“Oh, thank goodness. I didn’t think my coworker would lead me astray. I guess I’ll go get my key.”
She turned to leave and—holy hell—her bikini bottom was a thong. A thin piece of floss between two perfect ass cheeks. How had he missed that?
It was all he could do not to drool. “Nice suit,” he mumbled.
She looked over her shoulder. “Thanks! I saw the Thong Thursday flyer and thought, why not? I bought this suit when we were overseas and wore it there once. I brought it with me, but I never would have had the guts to wear it here, until I saw that you guys had an actual day for one.” She waved and disappeared up the steps to her apartment.
Jamie spun around and scanned the bulletin board where the pool rules were posted. A blue flyer had been tacked front and center: JOIN US FOR THONG THURSDAY!
Thank you, Bella.
Jamie jogged up to Bella’s cottage. The screen door was open.
“Bella?” Bella Abbascia owned the cottage across from the apartment Jessica was renting. Bella was the resident prankster. Her favorite person to play tricks on was Theresa Ottoline, the Seaside property manager. Theresa oversaw the homeowner association guidelines for the community—including the pool rules, which included a rule that clearly stated, No thongs on women or Speedos on men.
Her fiancé, Caden Grant, walked out of the bedroom in his police officer uniform. “Hey, Jamie. Come on in.”
Jamie stepped inside. “Hi. I wanted to thank your fiancée for Thong Thursday.”
Caden shook his head. “She did it, huh?”
“Hell, yes, she did it, and…” Jamie looked out the window at the big house where Jessica was renting. The house was owned by Theresa. The apartment Jessica rented had a separate entrance on the second floor.
“Did you see the new tenant? Jessica Ayers?” He whistled. “Hotter than hell.”
“I saw her sitting on her deck the other night when I pulled in, but I haven’t met her. Bella’s over at Amy’s with the girls.”
Evan, Caden’s mini-me teenage son, walked out of his bedroom. Evan was almost seventeen, and this year he’d cropped his chestnut hair short, like his father’s. Over the year he’d grown to six two. His square jaw and cleft chin, also like Caden’s, had lost all but the faintest trace of the boy he’d been two years earlier.
“Dude. You went running without me?” Evan, Caden, and their other buddy, Kurt Remington, whose fiancée, Leanna Bray, owned the cottage behind Bella and Caden, sometimes ran with Jamie in the mornings.
“Sorry, Ev. Vera wanted to get a jump on the day, so I went early.”
“That’s okay.” Evan glanced out the window in the kitchen and looked down by the pool, where Jessica was spreading a towel out on a lounge chair. “I was gonna go for a run, but if it’s Thong Thursday, I think I’ll go for a swim instead, then head over to TGG for the afternoon.” Evan had worked with Jamie for one summer, learning how to program computers, and he’d been working part-time at TGG, The Geeky Guys, ever since.
Jamie set a narrow-eyed stare on Evan.
“What?” Evan laughed.
“Behave,” Jamie said, before walking out the door. Christ, now I’m jealous of a kid? He glanced at the pool, tempted to put on his own suit and head down for a gawk and a swim. Instead, he headed across the gravel road to Amy Maples’s cottage.
“Hi, Jamie. Just in time for coffee.” Amy handed him a mug over the railing of her deck.
“Thanks.”
Jenna Ward, a big-busted brunette, and Bella, a tall, mouthy blonde, followed Amy out of her cottage. They wore sundresses over their bathing suits, their typical Cape attire. The Seaside cottages had been in their families for years, and Jamie had grown up spending summers with the girls and Leanna Bray, who owned the cottage beside Vera’s, and Tony Black, who owned the cottage on the other side of Leanna’s.
“Come on up here, big boy.” Bella waved him onto the deck and pulled out a chair.
“I owe you big-time, Bella.” He sat beside her and set his coffee on the glass table.
“Most people do,” she teased.
“I know I do.” Jenna had recently gotten engaged to Pete Lacroux, a local boat craftsman, who also handled maintenance for Seaside—and had been the object of Jenna’s secret crush for years. Bella and Amy had secretly broken things in Jenna’s cottage for several summers without Jenna knowing, to ensure that she and Pete would have reasons to be thrown together.
“Thong Thursday?” Jamie shook his head. “You are a goddess, Bella.”
She patted her thick blond hair. “Thank you for noticing.”
“Leanna is going to be so mad at you for doing that,” Jenna said. “She doesn’t think our men need to see butt floss on any of us.” Leanna ran a jam-making business out of Kurt’s bay-side property.
Bella swatted the air. “She’s staying at their bay house for a few days. She’ll miss it completely.” The lower Cape was a narrow peninsula that sprawled between Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The cottages were located between the two bodies of water, and both Kurt and Pete owned property on the bay. Caden and Bella had a house on a street around the corner from the bay, and all three couples spent most of their summers at Seaside and the rest of the year at their other homes.
Luscious Leanna’s Sweet Treats had really taken off in the last two years, and since her business was run from a cottage on their bay property, she was spending more and more time there.
