Page 96 of Perfect Mess

“Yes, but …” My brain scrambled like an NFL quarterback with no offensive line.. “You and Janet are still a good match.”

“Well,” Gary said, his voice little more than a whisper. “It will be hard to match us when she’s already dating Jack Thompson.”

And there it was. The gig was up. All my plans came crashing down like a house of cards. “Gary …” I scrambled for the right words, but everything I tried to say ended up caught in my throat.

“Hey, look at this,” Gary announced cheerfully. “A bathing suit.” He pulled out a piece of clothing from the box, letting it dangle from his fingers. “I guess it’s your lucky day.”

It didn’t feel like my lucky day.

Not lucky at all.

* * *

When Gary saidhe found a bathing suit in Aunt Catherine’s boxes, I was expecting some sort of old lady bathing suit. Full body coverage. Polka dots. Ruffles. But this bathing suit must have been from Aunt Catherine’s glory days. When she was young, wild, and carefree. And enjoyed the feel of spandex between her butt cheeks. I suspected that maybe Aunt Catherine had once had a side hustle working as an exotic dancer.

I stared at myself in the mirror. The bathing suit was a two-piece. In a leopard print. The bottom didn’t even come close to covering my ass. Kind of like when my dad asked Janet about the funny smelling “cigarette” he found in my backpack. Janet had covered my ass then, about as well as Aunt Catherine’s bathing suit did now..

The top had a plunging neckline, that might as well have gone all the way down to my belly button. It looked like something Farrah Faucet or Bo Derek would have worn in a pinup poster, taped to the wall in a horny teenage boy’s bedroom.

I could see a lot more of my body than I wanted to see. Which meant that Gary would see a lot more of my body than I wanted him to see. Although now that he knew about Jack and Janet, he probably wouldn’t want to see me at all. Under other circumstances, I would have just cut my losses. Let Gary and Kyle go swimming while I put on a pair of cozy pajamas and locked myself in my bedroom with another pitcher of margaritas.

But now that I knew that Gary knew about Jack and Janet, I had to know how much he knew about Jack and Janet. And the only way to do that was to play nice in the sandbox. Or, in this case, play nice in Aunt Catherine’s pool. Resigned to my fate, I wrapped a towel around the entire length of my body and went outside to succumb to the humiliation.

ChapterTwenty-Two

The first thing I saw when I stepped onto the deck was Gary, propped in the corner at the far end of the pool. His arms stretched out along the edge. His bottom half was submerged under the water, but his top half was on full display. Rounded shoulders. Curved biceps. His skin glistened with moisture.Wow!

“Mary, watch!” Out of nowhere, a blur of motion charged toward me. Kyle bolted past, leaped in the air, and cannon balled into the pool. The resulting splash sent a spray of water in every direction. Including Purrfect’s direction. Now drenched and dripping, she scrambled inside the house, probably to go rub wet fur all over my pillow.

When Kyle resurfaced, his smile stretched ear to ear. “Did you see that, Mary?” His orange inflatables bobbed in the waves.

“Yeah. Wow. Nice splash.”

“You made it.” Gary stretched his arms out in front of him and used his legs to push off the wall. He slid through the water like a shark. A shark with extremely well developed latissimus dorsi muscles, not to mention the calf muscles and glutes.

As Gary dipped under the water, his body now skimming the pool floor, I wrapped the towel even tighter around my body. Even though it was stifling hot and suffocatingly humid, my body had a chill.

Popping up near the steps, Gary emerged from the pool, water flowing over his body like a raging river pounding against the rocks. Whole body dripping, he took one hand to slick the hair back out of his face. The world moved in slow motion, like the opening ofBaywatch. Some poor person is drowning, but sure, take your time. You got to give people a good look at the abs, right?

“You okay?”

“Huh?”

Gary stood right in front of me. “I was beginning to worry you ran away.”

“I considered it. Believe me.”

“Can you hand me a towel?” Gary pointed to the pair of towels on the table. As I handed one to him, I hoped he couldn’t hear how loud my heart was pounding. “Just need to grab the margaritas.”

Gary wrapped the towel around his waist, then disappeared into the house. When he returned, he was holding two freshly poured margaritas, salt lining the paper cup rims. “I figured you could probably use another drink.” Gary’s chest was still dripping. Beads of moisture nestled in the crease of his pecs.

“You figured right,” I said, taking a cup from Gary’s hand.

Gary took his margarita back over to the pool and marched down the steps into the water. Holding his cup above his head, he waded into the deep end, cozied into the corner, and waited for me to join him.

“Just jump right in,” Gary urged. “It feels fantastic.”

“I’m not really the just jump right in type,” I called across the water. “I need to get used to it first, before I can commit.”

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