“MOTHERFUCKER! What are you doing up here, dipshit?!” A deep, abrasive voice shouts across the rooftop patio.
“MARK!” a female voice hisses, then giggles.
A group of five or six kids Asher’s age makes their way across the patio, looking like they’re having one hell of a night already, at this early hour, if their staggers, hysterical laughter and loud tones are anything to go off of.
The one who spoke must have spotted me, as he says, “Oh shit. Sorry ma’am! It’s just that, he really is a dipshit. If you knew him, you wouldn’t be offended at me calling him that. I hope you have a good night, sorry to interrupt your swim with my—”
“Jesus Christ, shut up already, Mark,” Asher groans.
I stifle a laugh and use long strokes to swim toward the stairs and make my rapid exit.
“It’s okay, I was just leaving,” I announce to no one in particular, but my eyes find Asher’s automatically.
He looks at me pleadingly, trying to communicate wordlessly, while speaking to me as if I’m some random stranger, loudly enough for them to overhear. “Have a good night, I’m sorry about them. Hope we didn’t ruin your evening.”
I cut him a subdued smirk as I emerge from the pool and I find that my body is on display to not only him, but apparently his roommate I’ve heard so much about, and several of their friends, too. Younger, cuter girls than me, whose boobs don’t look saggy, and legs don’t look dotted in cellulite.
I try to maintain my composure at the turn in events and squeegee off as much of the excess water from my frame as possible before heading for the lounge chair with my towel and clothes on it. As soon as my eyes land on my destination—my first mission, that towel—I realize that it’s Asher’s towel, and my nervousness easily quadruples. I sincerely hope all of the newcomers’ attention is on Asher, or one another, andnoton the towel that Mark might recognize as being from his apartment.
I can hear their scattered joking and laughter from here, no more than twenty feet away now, and one whiny female voice stands out to me above the rest for whatever reason. It’s like my senses have honed in on her when I hear her drawl, “Asher, baby, come inside! Let’s go downstairs and party there.”
Every vein in my body turns to ice and it’s all I can do to not stop moving and pretend like that didn’t affect me. Why would it? I’m not supposed to know these people. The fact that this girlsoundslike a girlfriend to an outsider’s ears should have absolutely no bearing on my walk, my demeanor, right? So why are my limbs suddenly stiff?
Consciously, I realize this is his ex (Olivia, I think, based off of his stories) and that he has no interest in her. But some primal part of my brain demands I stake my claim on him to get her to back off, though it would gladly settle for tackling her to the ground and attempting to rip out her hair. No, no, we aren’t inMean Girls, no wild animal thoughts allowed.
Asher’s unusually annoyed voice breaks my train of thought. “Don’t call me that,” he snaps at—presumably—Olivia.
The final few steps of my stealth mission to the towel are interrupted by Mark’s obnoxious voice again as he wolf-whistles at me. Actually. Wolf. Whistles. I look at him in surprise and he gives me the flirtiest grin I think I’ve ever seen. He’s notunattractive, I notice, but I wouldn’t look twice at him in another setting. I wouldn’t look at him even once next to Asher. It’s reassuring to me that I’m not just some pervert who is into all good looking, young, twenty-something men.
It’s been so long since I’ve been catcalled—I mean, I’d like to think I’ve still kinda got it, but I do wrap myself up pretty tightly most of the time to hide what Idogot—it takes me a second to work out a proper response. In those three seconds, Mark snatches up the silence for himself.
“I’m sorry ma’am, but you aresmokin’. You sure you don’t wanna stay a while longer? I can grab my trunks and send these folks away and we could have some fun…” he trails off as his eyes wander down my frame and I’m pretty sure I can hear Asher’s teeth grinding from here.
“MARK!” he bellows. “Can you leave the poor woman alone? Why are you even here right now? I thought you guys were in Tampa tonight?” I’m not sure if he usually sounds so exasperated when talking to his best friends—I don’t often hear him like that—but they don’t seem to think twice about it.
Mark’s gaze pulls away from me and I notice the others that are with them have sat down around one of the patio tables, getting comfortable there, with a couple of them propping their legs up and settling in, still chatting amongst themselves.
“Missed you, my love,” Mark jokes, blowing Asher a kiss. “Followed your location. Saw you were in the building, passed your car in the garage on the way in, but you weren’t in the apartment. It was either here or some secret lover’s apartment in the building, aaaand looks like my first guess was spot on, my friend. And we came home early. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Asher retorts dryly.
“So are we having a pool party or what?” one of the other guys, much shorter than the rest of them, pipes up.
“No,” Asher deadpans.
I grab the towel and try to unfold it surreptitiously, hoping none of their eyes land on me again, as I hear Asher get out of the water. I guess he’s set himself back to rights again, as he is making his way up the stairs and there is nothing amiss in the downstairs region. Not that I was staring.
“After you animals killed the vibe up here, I think I’m done swimming.” He still sounds sour and I let some of my amusement shine through. A random observer could still find this interaction funny, right?
I feel eyes on me, but when I move my gaze to the table of Asher’s friends, I don’t see anyone looking at me. I manage to pull my shorts and tee on over my suit rather quickly and carelessly in my haste, but with how wet I still am absolutely everywhere, the white shirt is rapidly becoming see-through, so I throw the hoodie on overtop, slide on my Toms and make my way across the patio, muttering an amused farewell over my shoulder to the small crowd that’s now there, the towel wrapped up in my arms to try to hide it from the view of the interlopers.
“Were you vibin’ with that hottie?” I hear Mark ask incredulously, and now that I’m far enough away I deem it safe, a borderline hysterical giggle escapes me at the entire situation.
How close we came to losing ourselves in one another, in public. How close we came to being caught together.
“Did we crash some Miss Robinson vibes? I don’t believe it. A putz like you with no game?” His loud, abrasive voice carries across the rooftop easily.
“Fuck. Off. You absolute tool. I meant you killed the vibe of my peaceful fucking swim.” Asher’s angst-filled reply is the last thing I hear before heading back into the elevator lobby and making my way down to the garage to escape this parallel dimension where guys in their absolute prime are finding me attractive.
