I nod sagely. “I want to believe you.”
He goes completely still, because he’s tall enough to stand on the bottom. He puts my hand on his shoulder like I need assistance and a rest. Accurate. His eyelashes are crisscrossed spikes. Under my palm there’s a lit match inked onto him, and I feel that tiny spark.
His lip lifts in amusement. “Now you’re making me feel pretty.”
“As if you need little old me to pump up your ego.”
“Oh, but I do.”
Keeping the smile off my face around him is turning me into a medically certified killjoy. But if I relax, what will happen? He’ll be unstoppable. He’ll annihilate me.
“Hands where we can see them,” one of the residents shouts at us, and the shrieks of laughter echo off every reflective surface.
“Okay,” I hold my other hand up, and the laugh gets louder. “They honestly suspect me of feeling you up on a workday? Dirty old women.” The cogs turn in my brain. “Oh. They were talking to you.”
“You have a guilty conscience, don’t you? Where were we. Oh yeah, self-confidence. You gotta start walking around like you’re the shit, because you are,” he tells me, gathering up my hand and walking me in an improvised backward water waltz. “Want to hear a secret?” Even before he opens his mouth, I see the compliment coming straight for me like a shark fin. “Neat and tidy is my absolute favorite kind of girl.”
I don’t know how he can switch modes so easily. He was just horsing around poolside. Now, he’s got darkening eyes and that seductive husk in his voice.
I decide to try swimming for shore. “Okay.” I’m twirled out to the length of his arm, the water churning around us.
“But you don’t believe me.” He pulls me back, closer this time. “Your eyes are …” He blinks away from me now. Why would he feel self-conscious? He does, and it flips my heart. “Magnetic,” is what he goes with. Then he groans at himself. “I’m corny as fuck.” He dips down under the water for a bit.
When he resurfaces, I say sternly, “You’ve found the only female under the age of fifty in the building to mess around with. That’s what this is.”
But it’s too late. A flattered sizzle goes down my spine at the exact moment that he puts his hand low down on my back, only a wafer of wet fabric between us.
“Learn to take a compliment. Appreciate yourself. You’re sublime.” That’s the last word I ever thought would be applied to me.
“That’s kind of you to say.”
“Oh, I’m not kind. I nearly reverted to my old ways the other night, at your place. You should know my secret. I have a major Heaven-Sent-Francine-Percival kink.”
“Okay, well, she is gorgeous.”
“I love neat-and-tidy types who have label makers and smell like a bubble bath. All the soup cans in the cupboard with the labels facing the same way. The bath filling up at the same time every night. God, you walk around in this haze of bubbles. I just want to eat all your cheese and snuggle up in your bed. I can admit it.”
“I’m pretty aware of that.” My throat is making my voice weird. That was too many lush words for me to process. Bubbles, kink, snuggle, bed.
“You feel it, right?” His mask slips for a second as he looks down at my floating legs. Maybe he’s considering the possibility that he’s alone in this. “I think we’ve got an interesting sizzle.”
I look at the word GIVE, written on his skin forever. He’s always so brave. I’m going to try to be more like him.
I put my hand under his chin to tip his face up for my inspection, and his mouth opens in surprise. I look at his lips and the porcelain sharpness of his teeth. His stubble feels like wet sand on my palm. Men: so animal, growing bristles and beards. It must be a lot of effort to disguise it.
I decide to give him what he craves so badly. It’s not exactly my well-kept secret. “Teddy, you’re so pretty it’s crazy.”
Instantly he replies, “You’re so pretty I need to buy a pencil sharpener.”
He looks at my mouth and his pupils dial out, ink black, and everything on the edges of this moment washes away. I think he’s going to kiss me. I’ve only just come out of romance retirement and I’m very inexperienced, but even I know that this is it.
I swear, he’s going to do it. Another inch closer.
I haven’t been kissed in years, and those were largely tongueless. I don’t remember how to, but Teddy does. We are suspended in this buoyant moment, knees touching. Then it’s like he remembers something, blinking out of the building haze. Now we’re floating a respectable distance apart.
To cover up the weird mix of disappointment and relief I’m feeling, I say, “I know you just want to defend your couch and cheddar territory.” I’m getting fatigued and am sinking down to my chin in the water.
“According to your own Week 1 worksheet, which I photocopied and is now in the back pocket of my jeans, your dream guy is nothing like me. You want someone who’ll stick around. Mature, generous, principled.”
His fist is solemnly offered to me; I don’t check which hand it is. I just rub the knuckles like a comfort. “You didn’t have to make an ass of yourself just now, but it made their day. You just made a difference to a lot of people.” I watch him turn over my words. “You’ve been interested in what goes on inside my head, and that means more than I can say.”
“What’s going on here?” Renata bawls from the sideline. “What did I talk to you about, at length, Theodore Prescott?” She gets to her feet and walks to the edge. I stare at the wet tiles beneath her feet with my heart even further up my throat.
Teddy looks back into my eyes. “Don’t seduce Ruthie if I don’t plan on sticking around, because she’s a tender treasure that must be protected at all costs.”
Renata barks: “Correct. And what are you doing right now?”
“I’m explaining to her that I’m not her type,” he says easily as he strokes through the water, away from me.
“Damn right. Get out of the pool. Now.” Renata says it in a voice that cannot be disobeyed, and just like that, Teddy’s up the ladder, leaving me to eventually climb up myself. Out of that cold water, on dry land, I sweat and shiver for the rest of the afternoon.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You did good,” Melanie says with her head inside my closet. “Your first worksheet was excellent. You were really honest about your dream man.”
(Was I, though?)
“Thanks, Mel. And yours looks good too.” I am sitting on my bed, reading her version of the worksheet: the dream job edition. “I think what I’m seeing here is that you don’t like any job where the days are the same.”
“Yeah. It makes me start to feel like I’m decaying.” She tosses a handful of clothes on the bed, still on their hangers. “But don’t try to distract me. We’re talking about you. Bring on the Sasaki Method, Week 2.”
My swimsuit is on a hanger from the curtain rail. It’s been dry for three days now, but I haven’t put it away because it’s a reminder that what happened between Teddy and me was real.