Easton went streaking by.
“That kid never walks, does he?” I said, scooping up some of the yogurt and forcing it into my mouth, even when I thought I might gag.
“Nope.”
Riley was straddling the bench sideways, and he reached out and started rubbing my shoulders, easing the drunken knots out of them.
“Oh my God, that feels so good.”
Easton came back and flung a pair of plastic sunglasses on the table before going back into the yard shirtless to poke at something in the corner with a stick. “Thank you,” I called after him.
Then I opened them and realized they were twin dollar signs. Nice. I put them on my face and Tyler and Riley both started laughing.
“Wow, big pimpin’, Jess.” Riley took a sip from my coffee.
“It does help with the glare,” I said. “I can’t really look any worse, so what’s the difference?”
“I think you look cute,” Riley said, reaching out and brushing his fingers over my lip.
Oh, my. Heart. Melt.
“Suck-up.” Tyler coughed into his hand.
I looked at Tyler, thinking about how happy he was with Rory, thinking about how I really liked him as a friend, but now, next to Riley, he was like, well, a brother to me. It was almost impossible to remember what it felt like to see and feel him naked, his body inside of me, and instead of shoving that away, ignoring it, I wanted to examine those feelings and memories. I wanted to be honest with myself.
It was a weird phrase “inside of me” when you thought about it, like as if sex were an invasion. An alien moving in your body. It didn’t factor in the emotional side of sex at all.
Because I knew in that capacity, no one had ever actually been inside me.
So if I knew then what I knew now, would I still have sex with Tyler? It was hard to remember the exact circumstances that had even led to it to the first time. So it was hard to say. Probably no. But I wasn’t exactly sure.
All I knew was certain was that like fabric fades in the sun, so had the physical part of my relationship with Tyler, and neither of us would ever miss it. In some ways, it was already like it had never happened.
Which gave me my answer. Because if you could look back on sex with someone and say it was like it had never happened, then it never should have in the first place.
It should matter.
So while it wasn’t regret I felt as the sun beat down on me on the patio and Tyler smoked me out with his ever-present cigarette, I knew that I was looking forward to me and Riley.
To a relationship that mattered.
Chapter Fifteen
“Don’t spoil them,” Riley told me as I let Jayden and Easton fill my convenience store basket with a variety of candy and soft drinks. Easton seemed to have a thing for grape soda, and how could I argue with that? He was a guy after my own heart.
“It’s not spoiling them to let them get something to take to the pool. I’m not going to just buy stuff for me and then eat and drink in front of them. That’s so rude.”
Riley eyed my basket. “Hangover food?”
“Yep.” There was chips, chips, and more chips in there. Plus Twizzlers and orange juice and grape soda for me in addition to Easton’s. Jayden had picked bottled ice tea, which struck me as seriously gross. You could see things floating in there.
I had showered at Riley’s house, then we had swung by my apartment and packed one of my two suitcases. It wasn’t awesome that I was paying rent on a place I was almost never going to be in, but whatever. The high cost of a relationship. But now I was in my yellow bikini, hoodie and shorts on it, fortunately wearing my own sunglasses, making our pit stop before the pool. I tossed two trashy magazines and a fashion one in the basket.
“Are you done?” he asked me, eyebrows raised.
“Can I get gum?” Jayden asked.
“No,” Riley told him. “You already have a drink and chips. Money doesn’t grow on trees, U.”
“It should,” was Jayden’s opinion on that.
I laughed. “Totally.”
When we got to the pool, I blinked. “Holy crap, there’s a ton of people here.”
Okay, I can admit that I had never been to a public pool before. Why would I? My parents had a pool and so did the country club my dad golfed at. But this was more seminaked bodies together in one place than at the last night we’d gone clubbing.
“It is Memorial Day weekend,” Riley said. “I’m not surprised it’s crowded.”
“Chair.” Tyler pointed to a free chaise and Easton darted off to claim it, his scrawny limbs allowing him to dodge and weave around other people. He dove onto it with a move worthy of professional wrestling.
“Impressive,” I said.
What was even more impressive was that all four of the Mann brothers agreed I should have the chair. I was touched to the bottom of my cynical heart. “Really?”
“Sleep off that hangover,” Tyler told me.
“Thanks, guys.” I spread out my towel and sat down, then set down the plastic bag with our haul. “Who wants their stuff?”
“I’m going in first,” Riley said. “I’m boiling.” He peeled off his shirt and I eyeballed those muscles and his tattoos.
Yummy. Biting a Twizzler, I said, “Put on sunscreen.”
“Jessica, I am on the roof of a house everyday without a shirt on.” He flipped his waistband down to show me the difference in his skin tone. Yep, he was whiter down there. “I don’t think sunscreen is going to matter at this point.”
“It’s never too late to prevent skin cancer.”
“Put it on Jayden instead. He’s practically transparent.”
He was. His skin tone was at least two shades lighter than Tyler’s and Riley’s. “Sit down here, Jayden, and I’ll put it on your shoulders.”
He squawked in protest when I sprayed him. “It’s cold!”
“Wimp,” Tyler said.
“Shut up.”
I rubbed it into his skin and Jayden made sounds of enjoyment.
Riley grinned. “You should see his face right now, Jess. I think he’s working up a chub.”
“Don’t be disgusting,” I told him primly. “You’re going to embarrass Jayden.”
“No, it’s actually true,” Jayden said, glancing at me over his shoulder.
His brothers almost died laughing.
Nice.
I wiped my hands on my towel. Easton was digging through the bag and I saw he was eyeing my fashion magazine, which had a topless model on the cover, artfully covering her breasts. I remembered what Riley had said about Playboy and I decided I needed to intervene.
“Find your stuff?” I asked him, peeling off my hoodie so I could spray sunscreen on my chest and arms.
He just nodded without looking at me and dropped the bag.
“Ready?” Riley asked him, rubbing the top of his head so that Easton rocked back and forth.
He nodded again.
I sprayed the tops of my breasts and started rubbing them. Riley made a sound in the back of his throat. “Need any help?”
“No, thank you.” I wasn’t going to subject myself to that kind of contact in public. I was so hot for him I’d probably be foaming at the mouth by the time he was done. “Easton’s waiting.”
Tyler was kicking his shoes off and I asked him, “Hey, have you heard from Robin at all? I’m getting worried. She never answered my text.”
He paused pulling his shirt off. “Robin’s fine. I saw her leave with Nathan.”
There was an odd look on his face. “What?”
His expression was guarded. “Nothing. What, what?”
“I don’t know. You look weird.”
“Nope.” He dropped his shirt and headed straight to the water.
Huh. That was not normal.
“Put my wallet behind your ass,” Riley said.