Page 59 of Absorbed

Stacey smirked at Melissa’s timing. She grabbed her whistle and megaphone, then climbed into the shallow-end lifeguard tower.

Once Jessie was up in the deep-end chair, Melissa walked to the edge of the board and whistled. “Hey dickhead!” She executed a perfect jack-knife dive.

After dropping the mess from the drain on the side of the pool, Melissa came out of the water slow and sexy like Nicolette Scorsese inChristmas Vacation.

“I wouldn’t want you to ever forget what you’ll be missing,” she hollered at him.

Melissa reached her hands back to squeeze out her hair. Her wet suit clung to her breasts as she pushed out her chest, into his direct line of sight. She turned her back to him and bent at the waist, picking up the garbage slowly, her legs long and taut.

“Cock tease,” Jessie said into the megaphone. He twisted in his chair until he faced away from Melissa.

Melissa dropped the pile in the trash, then climbed the ladder to Stacey’s tower. She stood on the third rung, her mouth close to Stacey’s ear and whispered loudly, “Look, we may not be friends, and you don’t have to tell me anything. But I want you to know I’m done with Jessie’s bullshit. You should be, too.”

“You didn’t seem done with it Saturday night,” Stacey said through gritted teeth. She focused on the first few swimmers set down their belongings on the bleachers.

“Were you here?”

Stacey pursed her lips and nodded.

Melissa sat on the platform facing Stacey. “Well, I don’t know what you think you saw, but nothing happened. We were talking, then kind of kissing, and suddenly Jessie dropped his boardshorts in the girls’ showers. I was like, ‘EW!’” She put her hands up as if repulsed. “Just because Chad and Desiree have sex in the guard shack, the pool–”

Stacey put her palm up between them and closed her eyes. “WAY too much information.”

“Anyway, Jessie wasn’t taking no for an answer. He wouldn’t go to my house to watch a movie because my parents were home. He told me to drive us someplace ‘romantic’ he knew of where ‘we could watch the stars.’” Melissa used air quotes, and rolled her eyes, exhaling. “Such bullshit!”

Stacey raised her eyebrows and nodded. All of this sounded familiar, but she wouldn’t give Melissa the satisfaction of admitting it aloud.

“He refuses to have an actual girlfriend. Only wants to hook up and says whatever he has to to get laid.”

Stacey’s eyes swept across the pool to Jessie, who was watching them.

Melissa followed her gaze. She turned on the platform, scanning Jessie with contempt. “I’m not interested in being any guy’s slot machine, especially some poser like Jessie.”

Melissa’s last sentence hit Stacey with a thud. A slot machine was exactly what she felt like: Jessie’s three minutes of fun, then cast aside.

“We need to give everyone a heads up,” Melissa said, turning back to Stacey, her chin up. “No decent girl should give him thetime of day.” Melissa climbed down and went inside the guard shack.

Stacey didn’t trust Melissa, but vindication washed over her. She wasn’t the only girl who had fallen prey to Jessie’s charms. She looked across the pool at him. Suddenly, he wasn’t attractive anymore. Not at all.

Everything about Jessie Thomas felt fake. His tattoo and WWJD bracelets were props. The guitar, too. Everything about him was designed to get people to think he was something he wasn’t. Even the things he shared about his family felt like they could have been a scam to get Stacey to see him as a victim, instead of what he really was: an insincere, uncaring, selfish prick. OR, as Melissa put it, a “hit-it-and-quit-it dickhead.”

Maybe Melissa was right: they should spread the word about him.

“Why should Jessie have all the power?” Stacey muttered to herself. “Who’s to say I wasn’t the one who ‘hit it and quit it?’”

Anyone who ever asked Stacey about Jessie Thomas would hear how very ‘unsatisfying’ their date was. How he wasn’t worth the gamble forthirty-secondsof lousy manhandling.

Stacey smiled to herself. Her first real smile in several days. Then she looked across the pool at Jessie and he caught her gaze. She gently shook her head, grinning coyly, and his eyebrows knit together.

Jessie would understand soon enough.

Chapter Seventeen

After work, Stacey stopped by Gabe’s house. He deserved an explanation and an apology, in person. They were way past the point of a phone call. She bought an Abba-Zaba and a Mountain Dew, his favorites, and drove by his house on her way home, windows down for the feeble breeze. A block away, she could hear the sound of him playing the drums from his open garage.

Stacey held her peace offering up as she approached Gabe’s driveway. He was shirtless and sweating, hitting his drumsticks hard on the kit in a fast, complicated beat. He glanced up, but quickly looked back at his snare drum. Jaw clenched, Gabe struck the drums harder.

Stacey set the snacks on top of Gabe’s dad’s rusted yellow Malibu and leaned against the door. The car took up half the garage, its hood open and a box of tools resting on the engine.

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