“I’m sure Tony won’t complain,” Amy said with an eye roll that could have rocked the deck. Tony Black was a professional surfer and a motivational speaker, and Amy had been hot for him for about as long as Jenna had been lusting after Pete, but Tony had never made a move toward taking their relationship to the next level. Jamie didn’t get it. He’d seen Tony eyeing Amy, and Tony took care of her like she was his girlfriend. Amy was hot, smart, and obviously interested—Tony was a big, burly guy with a good head on his shoulders. They’d make a great pair.
“Speaking of Tony, I saw him leave early this morning. He’s spending the day at the ocean.” Jamie sipped his coffee.
“Good, then maybe he’ll miss the thong show, too.” Amy leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “Did you guys see the chick renting Theresa’s condo?”
“All I know is that she’s smokin’ hot and she doesn’t talk much.” Jenna was busy resituating the top of her sundress, pulled tightly across her enormous breasts.
“I don’t know what her deal is,” Bella said. “But she was yelling at her phone the other day.”
“You mean yelling on her phone,” Jenna corrected her.
“No, I mean at. She was staring at it, smacking it, and yelling at it.” Bella made a cuckoo motion with her finger beside her head.
Nothing new here from the girls. A little jealousy over the new hot chick. Jamie picked up his coffee mug. “Mind if I bring this back later? I have to get going. I’m running into Hyannis to pick up a few things. You guys need anything?”
The girls shook their heads.
“You’re willingly going to miss Thong Thursday?” Bella put her hand to his forehead. “You must be ill.”
No shit. “One look at my ass in a thong and she’ll be chasing me around the complex. I wouldn’t want to subject you three ladies to that. It could get ugly.” He smiled with the tease.
“Ha! Yeah, right. Like you’d ever wear a thong.” Jenna threw her head back with a loud laugh. “You’re just worried about sporting a woody down by the pool.”
She had him there.
“You’ve got woodies on the brain,” Jamie said. “Are you guys coming to Vera’s concert tonight?” Vera had played the violin professionally when she was younger, and this summer a group of older Wellfleet residents had put together a string quartet and invited Vera to play. They never saw much of a crowd, but it got her out of the house and playing for an audience again, which she enjoyed.
“I wouldn’t miss Vera’s concert,” Amy said.
“Bella and I are
going over together because Caden’s taking someone’s shift and Pete’s hanging with his father tonight, working on a boat. I’ll ask Sky if she wants to come, too.” Sky was Pete’s sister. She’d come to the Cape last summer to run their father’s hardware store while he was in rehab, and she’d never gone back to New York other than to pack up her things. Now sober for almost a year, their father helped Pete with his boat-refinishing business.
“Vera will be glad to hear it, and she loves Pete’s sister.” He glanced down at the pool, then headed for his cottage.
“Wanna bet who’s gonna bang the new chick? Tony or Jamie?” Jenna’s voice trailed behind him.
Jamie slowed to hear the answer.
A crack of hand on skin told him that Amy had shut Jenna up with a friendly swat.
Chapter Two
JESSICA OPENED HER eyes at the sound of her cell phone ringing. She was lying poolside, having a nice little fantasy about sinfully sexy and ever-so-helpful Jamie Reed. Her phone rang again, and she reluctantly shoved the thoughts of him away and dug through the bag for her phone.
Her father’s picture flashed on the screen, and she smiled.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Hi, honey. How is the Cape?” Ralph Ayers was in his mid-fifties. Jessica was blessed with his dimples, blue eyes, and light brown hair—though his was now graying at the temples. Unfortunately, she was also blessed with her father’s passive personality, which she was working this summer to change so she didn’t end up railroaded by her mother her whole life.
She remembered how she’d thrown her phone over the deck. Maybe I’m working a little too hard on that.
“It’s beautiful. I’ve been lying out by the pool all day.” When Jessica was young, their family vacations were more like cultural lessons overseas with only a day or two spent on a beach, and always with her cello in tow. Her mother insisted she keep up her practicing. Jessica could still remember begging to stay on the beach rather than tour museums and countrysides. But her mother insisted that the more well rounded she was, the better she’d be accepted as a cellist.
Unfortunately, life as a cellist, with no social life to speak of, left her feeling like a culturally adept square.
“Not the beach? I’m surprised,” her father said. “I was sure you’d be camped out on the sand all summer long.”
“I will be.” But today I followed Jamie off my deck. “Tomorrow maybe. How are you, Dad?”
“I’m well. Just worried about you. Your mother’s been on the phone night and day with her symphony friends. She’s concerned that you’re jeopardizing your seat with the orchestra and any chance you have with the Chamber Players. I’m not so sure she’s wrong. Are you sure this is what you want to do? After all that hard work at Juilliard?”
The Boston Symphony Chamber Players was one of the world’s most distinguished chamber music ensembles sponsored by a major orchestra. It was made up of principal players of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, including first-chair string and wind players. It would be a miracle for Jessica to be invited to join such a prestigious group. Everyone in the industry knew how unique it was for a twenty-seven-year-old to hold a seat in the BSO in the first place. Although her manager had agreed to the hiatus after weeks of discussion and they’d found a suitable replacement, she knew just how cutthroat the industry could be. There was a chance she’d lose her place—and any chance she might ever have at the Chamber Players—and that realization made her feel sick and free at the same time.
