Page 96 of Fun Together
“That sounds great.”
We chat while he grills, and then we keep chatting more while we eat. He tells me about an apartment he looked at yesterday where the entrance had ten different locks to get inside. I tell him about a dream I had last night where I was trapped inside the conference room with Guppie, forced to complete a series of riddles to escape. I tell him the food is delicious. He tells me I look beautiful in the evening sun.
We finish up just as the sun is setting, hot and orange behind the tree branches.
“How do you feel about night swimming?” He leans back in his chair and places his arms up behind his head. This draws my attention to his tattooed biceps, to the sprinkling of hair that covers his chest and stomach.
I stand up and shed my towel. “It’s a perfect night for it.”
He watches me, and I don’t feel self-conscious when he drinks me in. Because I see the same hunger in his eyes that I’m sure he just saw in mine.
This time, I dive in first. It’s not my best dive, but I feel a little rush of adrenaline from it, anyway. I come back up to the surface and he’s standing by the edge of the pool, looking down at me with an impressed grin.
Then he cannonballs in with a big splash. He doesn’t come back up, though, and I look down to see his shadow beneath the water swimming around my legs. I know what he’s doing, and I try to swim away before he can catch me.
I’m having an actual giggling fit as he chases me through the water. I’ve felt this giddy energy bubbling beneath the surface all afternoon, and it’s finally coming out.
When he catches me, he pulls me toward him and I wrap my legs around him as I loop my hands behind his neck. His skin is still slippery from the sunscreen he put on earlier.
I’m still laughing when he kisses me. He pulls away and both of us are a little out of breath. “Shit, I’m out of shape,” he says.
“Same, my lungs are on fire.”
He holds onto me and spins us around slowly. “Thank you for having dinner with me,” he says.
“Thank you for making me dinner.”
I feel a drop of water slide down into my cleavage and I feel his eyes follow it. “I like hanging out with you,” he says. “I like kissing you.”
He kisses me again, and somehow I feel light but grounded, too. Like I fit here, with him, and this pool is a magical place where outside worries don’t exist.
“All day at work I thought about this,” he murmurs against my cheek. “Your wet skin under my hands. Grabbing your hips and kissing your neck.”
Even while kissing, the man can’t stop talking. I huff out a laugh, and he stops the trail of kisses he was running across my collarbone. “What?”
“Nothing,” I say innocently.
He hefts me up and tightens his grip on my thighs. “Tell me.”
“I love how much you talk. Like you have to say what you’re thinking, or you’ll die.”
He smiles and it’s almost sheepish. “I don’t even know what I’m saying half the time.”
“I bet you got in trouble a lot for talking in class.”
“Yeah, but I always got to sit next to the girls like you.” He kisses my shoulder. “The ‘pleasures to have in class.’”
I laugh because it’s true and we just look at each other, smiling and swaying in the water. I reach up to brush his hair back. “What’s next?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . .” I don’t know how to ask this, but I really think we should talk about things before taking this any further. We’re entering dangerous territory, despite all the warning signs, such as, maybe you shouldn’t fuck the person who is quickly becoming your best friend—who is also your ex’s best friend. “We should probably talk about this first.”
“I agree.” He hasn’t stopped kissing anywhere his mouth can reach.
“Are you even listening?”
“Mm-hmm,” he says, face buried in between my boobs. “Definitely listening.”
