Page 47 of Most Likely to Match
“I don’t have a secret bathing suit stashed away on my person, you know.”
He grins wider. “Oh no,” he says deadpan. “Whatever shall we do?”
I take a step into him, slip my palm against his. “I don’t want to be the only one swimming naked in your backyard.” I mean it to be teasing, flirtatious. But he pauses. It’s only momentary. If it were a pause by anyone else, I would say it means nothing; it’s a breath, a thought, a blink in time.
But from Dean, it’s heavy and pregnant, and it makes me sad.
“You won’t be,” he says, his grin teasing and sweet enough that if I wanted to, I could trick myself into thinking that moment, that breath, that blink of hesitation, never happened at all.
The rockingof the train puts me… not to sleep, but fairly close. At this time of early evening, going in the opposite direction of downtown, our ride back to Dean’s is quiet and uneventful. We transfer from the TTC to the municipal system that lets us out a fifteen-minute walk from his neighborhood, an amenity that didn’t exist when we were teens. Probably a good thing. We would have spent all ofour spare time downtown, pretending we were city kids instead of suburban bores.
The air conditioning hums happily as he lets us in through the garage door. He hands me a towel from the first-floor linen closet and says, “I’m going to shower off the sweat first.”
“Yeah. Same.”
He gives me his shower and uses the shower in the basement. It’s thrilling to be naked in the same house as him, while he’s naked, but not be together. He lets me throw my sweaty baseball clothes in the wash. “I’ll run it while we’re swimming.” And when I get out of the shower, squeeze drying my hair in the soft gray towel, he’s left a t-shirt on his bed. I assume I’m supposed to wear it for our swim.
The sky is mostly dark blue when I step out onto his pool deck, only wisps of the pinkish, orange sunset shot through the few clouds. Dean is already in the pool, his arms over the edge, his hair slicked back and wet and his eyelashes clumped together.
Beautiful.
Instead of standing over him, in nothing but his t-shirt to give him the best possible view of what’s underneath, I drop my towel near the edge and use the stairs. The water is cold at first, causing goose bumps to pop up along my legs. I take my time, going step by step. Dean watches me, only his eyes and nose above water. A shark I wouldn’t mind letting catch me.
The t-shirt pools on the surface the deeper I go. If it wasn’t for the fact that Dean has turned off the underwater pool lights, the shirt would be entirely pointless until I fully submerge under the water and stand back up, the cotton now clinging to my hips and stomach, over my breasts, my nipples pressing against the fabric.
Dean wearssomething, swim trunks probably, but they’re vaguely dark and stick to him like a second skin. I don’t want to be caught staring, so I do my best to not look as we float out into the deep end.
The night is still, the water’s only ripples coming from us. There are no barking dogs or peals of laughter and conversation from nearby backyards. Perhaps everyone, having spent the day outside, retreated back to the comfort of air conditioning or restaurant patios.Dean reaches for me, linking us together with our fingers so that we never float too far from each other. Eventually, lights appear in the never truly dark sky. Probably satellites rather than stars.
“Thanks for coming today,” Dean says. His voice is rough, though I can’t tell whether it’s from disuse or emotion. “It means a lot.”
I shrug, creating a small wave around me. “I’m not sure they like me very much, but I don’t blame them.”
Dean neither confirms nor denies, which is confirmation enough, even if I hadn’t basically heard it from their own mouths.
“I hope I can change their minds, though.”
His fingers squeeze mine. “I hope so, too.”
And that, more than anything else, makes me smile, makes me beam, until my cheeks hurt, stretched beyond their limits. Dean’s hope is a promise; at least, I’ll get the chance.
“Are you hungry?” he asks after a moment.
I turn in the water, treading instead of floating, to face him. “Not really.” Though I should probably drink at least a gallon of water. “Are you?”
“No.”
I squirt a spout of water at him, barely missing his face. “Fuck off.” He laughs, turning to tread facing me, too. “Do you want to go inside?”
I dunk my head, let the water, cold but comfortable, fall over my face as I come back up. “I’m having fun.”
“Just floating?”
“Floating with you.”
He splashes me, a half-hearted tease, and I grab his hand to reel myself in closer, placing his hand around my waist. “I am.”
Under the water, my fingertips brush his stomach, his chest hair, the soft skin under his arm.
