Page 29 of Neo

“Fine,” he huffs. “That’s not what I was doing, but I’ll keep everything waist down below the water if it will make you feel better.”

“It will.”

“I bet you don’t act like this when you stare at Greek statues in a museum.”

“The last time I did that I was eleven-years-old, on a class trip, and you best believe I giggled the entire time.”

Neo proceeds to swim a few laps along the other side of the pool, first freestyle, then butterfly, then the breast stroke. Watching him swim is like watching a work of art glide through the water, except nothing about what I’m seeing makes me want to giggle.

I’m not eleven-years-old anymore.

He finishes by swimming back over to me and treading water between my legs.

“You’re beautiful under this light,” he says to me, the sun slowly setting behind us.

“Just in this light?” I jest, my stomach fluttering.

“Ahhh,” he smirks. “I knew you were funny, too. I wonder what else you’re good at?”

“Keep wondering, Cap.”

His smirk turns into a full-blown smile I can feel straight in my chest. I shouldn’t have used his nickname like that. I’m blatantly flirting with him. Anyone with half a brain can see that.

I shouldn’t even be here.

What I should be doing is sitting at the dining room table inside the apartment, taking advantage of the fact that Kennedy isn’t here to drag me to every Christmas event in the city, and studying. My executive functioning issues are no excuse for failure. If I blow my scholarship, I’ll probably have to leave school, and my father will probably never forgive me, not that I really care what he thinks.

“Can you hand me a towel, Violet?”

God, why must he say my name like that? V-I-O-L-E-T, like he just bit into a juicy Florida orange and the juice is dribbling down his chin all sweet and sticky.

“Where is it?”

“There’s a stack of them in that cabinet over there.” He points to an outside armoire made of heavy grade almond colored plastic. I grab him one of the thick black bath towels with the words The Suns embroidered in metallic gold at the corner.

“Wow, you even have custom towels at casa de la Valencia Suns.”

“Eh, we’ll have to work on your Spanish,” he teases. “Now you can turn your head or you can watch.”

“I bet you’d like that.”

“I would very much fucking like that.”

I almost choke on my own saliva.

“I’ll just, um, give you your privacy.”

I turn my head as he steps out of the pool while he wraps the towel around his waist. But thanks to my peripheral vision, I can’t help but notice one of his muscular calves, so I shut my eyes to avoid any more accidental glances.

“You can turn back around now.”

But him wearing a towel doesn’t matter much. In fact, it might just be making things worse. Just looking at his perfectly sculpted body dripping in pool water is enough for a dull ache to build between my legs.

I’m not a virgin, but it’s been quite a while since a guy has touched me. Elijah was the last one and that’s been well over a year.

Since my mom’s death, I’ve been in a dark place and haven’t felt sexual. But right now, my vagina is paying for all of that antisocial behavior. It feels like it’s in starvation mode and fighting for her life. She’s looking to be fed, or more like stuffed, especially if the meal is from this statuesque hockey god.

Perhaps because of a timer set to sunset, the pool lights suddenly turn on, creating a warm and romantic illumination of the yard that only petrifies me. And when I’m afraid, I run.

---