Page 26 of The Older Brother
“Get your suit on and grab your club pass. I think we’re overdue for a pool day, and my mom’s membership still covers me until I leave for school in August.”
My friend orders me to put the pedal to the metal and get my ass to her soon before we end our call. I’m going to have to endure some probing questions for the next hour for sure, but once I get Cami up to speed, maybe she can help me figure out how to navigate what the fuck all of this means and put the whole brothers aspect into perspective. I don’t want to feel ashamed for having a fling with a hot older guy, but I also can’t help but feel like a chess piece on an unfair gameboard. And I need someone to help me see the play for what it is, so I don’t end up losing more than I bargain for.
“And Caleb was just . . . there?”
It took about an hour to download all the details to my friend. Thankfully, the Arcadia Club’s pool isn’t very crowded this time of day, because Cami insisted on revisiting each aspect about adozen times, and her questions were not even remotely close to modest. At one point, I had to flat-out hold her hands and meet her eyes as I said, “No, I havenotseen Rowan’s dick.”
But I want to.I kept that bit to myself.
“My two cents? Caleb is not the same goofy junior high boy you hung out with at the mall. Maybe you two made sense in high school, you were that couple people wanted to see together. He was the popular jock, and you’ve always been?—”
I roll my head against the back of the lounge chair and pull my sunglasses down to give my friend a hard glare.
“Always been what?” I know she’s not going to say popular, because I never really hung out with any crowds,inor otherwise. I swam. I hung out with Cami and Caleb. I got good grades and was kind to everyone, but I never really let people in beyond those two.
“Sexy and mysterious, I guess?” My friend scrunches her nose, and it pushes her glasses up.
I chuckle and shake my head as I turn my focus back to the ripples in the pool. A few guests have shown up with kids, and I heard one of them say the wordcannonball.I pull my legs up and run my palms over my knees, and the memory of Rowan pushing them apart warms my tummy.
“Is it weird that I’m doing things with Rowan? Not just because he’s Caleb’s brother, but because—” I turn back to my friend and lift a shoulder.
“Because when he was eighteen, we were playing with Barbies?”
I cup my palm over the instant O my mouth forms and shake with a silent laugh.
“Fuck, we really were,” I admit.
That warm feeling hasn’t left me, though. If anything, Rowan’s maturity draws me to him more. The physical traits are appealing, the way his body is fully formed, the life lived on hisskin with intricate tattoos and hard-earned muscles. There’s a scar across one of his hands, probably from working with them, and a deep texture to his voice that’s a far cry from the boyish tone of his brother’s.
It’s easy to see why any girl would desire Rowan Anderson’s attention. But there’s something else that has him stuck in my thoughts. Sure, there’s the way he makes me feel—sexually. And maybe that’s all this is, part of my grand awakening, a moment in time to send me off to college to fully become the woman I’m meant to be. I just can’t seem to shake this premonition, though. Rowan is peeling back my layers, and it feels like they’ve been waiting to bud for him and him alone.
“Look, babe.” Cami sits up and shifts her legs to the space between our loungers, then pulls her sunglasses down her nose. I take mine off to meet her eyes.
“Caleb was the one who called it quits. And as much as I think he’s an arrogant tool, he was right about this being the time to learn who you really are. And if the person you are is someone who feels confident and beautiful when she’s around Rowan, then that’s where you should be. So, he’s Caleb’s brother.”
Cami shrugs, and I try like hell to feel just as casual about the idea as she is. Besides, maybe I’m twisting myself into knots for nothing. It’s not like Rowan and I are a couple. We’re messing around. I’m still going off to college and living the life my mom wants me to. And I’ll probably meet some pre-law student who checks all the boxes. What harm is there in indulging my teenage fantasy for a little while? If it bothers Caleb so much, then maybe he’s not as ready to be single as he thought he was.
The cascade of water from the rotund, pink-skinned pre-teen soaks my friend and I from the waist down, and we both rush from our chairs with screams.
“I guess pool time is done,” Cami huffs, running her hands down her hair, then wringing the ends out. She’s wet, but it’s not like she took a trip in the dunk tank.
I laugh it off, mostly because I saw it coming well before the execution. I glance at the pool, where the red-headed boy is floating and holding onto one of the lane markers. He grins and raises his eyebrows a few times, and my friend flips him off.
“Cami!” I swat her hand down and instead offer the kid my quiet applause. Then he blows me a kiss and dips under the water completely.
“Great, now another age gap is in love with you,” she teases.
I push her shoulder lightly and tell her to shush as the pool attendant comes over to take our empty glasses away and settle the bill. I look a lot like my mom, and she never comes here, so I use one of her old IDs and sign her name when Cami and I want to enjoy a few margaritas without a lot of questions. We’ve been doing it since the summer of our junior year, and while we got a few questioning looks the first two times from the cantina bartender, most of the servers working the pool are college guys who don’t give a shit if we’re breaking the law. In fact, the one taking the bill from me now seems pretty interested in my friend, even going so far as to crane his neck as he walks away and stares at her.
“Looks like someone else is sexy and mysterious, too,” I say.
“Bitch, damn straight I am,” my friend says, fogging her sunglasses with her breath and cleaning them with the linen cover-up slung over her arm.
We indulge in forty-minute massages since there are open timeslots at the spa, and we need to sober up. I’m sure Cami fell asleep during hers, but I spend the entire time replaying the first half of my day. Caleb’s contemptuous glare has stuck with me, and I hate that I’m letting him dictate how I feel about everything else that happened. It’s getting in the way of the funpart. I lived a literal fantasy this morning, and I will never be able to wear those shorts again without picturing Rowan tugging them to the side and burying his face between my legs.
I’m probably the only person to ever leave a spa treatment room feeling more tense, and I catch my fingers shaking when I hand over my mom’s membership card at the counter. I sign her name again on the invoice, using two of the dozens of massages that come with her membership. I don’t think she’s ever booked a single visit.
Cami and I are halfway to my car in the parking lot when my phone buzzes in my tote bag. I fish it out, then hand my keys to my friend when I see it’s my mom on the line.
