Chapter One
The pool out back wasn’tthe draw, not when I rented the house.
I didn’t have the kids, or the nieces and nephews, that the letting agent suggested it would be popular with.No husband or boyfriend to lounge next to it with, either.That we were in the depths of winter - and I was in the depths of depression - when I signed the contract meant the charms of a deep volume of very cold water were, perhaps understandably, lost on me.
Instead it was the underfloor heating that appealed, and the comically large en-suite wet room, and the fact that the view out the back yard swept, uninterrupted and from almost no angle overlooked, down to the glinting lights of the city.At night it was as though a bazaar of multi-colored fireflies had set out their stalls in the valley below me.
It was the perfect view for getting over a bad breakup.Okay, not the sort of breakup that leaves you near-bankrupt or questioning your former partner’s fidelity from day one; nor the sort that leaves as many physical bruises as it does emotional.Just the painful stumbling and then fading of a relationship you thought would mean you never had to chance the dating scene again.
That wasn’t something I’d attempted yet, nor something I looked forward to.At 38 years old, and at the ugly tail-end of more than a decade and a half with my former partner, the bars and clubs of my youth seemed like a lifetime ago.Apps and hook-up sites were completely foreign: something my single friends explained to me eagerly, but which sounded terrifying to my ears.
I was in no way, shape, or form ready to consider downloading, signing up to, and braving the digital dating arena.For now said-friends were making all the right “we’re so sorry” noises and giving me time to get over my ex, but I had the strong suspicion that it was only a matter of time - a short matter of time, at that - before they started strong-arming me into creating a profile or twelve, and forcing myself back into the meat market.
Even just the thought of it made me shudder.
Perhaps that was why I’d done more solo city-watching the past few weeks, and less socializing.Out of sight, out of mind.The longer I could fend off the peer-pressure, the better.
Winter’s chill had thawed, of course, making way for spring’s charms of renewal.Not a scorcher by any means, but enough to send the thermometer on my phone spiraling upward, and my hand reaching for the A/C control on the wall.Now it was the sliding glass doors from the living room out to the patio that were appealing, my body eager for the slight breeze as dusk settled down through the hills and did lackluster battle with the heat haze blanketing the valley below.
It took a week of that before I thought to thumb the control that would send the pool cover spooling back, exposing the water underneath and sending careless ripples across its surface.Suddenly I was reconsidering my apathy and, by the time I’d dipped one tentative foot, I was about ready to cast off any previous skepticism.
I dug a pair of old running shorts out from the back of my sock drawer, set my glasses to one side, and slipped into the water.Still on the cool side, but deliciously so.Pushing off from the wall, I did a lazy breast stroke to the opposite wall, finding the technique I’d just about managed to learn back at school quickly returned to me.I wasn’t going to win at a swim meet, but I wasn’t going to sink, either.
My singleton routine gained a new item on the agenda, then.Home from work, pour a drink, and then several laps in the pool.Just side to side, no great ambition in my strokes beyond embracing some cooling potential that also had the benefit of being cheaper than the A/C running at full tilt.
When I was done, I would sit at the side on a wooden lounger, allowing the evening’s heat to gradually dry me.Watch the shimmer of what starlight was visible given the city’s glow, the heavens’ skew having shifted as winter became spring, became the shimmering haze of summer.Eyes turned upward, embracing an isolation I could brand self-sufficiency.
Finally, I’d push the button to shut the cover for the night.There were no kids in the immediate neighborhood, not as far as I was aware, but I had no desire to find something furry and sodden in there with me the following day.
It wasn’t just children in short supply around me.I’d only seen a handful of people in the street in the months since I’d moved in.My early starts and late returns - extended work hours one questionable benefit of having post-breakup time on my hands - meant mostly I was away before other houses had woken up, and then back again in time to see light through closed shades but not the occupants.
The sensation of being, if not alone on a mountain, then at least more isolated than the typical urban worker was a welcome one.It also meant that, when someone called out to me after I pulled into the driveway one evening, I yelped in response.
“Whoa, sorry!”an apologetic voice followed after the cheery hello.“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
I tried to assume the expression of a man who had not, regardless of clear appearances to the contrary, been startled at all.Maybe a man who just emitted strangled cries whenever he got out of his car in the evening, so thrilled he was to be home.
“No, it’s...fine,” I replied, through gritted teeth.Peered into the looming darkness to see who had surprised me.
He emerged after a moment, from my neighbor’s carport, stepping into the glow of the porch light as my eyes acclimated to the gloom.Tall, and young too.Probably somewhere in his twenties, with a broad smile and dark blonde hair.
“I’m really sorry,” he said again, expressive mouth grimacing with the words.“You probably didn’t expect someone to come shouting out of the night at you.”
I smiled.“I think I could count the number of people I’ve seen in this street on one hand, so I was probably getting complacent.I was overdue a reminder that I don’t have the neighborhood to myself.”
By that point he’d closed the gap between us, standing across the car’s hood from me.His grimace having shifted into a grin again; out in the full glow of the lamplight, I could see him more clearly.Nudged my assessment of his age to around mid-twenties, and no way not to notice the broadness of the shoulders in his dark blue polo shirt.
“Well, I just wanted to say hi,” he said, as my eyes rapidly found their way to his face again.“I’m moving back in with my folks for the summer, and thought I’d say...well, hi.”
I smiled at his slight frown at the repetition.“Well hi back at you,” I echoed, my gaze catching on the unexpectedly appealing way his lips curled at the shared amusement.That, my mom would’ve said, was a dangerous smile.The sort that could easily get someone into trouble.At the time she’d meant it to be advice for my older sister, but it was something I’d learned - and promptly forgotten when I really could’ve used it in my early twenties - myself.
“I’m Kai,” he said, reaching his hand across the car.
I leaned over to clasp it.“Short for...Malakai?”
He chuckled, shaking his head.“Nope.Just Kai.I wish my parents had to pay me a dollar every time someone asks me that.”
“You’d be a millionaire?”
