Page 48 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

He reluctantly flicked his gaze back.

I almost told him then how I’d survived prison, so I could survive Jeremy Briar, but my past wasn’t supposed to touch me here. New Owen, new life, no past. If he knew I was an ex-con, knew the things I’d done . . . No, I couldn’t ever tell him.

“If something goes wrong, you’re just a fence away, right?” I smiled, trying to make light of it.

“Then you’d call me?”

“Yes, I’d call you. Just so long as I’m not bleeding, because, well . . . we’ve seen how that ends.”

“No blood. But if you need me, Owen, I’m there, I swear it. I won’t lose another friend. I won’t . . .” He swallowed again. “I won’t lose you too.”

His words darted straight through all my defenses and excuses and landed in my heart. I grinned before I’d even acknowledged what his words did to me.

Theo brightened too. “I like your smile, Freckles.”

“Yeah?” Well, this was . . . interesting. I swallowed and tried to get my grin under control. “I like your shirt, so we’re even.”

“My shirt?”

“Yup.”

“That’s it? Just the shirt?”

“Yeah. I guess the guy it belongs to is kinda okay, though. Little bit dramatic sometimes.”

His smile said he didn’t believe me. “Don’t fucking die.”

“I don’t plan to.” I turned and leaned back against the wall. We rested shoulder to shoulder now, a few inches between us. “I have to get back to set up the equipment for starting next door.”

“Alright. I guess I’ll watch our guest and try an’ figure out where she came from.”

“I’ll see you later, Theo.”

Theo’s guest grinned as I passed by, but she barely looked away from the TV. “Bye, Owen.”

“Hey, let me know if you remember anything, alright?”

“Will do.”

Theo sent a small wave my way, and watched me all the way to the door, until I stepped out into Miami’s brutal sun. Funny how the air felt colder without his gaze on me.

CHAPTER 12

The next day, I showed up at the Briar place bright and early. A gruff security guy buzzed me through the gate. I parked up in the turning area, away from the main house, gathered my equipment, and headed to the pool to start work.

The Elite filtration and pump system was a dream to work on. Jay had clearly kept his working area clean. He’d also left a curled and battered handwritten notebook stuffed down the side of the pump, with dates and the chemical composition of the pool on the days he’d worked. I quietly thanked him, pool guy to pool guy. There was nothing worse than starting a new job and having to correct a bunch of previous mistakes without knowing the pool’s history.

My first job was to get an idea for the chemical composition of the pool water today, mostly to make sure it was safe and there was nothing lurking in there that was about to pull me in. I also wanted to get a feel for the pool as a closed system, discover its quirks, its language. Each pool had its own chemical makeup, depending on when and how it had been built and maintained, and the amount of human activity. I needed to get to know this one so I could recognize when the balance was off.

I worked through the morning, checking my numbers against Jay’s notes.

The staff came and went, ignoring me, focused on their own tasks. Gardeners, housekeepers, security . . . a small army of people keeping the house and grounds maintained. They didn’t talk much, just quietly got on with their day.

The pool didn’t try and pull me in either, which was a bonus.

After running the tests, I noted the chemical composition down in my own notes app on my phone and frowned at the final list of numbers. Their order was familiar, and not just because Jay’s scribbled numbers were the same. Most running pools had numbers in the same range, but I’d been looking at another pool regularly lately, especially after it had been drained by the police forensics team. The Witherbornes’ pool had the exact same chemical composition as the Briars’, but not just in the general area. They had the exact same pH, same hardness, same chlorine, same everything. Precisely. That didn’t ever happen. It wasn’t possible. Pools were individual, like people. Even two pools built at the same time, next to each other, had different characters. Like the same way twins were never exact copies. Sunlight levels, flow rate, it all impacted the numbers.

I spent the next hour running the numbers again.