Page 45 of Poolside

Tommy: Gonna have to miss this one. Work piling up over here. Sage, send pictures.

Darius: Honey, can we go? Pretty pleeeeeease?

Rebecca: Nope. This house isn’t going to clean itself and you’ve got to meal prep. You know the cafeteria food gives you the shits.

Chuck: lol

Darius: …what the actual fuck, babe?

Rebecca: Just sayin’.

Sage: I love you guys.

Rebecca: We love you too, sweet baby Sage. Thank god David robbed the cradle when it came to you.

David: f off u no its not like that

Keaton: Hughes, come on. Text like an adult.

Sage: ^^thank you, Keaton.

* * *

“Maggie!”

Sage sat with her long legs sprawled out in the middle of the yard, squinting against the bright sun. David, meanwhile, was crouched down at the edge of the porch where they’d popped off the wood panel that led to the crawl space, watching the scene unfold like a concerned dad.

“All good,” a muffled voice shouted from somewhere under Chuck’s house.

Chuck stood with Keaton on the patio, shaking his head. Maggie had shown up at his front door dressed in thick canvas pants with reinforced knees, a cut off t-shirt, and her long hair pulled up under a camo baseball cap. She had a crumpled paper bag in one hand and a wide, short-handled fishing net in the other.

Holding up the bag, she’d grinned at Chuck. “Meat sticks,” she proudly announced, and then proceeded to stuff her pockets full of the plastic-wrapped beef jerky and, getting on her stomach, wriggled her way into the crawl space.

She’d been in there for about fifteen minutes so far. Sage and David had brought breakfast sandwiches and muffins, which everyone had eaten their fill of. Now, they all sat around, not totally sure what to do other than wait.

“How’s Tommy?”

Chuck glanced over at Keaton. His sandy blonde hair was un-styled, but his salmon polo shirt and pleated shorts were perfectly on brand. “He’s fine, I think,” Chuck said. Tommy’s work schedule had kept him too busy for their usual dinners. At least, that’s what Tommy had offered as an explanation over the past week. Chuck couldn’t entirely quiet the fear that whatever had almost happened between them had broken something.

Keaton’s soft mouth pursed into a frown. “Alright,” he said, watching Chuck closely. “Whatever you say. You see him more than the rest of us.”

“He’s been busy with work.”

“He’s been happier,” Keaton mused, his gaze returning to the hole in the siding. “I hope he’s moving on.”

Chuck felt his shoulders stiffen. “Yeah. Same, dude. Same.”

“Tommy’s one of those guys who has so much love in him that I think it’s been hard to have nowhere for it to go. Do you remember how he used to be with Court?” Keaton let out a quiet laugh. “Always making her cookies and whisking her away on vacations. Hard to believe it didn’t work out between them.”

Unsure of what to say, Chuck just nodded.

“He’s going to make someone really damn happy,” Keaton finished, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Imagining Tommy dating had always been painful. Just thinking about a time when he had someone else to bring cookies to, someone else to share dinners with made Chuck’s chest ache. But now that he knew there was a distinct possibility the next person Tommy dated could be a man? That made the ache a million times worse.

“I still question your decision to let that woman under your house. If she gets bit she could sue you.”

Chuck laughed, loosening some of the tightness that was holding his body hostage. “What’s your deal with her, anyway?”

---