by Jane Anthony
“What are you doing?”
The sound of his voice jumpstarts my libido. I pace near the pool, trying to work off a little energy as Asher begins setting up chairs near the cabana bar. The idea of playing the good girl in front of Asher and his bougie friends for the next six hours already has a migraine brewing behind my eyes. Asher’s great . . . when it’s just us. The second his friends come around, he turns into this cocktail-swilling blowhard who acts like he’s king of the world.
Surely, he wouldn’t mind if I invited a few friends of my own.
“Setting up a pool party. You want to come swimming today?”
“Uh . . . yeah. Sure. Where?”
Relief lowers my shoulders, but it doesn’t stop the nervous energy working my legs back and forth in small circles. “Asher’s.”
The line goes silent. I pull back the phone to make sure the call’s still connected, then bring it back to my ear. “You still there?”
“I don’t know if I wanna spend the day at Asher’s, Bird.”
“C’mon. It will be fun. Bring Erika if you want. We’ll swim, have some food, drink a few beers. Don’t leave me alone with all these stuffed shirts.”
A gust of air blows through the speaker. “Fine. What’s the address?”
“Ten fourteen Park Lane, in Franklin Plains.”
I can practically hear Jesse’s disdain seething over the wire as I rattle off the address. Only one town over from Creek Falls, Franklin Plains is almost like traveling to another state. It’s mansions and Maseratis, wealth, power, and greed stretching across ten square miles of upper-class land.
“You need me to bring anything?”
“Just your swim trunks.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in a bit. Bye.”
I click the phone closed and set it back down on the table near my book.
“Everything okay?” Asher calls from across the patio, wiping down the large slab of granite that separates the bar from the pool.
“Yeah. That was just Jesse. He and his sister are gonna come by.”
He stops and looks up with a stunned expression. “You invited Jesse?”
I shrug. “Why not? He’s my friend.”
Asher’s lips quiver. He pushes them together, but it’s too late. I’ve already noticed the shudder between them. “I’m just so sick of Jesse. That’s all,” he grumbles, focusing back on his incessant wiping. “All you talk about anymore is Jesse this and Jesse that. I find it rather irritating.”
One sentence from Asher and my shoulders lift back up to my ears. “I can leave if you want.”
Asher throws the rag and jogs from behind the bar to stop me as I turn away. “No!” he yells in a rush. “Don’t leave. I want you to stay. Just . . . keep an eye on Jesse. I don’t know how much I trust him.”
My gaze narrows as I eye him warily. “Are you afraid he’s gonna steal from you?”
“He already took me for a thousand dollars.”
“You made that bet,” I remind him. I square my stance, cupping my hand around my jutted hip. Nausea boils in my gut. He’s such a judgmental jerk-off sometimes. “Jesse doesn’t steal, okay? He may not have all this” — I pause, waving my arm toward the massive house behind me — “but he’s an honest, hardworking guy who earns what he has.”
“Okay. I’m sorry,” Asher concedes, but I can tell he’s not sorry. Not even a little bit.
The rest of the morning goes off without a hitch, and before long, the patio’s full of scattered people milling about. Haughty laughter rolls over the music playing from the cabana. My wide smile doesn’t fade as I greet all of Asher’s friends and offer drinks. An hour in and I’m already exhausted from the simple act of being pleasant.
I feel like a trained monkey.
A subservient housewife.
A pretty piece of arm candy he drags around introducing to people.
All I wanted to do was read.
Asher’s friend Sam or Smith or something along those lines is embroiled in a condescending story about his inept new assistant—a woman he continues to refer to as the secretary—when a pretty blonde catches my eye near the gate. Her strapless bathing suit cover blows around her thighs, her matching pink flip-flops slapping on the concrete.
“Erika!” I raise my arm to wave her over. “Excuse me,” I say to whatever his name is and jog toward Jesse’s sister as she wanders inside.
Erika’s eyes are as wide and blue as the pool itself as they dart around the backyard. A stone patio surrounds the kidney-shaped pool with a large bar that leads to an outdoor kitchen complete with a Wolfe stove and a Viking Fridge.
“I’m so glad you came.” I scoop Erika in a quick hug.
“This is your boyfriend’s house?”
I nod. “Yeah. That’s Asher over there,” I tell her, pointing in his general direction. “Where’s Jesse?”
“He’s coming. He didn’t want to park his truck out front, so he dropped me off then drove around the corner.”
I offer a bright smile, yet the simple statement tears a significant hole in my heart. He has nothing to prove to these people. He shouldn’t let them make him feel unworthy.
“Well, come in.” I link my arm with hers and drag her deeper into the party. “You want a soda or something? There are steaks on the grill and chips . . . I think there’s some chicken marinating inside.”
“Can I have a beer?” she asks with a wink and a wry grin that reminds me so much of Jesse I feel it in my knees.
“Um . . . maybe let’s wait and see what Jesse says about that. But I’m warning you—you’re in a yard full of lawyers, so best behavior, okay?”
The wrought-iron gate clangs, calling my attention to Jesse sauntering inside. “I thought you were gonna wait for me?” he scolds his sister as he shuffles over with untied boots. “Hey, Bird.”
