started to play. “How’s that?”
“Spin me around.”
He did, grinning as she laughed. “How about a dunk to your ankles?” As he said it, he did it, sending her feet under.
Everly laughed. “Spin me again.”
He spun them in the opposite direction. “Let’s dunk to your knees.” As he said it, he did it.
Lydia held her breath, afraid that he’d pushed his luck, but she grinned when Everly laughed again.
“You’re a great swimmer in the big girl pool,” he told her as he quickly dunked them to her upper thighs.
Everly nodded. “That’s because I like it! Look at me swimming in the big girl pool, Mommy!”
Mac grinned as she took a video. “You’re doing so good, Ev. You’re such a big girl.”
“Tell Daddy I did it.”
“I’m going to send him the video.”
“Okay.” She waved. “Daddy, I’m swimming like a big girl.”
Mac smiled again as she ended the video. “I got it. I’ll send it to him right now.”
“Okay.” Everly beamed at Lydia as Lydia moved closer to the official dance party. “I can swim like a mermaid.”
“I see that.” She kissed Everly’s cheek. “You’re such a brave mermaid.”
Everly beamed again as she nodded. “Yup. We’ll see mermaids at the zoo tomorrow.”
Ty winced as he looked at Lydia. “She’s about to have a seriously disappointing zoo experience.”
Lydia laughed, adoring everything about him.
He grinned as he pulled her closer, hooking his arm around her waist. “Come see me, Lyd.”
She returned his embrace as she looked at Mac while Mac grinned and waggled her brow under her sunglasses.
Lydia rolled her eyes as she smiled because Mac didn’t understand that she and Ty were just good friends.