She swallows. Her lips part slightly.
Suddenly I’m real glad for all the hard work my body’s been doing, if it makes her look at me likethat.
“You're up late,” she says, and her voice has gone a little breathless.
“Told you I’d wait up for you.”
She takes a step closer, and I catch her scent. Fresh strawberries. Lush. Biteable.
And then she slips off her boots and sits on the edge of the pool, dipping her feet in. She kicks her legs slowly, sending ripples through the water.Her bare toes have bright red nail polish on them.
“What are you drinking?” she asks, eyeing the glass in my hand.
I lift it slightly. “Whiskey. Want some?”
“Sure.”
I swim over and hold the glass out to her, and when she takes it, our fingers brush. Just for a second. Just long enough for me to feel the touch like electricity straight up my arm.
She brings the glass to her lips. To the exact spot where my mouth just was. She takes a small sip. Her eyes widen slightly at the burn, and she coughs a little, which makes me smile despite myself.
“That's strong,” she says, voice gone slightly hoarse. She hands it back, and our fingers touch again.
I take the glass, still warm from her hand, and sip from the same place her lips just were too. The intimacy of it, drinking from the same glass, tasting the same burn, feels good.
I realize with a sharp clarity that I'm fucked.
Completely fucked.
Getting excited over putting my lips the same place hers just were. Talk about being pathetically down bad.
Doesn’t stop me from taking another sip from the exact same spot.
“Probably too strong for you,” I say.
“I’ll get used to it.”
She holds her hand out for the glass and I give it to her again. She sips, no coughing this time.
The pool shimmers in endless blue waves, like it’s restless as I am.
“What did you do tonight?” she asks. “Just you, brooding into your whiskey?”
I scowl at her. “Worked out. Swam. Sat around, mostly.”
“That's it?”
Thought of you. Couldn’t stop thinking of you.
I turn the glass in my hand. “Glared at my guitar for a while.”
“Did you play?”
“No.” The whiskey's simmering through my bloodstream, making me reckless. Honest. “I haven't touched it in two years.”
The words land differently out loud than they do in my head at three in the morning. I've never said them to another person before.
Somehow they've come out here, at midnight, poolside, to the woman who works for me and smells like summer and drives me out of my mind without even trying.
