My friend sat on the couch, focused intently on the game of Call of Duty he was playing . . . while using my PlayStation. Without asking. If he was logged in to my profile, I was going to throw his rude ass out.
“Um . . . hey?” I said pointedly.
Preston barely glanced my direction before returning his attention to the game. “What’s up? My PlayStation’s acting weird.” When he didn’t get a response from me, his posture straightened and he paused the game. “Is it cool if I hang out and use yours until my shift starts at five?”
Most people would have sent a text to ask before showing up, but this was typical Preston. My friend was an only child, like me, and could be self-absorbed a lot of the time, but he was working on it. He was two years younger than I was and still had a lot of growing up to do.
And I almost never remembered to lock the door on the guest house, so . . . lesson learned.
I checked the screen to see he was playing on his own profile. “Yeah, it’s fine. I gotta take a shower.”
He nodded and restarted his game.
It didn’t take me long to get clean, and when I was done, I dressed in board shorts and a t-shirt from my traveling baseball team when I was in high school. I’d cut the sleeves off a lot of my shirts because I’d been more dedicated to the gym my last year of college and the old shirts had grown snug around my biceps.
Preston was still on the couch when I came out of my bedroom.
“What’s going on with your PlayStation?” I asked.
“It won’t connect to the internet. I probably just need to reset the WiFi router.”
I blinked slowly. “It was easier to come over here than do that?”
He paused the game, put down the controller, and ground the heel of his palm in his eye. “Yeah, well . . . my dad’s planning Cassidy’s birthday, and I kind of needed to get out of there.”
“Oh.”
It made a hell of a lot more sense why he’d shown up without warning. Preston hadn’t had that hard of a life. He was healthy, decent looking, and came from money. He owned his own car and had just finished his sophomore year of college at Vanderbilt.
But his relationship with his dad had been tough, and my friend had been filled with resentment when he’d first come to Nashville at sixteen, forced to move in with the father who’d basically been a stranger up to that point in his life.
And just when things were finally smoothing out for them, the Cassidy situation blew it all to hell.
Cassidy Shepard had been Preston’s girlfriend for years, although the rest of us didn’t really get it. Near the end, he’d been enough of a dick to her, most of my circle of friends avoided hanging out with him whenever possible. He was my boy and all, but he didn’t deserve her.
I was glad for both of them when they broke up. She could do better, and he needed to date around to realize not every girl out there was willing to put up with his shit. He’d seemed better after he’d spent his summer with his mom.
Then he came home one night to find his dad fucking Cassidy on the couch. Apparently, they were hopelessly in love.
Fuck, it was some messy drama—and it sucked for everyone involved. It’d been hard for Preston to get past it, but somehow he’d found a way. For as immature as he could be, he’d handled it way better than I’d expected.
His tone was worried. “I think he’s going to do something big, like propose, or ask her to move in with him.”
“Seriously?” I made a face. “They’ve only been together, for what? A year?” Not to mention, Cassidy was only twenty-one. Wait—not yet twenty-one because Dr. Lowe was planning her birthday.
Preston shrugged. “He floated the idea recently, saying they don’t get to see each other as much as they want. I think he was putting feelers out.”
“Would you be okay with it? I mean, things are good between y’all, right?”
He considered my question, not sure how to answer. “Sometimes it’s weird, and other times, it’s no big deal. They’re happy, so that’s good, and if she moves in, I could probably deal. I’m not there much anyway.” He frowned. “But Cassidy being my stepmom? Yeah, I’m not ready for that.”
Truer words had never been spoken. “I get it.”
“I don’t think she’d say yes anyway if he proposed. Cassidy will want to get her degree first.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. They’d been best friends in high school, completely inseparable, and they’d made tremendous strides this past year, but their friendship could never be what it was.
Thankfully, Preston gave me an out when he picked up the game controller. It was a clear signal he wanted the conversation to be over.
“Hey, man,” I said, “I need to take off. Feel free to stay as long as you want.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Actually, over by where you live. I’ve got to clean Ms. Graham’s pool.”
He hadn’t restarted the game, so he was able to give me a knowing smile. “You took a shower . . . to go clean her pool?”
He wasn’t wrong with what he was implying, but I had to defend myself. “I was fucking gross. Besides, she won’t even be there.”
I’d been pushing my start time later and later in hopes of seeing her, but so far, no such luck.
“She’s always had that ‘Stacey’s Mom’ thing going on, but since she got her tits done?” My friend did a chef’s kiss. “She’s hot as fuck.”
I was well aware. Ms. Graham had been my primary source of spank bank material whenever I was without internet, and sometimes, even when I had access to PornHub. My fantasies about her were numerous.
And detailed.
“She isn’t married anymore,” Preston teased. “Now’s your chance, Troy.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed at himself, but then sobered. “Maybe that’s what I need to do, get me an older woman.” He did a terrible, dramatic impression of Liam Neeson. “One with a very particular set of skills that she’s acquired over her long career.”
I gave him a look to tell him I wasn’t amused.
He let it roll right off him. “All I’m saying is I’d let Ms. Graham ride me until she broke my back.”
“Great.” I picked up my keys off the counter and stepped into my flip-flops. “Lock up when you leave.”
What Preston had said bothered me the whole drive over to her place, mostly because it hit a little too close to home. I’d spent years trying not to think about her. She was older—not to mention married—and my mom’s best friend. Pursuing her would be stupid.
Then again, I wasn’t the smartest guy around, was I?
I parked my Jeep in the street, halfway between her mailbox and Preston’s, so I wouldn’t block her driveway if she came home early. The privacy fence surrounding her property looked like wood, but it was textured concrete slats, and the gate was heavy as I unlatched it and went through.
I needed to come up with a better plan for getting her to notice me because cleaning her pool once a week while she wasn’t there wasn’t working.
Her pool house had two doors, but the workshop where she stored her chemicals was on the far side, so I climbed the sloping lawn, went around the backside of the building, and pulled the workshop door open.