Page 94 of Fun Together
I get out of my car, wondering if I have the wrong address when she says, “You must be Faye.” She adjusts the orange pool floaties on her arms and gestures for me to follow her. “Follow me, please.”
She leads me past the front porch (complete with rocking chairs and giant potted ferns by the front door) to the side of the house, and down a flower-lined path into the backyard. When she opens the gate, the dog bounds in and runs up to where Eli is cleaning a small pool with a net. He turns at our approach, face lighting up. “I see you’ve met our concierge, Florence.” He nods to the dog. “And her assistant, Pebbles.”
Florence runs ahead of me, clearly eager to get the swimming started. Eli pulls me in for a hug and plants a kiss on the top of my head. “Sorry, I’m on last-minute babysitting duty this afternoon. Emmett is running late with a contractor at his house.”
“That’s okay.” It’s kind of nice to have a little buffer. Not that I haven’t been thinking about being alone with him all day, but I feel a jittery anticipation about what might happen tonight. This will help take some pressure off.
Florence is already standing on the steps that lead into the water. “Come on in. The water’s fine,” she says with a twirl.
“Careful, Flo. Don’t get in until I’m in there with you.” She sticks her tongue out at him, and I laugh.
“You ready to swim?” he asks me.
“I love swimming.” My grandpa had a membership to a neighborhood pool in our town. It was small, a little rundown, but it was basically my second home every summer.
He looks intrigued. “I didn’t know that.”
I’m already wearing my suit under my dress, so I take off my sundress and set it on one of the pool chairs. I grab my sunscreen from my bag and apply it everywhere I can reach while Eli finishes cleaning out the pool.
“Almost done, Flo,” he tells her as he pretends to scoop her up with the net. “Just one last critter to fish out.”
She shrieks. “I’m not a critter!”
She clearly loves him, and he clearly loves her. “I see you’re the fun uncle,” I say, walking over to the edge of the pool.
“Of course,” he says, with a cocky grin on his face. “I’m herfavoriteuncle.”
“I don’t have another uncle,” Florence says with a perplexed look on her face.
Eli and I share a smile at her confusion. He tosses a pair of purple goggles to her. “Can you stay on that top step until we get in?”
She nods excitedly and places the goggles on her head.
I hold up my sunscreen. “Do you mind getting my back?”
He squirts the sunscreen in his hand and rubs his palms together before massaging it onto my back and shoulders. “Need me to get your front, too?” he asks quietly by right ear. It’s the same voice he used over the phone the other night.
“No, I think I’ve already handled that,” I say.
“Suit yourself. Can I borrow this? Don’t want to use up Flo’s.”
I hand him the bottle. “Sure.”
I watch him rub the sunscreen on his chest and arms, the white streaks disappearing into his skin the way butter melts into a hot skillet. “Earth to Faye,” he says.
“Hmm?”
He laughs. “I asked if you could get my back too.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
“Flo, I see you. Stay on that top step,” he says to her. He turns his head toward me. “She’s trying to be sneaky and see what she can get away with.”
“Wonder who she gets that from?” I finish applying the sunscreen to his back. “Okay, all set.”
He immediately dives into the deep end before the sunscreen even has time to set in. He pops his head back out of the water and slings his hair out of his face. “Want to practice swimming?” he asks Florence.
“If I can still wear my floaties,” she says, with a little hop into the water.
