We’d made the long journey through the maze of hallways without running into anyone only to meet Jude coming up the pathway from the pool house. His gaze drifted from my face down to my feet. “Nice towel.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s the latest thing in swimwear.”
A strong chemical odor clung to his ragged t-shirt, and I briefly worried that he might have been concocting illegal drugs in the pool house. I pushed the thought from my mind. He would, after all, be gone soon.
Finley grabbed my hand and yanked me past him. We got to the lounges and Finley dropped her towel and lotion onto the cushion. “I just realized I haven’t been in yet this year.” Some Pig crawled beneath her lounge and curled up. Finley glanced at me and sighed. “You’re going to have to lose the towel some time.”
“I know, I know.” I unwrapped myself and dropped the towel over the back of the lounge. I followed Finley to the pool entrance but then remembered I hadn’t removed my sandals. I hurried back to the lounge. Jude was still standing on the path. As if he’d been frozen to the spot, he stood stock still and stared at me openly. I quickly pushed off my sandals and scurried back to the water. I sank down below the surface and then peeked back over my shoulder. Jude was gone, and I released the breath I’d been holding.
“Oh shit, shit, shit,” Finley cried suddenly. “I can’t believe I’m such a ditz.” She swam back to the shallow water and hurried out of the pool. I was in the midst of deciding whether I should follow her out when she raced over to the planter that she’d tapped the day before. She was grumbling to herself as she touched the planter three times. She marched back to the water with a major frown. “I never forget that. I don’t know what got into me.” She looked very distressed by it all.
“I don’t mind going back inside and starting all over again,” I said. It was obvious this was going to stick with her for awhile.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” A weak grin appeared. “Thank you for that, but it’s too late. The damage has been done.” She glanced around as if she expected a meteor or massive earthquake any minute.
“Maybe this will be a good thing, Finley.” I knew my words would have little comfort, but I decided to give it a shot. “If nothing happens then you’ll know that you don’t have to tap the planter anymore. It might ease your mind some.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she said with little confidence. She dunked under and wet her hair apparently hoping the cool water would ease her worry. She popped up and smoothed her hair back. “Hey, Eden, thanks for not patronizing me. Most of my friends do that when they see me freak out about something ridiculous. I think that’s why I don’t hang out with many of them anymore. They weren’t willing to put up with my crazy shit, and I wasn’t willing to have them laugh behind my back.”
“It’s not all that crazy, Finley. Everyone has compulsions. I once bought a curling iron at a yard sale. I was so damn excited to get that thing. I’d spend an hour in the morning curling my hair, but even though I always made certain to unplug the thing, I’d check it like ten times before leaving the house. Even then I’d start panicking about it in first period, wondering if I’d truly unplugged it or if I’d be responsible for burning down the entire apartment building. When it finally broke, I was both pissed and relieved. So it’s really not that bad.”
“No, it’s all right. I know I’m batshit crazy. Remind me to show you my collection of voodoo dolls sometime.”
“Voodoo? All right, I don’t have a comparable quirky behavior for voodoo dolls. You’re on your own with that.”
Without warning, she swam over and hugged me.
“Oh, man, I didn’t expect this much fun at the pool.” Cole strutted down the path in a pair of swim trunks and a muscular chest that nearly rivaled his brother’s. He was definitely slighter than Jude but equally handsome. His wrist was wrapped in a support brace.
“Uh, sicko, did you forget I was your sister?”
“Huh?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”
“The girl hug,” Finley said, seemingly forgetting about the moment of anxiety seconds before. “I thought that was what you were commenting on.”
“Nah, I was talking about the goddess standing in our pool.” He smiled my way, and once again, I tried to figure out why it was so familiar. Cole waded into the water.
“Ah, here we go.” Finley looked over at me. “Watch out for floating pieces of bull shit, the master of smarmy flirtation has just entered the pool.”
“Hey, where’s the sympathy for an injured man? The doc said it was one of the worst he’d seen yet.”
“Did he also advise you not to use one hand to stop your entire body from crashing to earth?”
“No, that I learned on my own. Although, it’s easier to pop a wrist back into place than a head, so I think I’ll keep using my hand.”
I floated onto my back. “Back at school, I was dating a football player, and he had a constant string of injuries. Didn’t seem worth it to me. I mean the guy is going to have major arthritis pain before he hits forty.”
“Ah ha, I thought you looked like the type of girl who hung out with the jocks,” Cole said.
I pushed my feet down and smiled at him. “Sorry, but you’re wrong. I’ve always been much more interested in the chess club guys than the jocks.”
“As long as the chess players are hot,” Finley interjected.
“Well, hotness does help,” I admitted.
Cole swam over to the small island in the center of the pool and pulled himself up onto it. Jude had had the band logo, a pair of black wings, tattooed across his shoulders, but Cole had the words Black Thunder across his. He spun around and sat down with his long legs hanging in the water. “You’re the one that said you were dating a football player. Don’t tell me the guy played chess too.”
“I guess that would be a rarity. No, he was your typical jock, and he was one of my biggest high school regrets.”
Finley joined Cole on the island. “Aside from walking into my aunt’s office with a joint on your backpack.”
“Yeah, I guess that was also quite regrettable.”
“Wait a minute—” Sunlight radiated off of Cole’s white smile. “You walked into Aunt Julie’s office with a joint on your backpack?” He laughed. “That is classic.”
I swam over to them but had no intention of rising out of the water in my unsightly bathing suit. I grasped the cement edge. “It’s funny now, but I definitely didn’t think so at the time. And your aunt wasn’t exactly chortling with mirth either.”
Finley burst out laughing, and I was glad to see that the earlier issue was seemingly forgotten.
Voices floated up the pathway, and I glanced back over my shoulder. Jude was walking toward the pool house with a woman, but it was definitely not the same woman as the day before. Apparently, he liked variety. And, for some reason, that thought angered me. Our brief but harsh conversation had replayed in my mind throughout the night, but I wasn’t completely sure what’d bothered me most— the fact that he didn’t think I would be able to handle this job or the fact that he thought I was just a shallow, mooching valley girl looking for easy summer money.
The lady at his side kept talking, but it became clear that Jude had lost interest in the conversation. Even from the distance, his pale, unflinching gaze was riveted to the scene in the pool. And, as usual, he did not look pleased.
He vanished inside with the woman. Finley and Cole hadn’t seemed to notice his disapproving scowl, or maybe they were just so used to seeing it, they didn’t care.
“So, Fin, I’m having a little party here tomorrow night, and I definitely think you and your extraordinarily hot friend should attend.”
“I don’t know, Cole. I think we’ll be busy painting our toenails or something. And by the way—” Finley nodded toward the pool house, “does the emperor know about this party?”