“Hey, Jess. Thanks so much for coming. My face hurts from smiling so much.”
“I’m here now. You can return to your normal state of misery.”
My jaw drops. “Eww, ass,” I joke, pushing him with my shoulder, an actual grin growing from ear to ear.
“I want a beer.” Erika bats her lashes at Jesse with an expectant stare.
He lifts a brow, his gaze quickly searching the crowd before falling back to his sister. “You can have one. Drink slow.”
Erika squints. “You’re not my dad, you know.”
“Thank God for small miracles.”
“Wait here,” I tell them, turning on my heel to head toward the kitchen.
Asher follows me around the edge of the cabana and leans on the thick, gray bar top. “I see Jesse finally found himself a girlfriend.”
“That’s his sister.” Cold air blasts me in the face as I wrench open the door and twine my fingers between three long-neck bottles.
“Sister, huh?” He takes a sip of gin and purses his lips as he swallows. A haze already muddies his dark eyes. I hate it when he drinks. “I don’t see a resemblance.”
“They have different fathers.”
“Of course they do,” he mumbles under his breath.
I step back and let the refrigerator door close with a wisp. Erika’s already made herself comfortable on a lounge chair in the sun. Asher watches as she shimmies from her cover-up and sits back in her tiny pink and black bikini.
I stand for a moment, watching him salivate over the underage girl in his backyard, my irritation rising with each passing second. “Are you going to come say hello?”
The sound of my voice startles him. He tears his gaze away and sets his attention back on me. “Yeah. Sure.”
I stalk past him, but he falls in step and stops just next to Erika’s chair. “Good to see you again, Jesse,” he greets with a handshake, and I’m thrilled to see him act amicably. As soon as they finish with this pissing contest, I’m certain they could learn to get along. Be friends, even.
“Asher, this is Jesse’s sister, Erika.” I offer her a bottle, and she takes it from my hand, her gaze coming up fro
m over the rim of her dark sunglasses.
“Welcome, Erika. Let me help you with that.” Asher wraps his fingers around the neck of the bottle and twists off the top while she’s still holding it.
The sizzle of carbonation pops from the gaping maw of the Corona. She brings it to her lips and takes a small sip. “Nice to meet you, Asher. Thanks.”
“Do you attend the local college?”
A nervous pop of laughter bolts from her mouth. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be a junior in the fall.” Clearly uncomfortable, she brings the beer to her lips again and dumps a generous swig into her mouth.
Anger simmers inside. Is he flirting with Erika right in front of me? “When will the steaks be ready, hun?” I ask, breaking the intense stare between my boyfriend and my best friend’s sister.
“Oh. Um. I should go check.” He drops a kiss on my cheek. “Have fun, guys. Make yourselves at home,” he says before leaving us alone.
What the literal fuck was that?
“Asher seems nice,” Erika says.
But I’m too annoyed to respond. I watch him from across the space as he pours himself another drink, his gaze sliding this way, then quickly darting past as he catches my eye.
“I’m going in,” Jesse announces, shucking his boots under the chair. He grabs the back of his plain white tee at the neck and tears it over his head in one fell swoop.
A tiny gasp lodges in my throat. Asher’s slim and defined, a long, lean body with nice abs and broad shoulders, but Jesse . . .
Fuck.
He runs his hand over his chiseled stomach, adjusting the waistband of his trunks. I glance at the book sitting on the table near Erika. The shirtless man posing on the cover has nothing on the one standing before me. Slim with full peaks and low valleys, a luscious landscape of tan skin stretching over sinewy muscle that has warmth pooling down below.
Jesus Christ. I’m no better than Asher.
Maybe I need to stop reading so many erotic novels. It’s bad for my raging libido.
Jesse steps to the edge, his back rippling as he dives into the cool, blue water, then bobs back up. Droplets cascade around his head and sputter from his lips. I’m dying of thirst, sweltering in the heat. His biceps bulge as he pulls himself up and sits on the edge with his legs dangling inside.
He pushes his sopping hair off his forehead with both hands and leans on one hand, twisting to face us. “Water’s nice. You should come in.”
“I really want a tan,” Erika replies.
“Bird? Come swimming with me.”
I swallow hard, remembering the conversation I had with Asher earlier. My fingers twist in the hem of my white terry cloth cover. “No thanks. I’m gonna soak up some sun.”
A laugh slides between his teeth. “You’re gonna burn to a crisp out here.”
“I can tan,” I argue, my cheeks still warm from ogling his body. Did I mention his eyes are the same shade of crystal aqua as the pool? Because they are. And they’re killing me slowly with the heated glance he casts my way.
“You don’t tan. Your freckles grow together.”
Smile.
Crinkles.
Sigh.
Asher better fuck me soon, or I’m going to start humping mailboxes.
“You’re so mean to me,” I pout.
“Pssh . . .” The corner of his mouth curls in a lopsided grin.
I take a swig of my beer and rest it on the table beside me.
He shuffles to his feet and slowly walks over. I pretend not to notice the droplets of water cascading down his glorious chest as he pretends to reach for a towel.
