A splash from the pool draws my attention. Drew has climbed onto Gerard’s shoulders, and they’re attempting to play chicken with Jackson on Sebastian’s shoulders.
“You can turn around now.”
I do, slowly, and my heart stutters at the sight before me. Ryan stands at the pool’s edge, his lean frame pale in the underwater light. He’s hugging himself slightly, shoulders curved inward in that familiar protective posture I remember from childhood. But he’s here. He’s present. And choosing to be vulnerable in a way I never expected.
And that’s when I notice them. The underwear.
They’re not boxer briefs, not trunks, not any of the standard-issue undergarments that college guys typically wear. They’re tighty-whities. The vintage kind, with the thick elastic waistband and the Y-front, which went out of style sometime during my parents’ formative years. They cling to Ryan’s narrow hips, riding high on his thighs.
Something twists in my gut. Not judgment, but recognition.
I flashback to a ten-year-old Ryan in swim trunks with anchor patterns. To the kid who buttoned his shirt to the second-from-top button because that was as rebellious as he got. To the boy whose socks were always pulled up to mid-calf, whose every article of clothing was a uniform in a war he never enlisted for.
Ryan’s dad didn’t just pick his underwear when he was a kid. He’s still picking it. Or, more accurately, the man drilled his preferences so deep into Ryan’s psyche that even at twenty, away at college, standing half-naked in front of his peers, Ryan Abrams is wearing the underwear his militant father deemed appropriate.
As my eyes trace the clean lines of those ridiculous, old-fashioned briefs against Ryan’s pale skin, something stirs. And I don’t mean emotionally. I meanphysically.South-of-the-border physically.
What thefuck?
The white cotton hugging Ryan’s hips shouldn’t be doing this to me. It’s underwear. It’sdad-approvedunderwear. It’s theleast sexy garment in the history of undergarments. So why has my brain decided that Ryan Abrams in tighty-whities is the hill it wants to die on?
My hand, which was providing modest coverage a moment ago, is rapidly becoming insufficient for the task. In approximately three seconds, I’m going to have a situation that no amount of casual hand placement can disguise.
Pool, Oliver. Now.
“Be right back!” I blurt, and before Ryan can respond, I pivot and launch myself into the deep end. The water hits me in a full-body slap, cold enough to make my lungs seize but not, tragically, cold enough to solve my seven-inch problem. I surface, gasping, and shake water from my eyes.
“Smooth entrance, Cap,” Drew calls from across the pool, where he’s still perched on Gerard’s shoulders. “Real elegant.”
“Shut up.”
I tread water for a moment, letting the chill work its magic. My heart is hammering, and not just from the plunge. I chance a glance back at the pool’s edge. Ryan hasn’t moved. He’s watching me with an expression that’s equal parts amusement and uncertainty. The blue light from the pool dances across his skin, and his glasses are slightly fogged from the humidity. He looks small and absolutely terrified.
He also looks unfairly good in those tighty-whities, but I pull a Daniel Torrance and shove that thought into a mental lockbox, welding it shut.
I swim to the edge closest to him, the water lapping at my chest, safely concealing everything below my collarbones. I rest my forearms on the pool deck and stare up at him.
“Hey,” I say, as though I didn’t just fling myself into the water like a man fleeing a crime scene.
“Hey.” His toes curl against the wet tile. His eyes ping pong around the room before settling on me.
I remember a July afternoon from a decade ago. A kid who couldn’t swim. A promise I made on sun-bleached concrete.
I pull one arm out of the water and extend my hand to him, palm up, fingers open. Water drips from my wrist onto the tile between us.
“Come in with me,” I say. Simple. No pressure. Just an invitation.
Ryan stares at my hand. His throat works, and I watch the war play out across his face—the fear, the want, the years of distance compressed into the three feet of air between my wet fingertips and his dry ones.
“The water’s not bad once you’re in,” I add. “And I promise there are no sharks.”
Something flickers in his eyes. A memory, maybe. A ten-year-old on pool steps, gripping a railing, thinking the world was ending.
“You remember that?” he whispers.
“I remember everything.”
His arms uncross. One hand drops to his side. Then, slowly, carefully, he reaches down and places his hand in mine.
