Brady had turned to him in bewilderment. “What is this evendoinghere?”
“I understand all the houses have them,” Eric said, smiling at the small hot tub, a soft faux concrete under their flip-flops—Brady was wearing borrowed flip-flops. How did that evenhappen?
“Have pools surrounded by desert plants and a white gravel walkway?” The landscaping really was prime, Brady thought.
“Well, have pools. I guess they came to an agreement, regarding water conservation. The people who live inthishouse keep up the pool, and everybody else can use it as long as they do so conscientiously.”
“Does that even work?” Brady asked.
Eric lifted a shoulder. “I think… I think you’ll find these neighbors are a little tighter than most.”
And suddenly Brady was mad. “What does that even mean? Do you think I haven’t figured that out yet?” he snapped. “Do you know that at five to two this afternoon, I was called out to a bank robbery, and I was a little afraid, ’cause those are dangerous, but it’s part of the job, and now my life has fallen apart? And all these people who are a ‘little tighter than most’ either saved my life or committed crimes, andI can’t tell which?”
Brady’s voice rose and fell on that last note, and Eric gazed at him in sympathy and then shoved him into the pool.
The water was cool enough to be refreshing. It closed over Brady’s head, and for a moment, with the lights from the pool sconces glowing above him, he was in a peaceful halo, and all of his confusion was silence.
His lungs started to burn, and he kicked upward, realizing his flip-flops were floating on the surface of the pool, and the T-shirt Eric had given him as a cover was getting soddenly tangled around his arms and chest.
With a gasp he swam to the edge, set the shoes down, and then removed the shirt, layingitout so it could dry a little before they—what? Hung it up in Eric’s bathroom?
“What do you do for laundry?” he asked, this minor detail suddenly majorly important.
“Well, I’m planning to use Ernie and Burton’s—Ernie gave me permission. And then, after I clear escrow, I can move into the house I’ve parked in front of, and I assume I’ll have my own units.”
Brady blinked water out of his eyes to peer at him. “You’re… you’re moving in. You’re putting down roots?”
Eric lifted a shoulder, and again, that sad look appeared. “That was the hope. I suppose we’ll have to see howyoursituation falls out before I know for sure.”
Brady gave a bewildered little “Huh,” and then rested his cheek on his arms on the cool concrete edge of the pool.
For his part, Eric stood and stripped off the clean madras shirt he’d put on over his board shorts and laid out their two towels with every bit as much aplomb as he’d likely use at some sort of expensive, elite resort.
Brady hovered in the pool and watched him, his body weightless, his head empty. On automatic he pushed off from the side of the pool and took off for the other end, flipping when he hit the far side and swimming back, his freestyle coming to his muscles as automatically now as it had when he’d been in highschool. The purity and healing of the water sluiced over him, and he kept stroking until his lungs burned and his muscles strained, and still, again and again and again—
He was brought up short by a solid body in the water, one that took the impact of their collision and floated backward, arms around his shoulders.
“What—” he gasped, but that was about all he could manage, he was panting so hard.
“Shh….” Eric-who-should-be-Charlie’s arms came around his shoulders and squeezed until the anger and resistance that had kept him going drained out of him.
“What—” he tried again, and Eric’s long, lean, elegant body was stillthere,up against his, the relative heat of the water in the cool desert night proving as much a bath for the senses as the glowing lights under their feet and the blanket of stars overhead.
“Forty-five minutes,” Eric murmured. “I draw the line at being ignored during a date at forty-five minutes.”
Brady’s limbs were suddenly wet-cement heavy, and if Eric hadn’t been there to support him, he might have simply gone under.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“It’s fine,” Eric told him, cupping his skull and nudging his head onto a firm, smooth-skinned shoulder. “It’s not every day you learn your job is actively trying to kill you.”
“I’m so mad,” Brady told him, and it was the most honest thing he’d said all day. “I-I don’t know how I got here.”
Eric grunted. “You could tell me how over dinner,” he offered pleasantly, like this was the ordinary date Brady had suspected that morning.
Brady frowned. “Dinner?”
“Ace came by with your clothes while you were swimming,” Eric told him. “They picked up some Thai food for us.” He gavea sweet little smile. “I believe this was Sonny’s idea. Something about how Thai food was sophisticated like we were.”