But his arms twine around me faster than my lust-addled brain can register what’s happening, and he hurls me over his shoulder. I yell out, but it’s no use. The cool water swallows us both. I kick to the surface and break through, sputtering as I wrestle from his grasp.
“Oooh, you’re a dead man!” I slap the water and send a small wave crashing over his hysterical face as he flinches away from it.
We tussle in the water, exchanging expletives and playful threats. It’s minutes before I remember where I am.
“Not cool,” I say, sobering. I swim to the ladder and step up, letting my sodden cover fall to the concrete in a heap before concealing my body in a towel.
He lurches from the pool again. “What’s your problem?”
I stop short at the foot of the empty chair his sister once sat in. “Where’s Erika?”
He glances behind me, brows clipped. I turn and follow his stare. Across the yard, Asher throws his head back in haughty laughter. Still dressed in only her swimsuit, Erika leans against the cabana wall nursing a fresh beer, returning his grin with hers.
Embarrassment floods my cheeks.
“I’m sorry, Bird,” he whispers. “We should go.”
I feel his gaze singe my skin. The light touch of his fingertips grazes my arm. When I twist back, my eyes lock on his. He doesn’t need to say another word. I see it all swirling in his baby blues. Churning emotion that deepens their color and tells me everything I need to know.
I’m with someone else.
And this is his house.
His friends.
Jesse doesn’t belong here.
But the selfish part of me refuses to see it. The piece that still convinces herself that these two worlds could come together and exist in harmony.
I don’t want him to leave.
But when he steps past and pulls on his shirt, I don’t argue. My past and my present mix like oil and water. No matter how hard I try to shake things up, they’ll always separate in the end.
He offers one last look before trudging to the cabana and pulling Erika away from Asher.
I should be furious at Asher for the way he’s behaved, but as Jesse disappears from sight, the only thing I feel is the urge to go after him.
CHAPTER 10
Jesse
ERIKA JOGS BEHIND as I speed walk across the thick landscape. “Would you slow down? What the hell, Jesse?”
Relaxing my pace, I keep my eyes trained ahead until the sound of Wren’s voice stops me in my tracks.
“Jesse, wait,” she calls from the edge of the patio.
I pause for a beat before turning around.
Her footsteps grow closer. I close my eyes, pulling a deep breath into my lungs as Wren approaches. “I don’t want you to go.”
Glancing at my sister, I scratch my fingertips down my jaw. “Erika. Can we have a minute?”
Her expression grows stone solid. “Are you kidding?”
“Erika. Please,” I urge, waiting as she sulks over to the lawn and disappears around the corner before turning my attention back on Wren. “Why do you want me to stay?”
Her lips part, but the only sound that follows is a muted beat at the back of her throat.
“I hate who you are around him. I hate the way he dulls your shine, and it’s not fair for me to be forced to sit through it just because we’re friends.” Leaning in closer, I rest my palm on the red circle dotting her cheek. “Maybe we need to take a little break from this for a while.”
Fear slashes her olive gaze. “A break from what?”
“From this. You and me. It’s weird. I don’t understand why you’re still with him when you spend all your time with me. It’s certainly not love.”
“What do you know about love?” she challenges on quivering lips.
“I know what it isn’t. It’s not sitting around waiting for him to call, then calling me instead when he breaks your plans.” Her chest rises as I step into her personal space. “It’s not the way your body responds whenever I’m close to you, or the hitch in your breath when my gaze touches your skin. A reaction I know you don’t feel with him.”
She presses her trembling lips together before sliding her tongue between them.
“You’re dangerous, Wren. With your pretty smile and your seductive stare. You lure me in with all your secrets, then hold me just out of reach. You need to figure out what you want.”
Erika rests against my truck, her arms crossed over her chest. “What was that all about?”
“I hate that guy,” I grumble, reaching for the handle.
“Asher?” she asks, stepping away as I open the door. “Yeah, he’s . . . interesting.”
“He’s a douche bag.”
Erika snorts as she falls into the seat. “I was being nice.”
I slam the door and jog around, joining her on the other side.
“The party was fun, though. You didn’t have to drag me away. I can handle myself.”
I glance from the corner of my eye as I pull from the curb. “The guy’s a predator, E. A few more drinks and he’d have had his hands down your bathing suit.”
“Ew!” she exclaims, accentuating the end with an “a” sound. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“Trust me. He would.”
She rakes her hand through her golden hair, pushing the part to the opposite side. “You know something I don’t?”
My heart rate picks up. I turn the corner and stop at a red light, leaning back in my seat. “I’ve caught him in the act. But who am I to ruin her relationship, right?”
Erika’s face falls. “You’re her friend. You owe it to her to tell her the truth about her dick boyfriend.” When I don’t offer a response, she grabs my arm. “Stop being such a pussy and tell the girl how you feel already. Christ, you’re such a woman sometimes.”
“Jesus, Erika. Nice language.”
“I’m just being honest. Which is something at least one of us has the balls to do.”
I ease my foot off the brake when the light turns green. “I don’t want her to resent me. And I don’t want to be her second choice.”
The sharp corners of Erika’s expression soften around the edges. “I can understand that, I guess.”