“Yes, I’m sure.” I think. “We’ve talked about this. Dad, I feel twenty years older than I am most of the time. I live in orchestra land, and that doesn’t really lend itself well to experiencing life outside of the orchestra. And I’ve never done anything else. I just want to be normal for a little while. Live a regular life. Daddy, I’m twenty-seven. I love Mom, but I don’t want to live my life like she does.” Her mother played the cello in several smaller orchestras but had never made the cut for the larger ones. Eventually she gave up trying and put all of her energies into Jessica’s success.
“I want to experience life a little, and besides, I have a summer project I’m working on. Something fun.”
“Okay, sweetie. As long as you’re happy. I trust your instincts, and you know we’re here if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“Want to say hello to your mom? She’s just upstairs.”
Jessica shifted the phone away from her mouth and sighed. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to her mother, but, like her father, she tended to avoid confrontation. At least until that morning, when she’d forgotten and barreled headfirst into creating it with Jamie.
“Sure.” She listened as he took the phone upstairs and said something to her mother.
“Hi, Jessica. How are you?”
“Fine, Mom. And you?” She forced a smile, but even she could hear the tension that had taken residence in her voice.
“How’s your vacation? Are you practicing? You don’t want to let that slip, not after all your hard work.” Cecilia Ayers had always micromanaged her daughter’s life, and Jessica was working on taking control of that, too. She didn’t give Jessica a chance to respond. “I spoke to your—”
“Mom, please. I’m on vacation, remember? Aside from stressing out over my career, how are things with you?” She closed her eyes, envisioning her mother’s thin lips pursed together, her eyes shifting upward as she blinked away her irritation in that proper, pull-herself-together-without-embarrassment way she had.
“I’m well, thank you,” her mother finally managed.
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” Being the people pleaser that she was, she added, “Don’t worry. I’ll practice. I just need a few days away from it. You know I’ll miss it and have to play.”
“Okay. Well, good.”
Jessica knew her mother only pushed her to help her be the best damn cellist she could possibly be, and as thankful as she was for that, Jessica always felt a pang of longing for all of the normal mother-daughter things she’d missed out on over the years.
She sat up on the lounge chair as an older woman wearing a big floppy hat came through the pool gate. “Mom, I’ve got to go, but it was good talking to you.”
“Okay, honey. Enjoy yourself. Not too much, of course.”
She ended the call and stuffed her phone back into her bag, unsure what enjoying herself too much even meant. Her life in Boston consisted of practicing, playing concerts, and an occasional evening out with her musician friends—whose idea of a wild night was spontaneously playing “Rum and Tequila” by the Tom Fun Orchestra.
The pool looked too inviting to pass up, and as she passed the older woman, she said hello.
“Good afternoon.” The woman’s gray hair was cut in a pixie style similar to Judi Dench’s hairdo. She had a kind, familiar smile, although Jessica couldn’t place where she’d seen her before.
She felt the woman’s eyes on her as she walked into the pool and sank beneath the water. When she broke the surface, she saw three more women, wearing sundresses, coming through the gate, carrying colorful plastic wineglasses and towels. They were holding on to one another and laughing like best friends. They looked like they knew how to have a good time.
A skinny blonde looked over and waved.
“Hi,” Jessica said as the blonde walked past.
The brunette couldn’t have been five feet tall. She flashed a friendly smile as she peered around the skinny blonde’s back.
“Hi. I’m Jenna.”
“Hi. I’m Jessica. I’m renting up there.” She pointed to the apartment she was renting in the second floor of the only large house in the community.
“We know,” the skinny blonde said. “I’m Amy, and this is Bella.” She pointed to the tall blonde who was laying a towel out on a lounge chair by Jessica’s.
Bella waved over her head without turning around.
Jessica got out of the pool, feeling the eyes of all three girls on her.
; “Darn it. I forgot my thong,” Bella said.
“Bella,” Amy hissed. “Well, I remembered mine.” She pulled her sundress over her head, and sure enough, she was wearing a pink thong bikini. She turned and wiggled her butt at Bella.
“I cannot believe you wore that. Who are you, and what have you done with my Amy?” Bella waved to the older woman. “Hi, Vera. Did you wear your thong?”
“Bella Abbascia, why, you know I always wear my thong.” Vera winked at Jessica, then returned her attention to the novel she was reading.
Jenna took off her sundress. She could have stopped traffic in her red bikini. She had the largest breasts Jessica had ever seen on such a petite woman, trapped beneath the tiniest bathing suit top. Jessica was sure the wrong move would send the top flying across the pool as if launched by a slingshot.
“I wore my thong. Looks like you’re the odd one out,” Jenna said to Bella.
“Has anyone seen Theresa?” Amy whispered.
Jessica spread her towel on the lounge chair and stretched out on her stomach. “Do you mean Theresa Ottoline? The woman I rent from?”
“Yeah,” Jenna answered.
Jessica pointed at the woman walking through the pool gate. She felt something on her butt and was surprised to see Vera covering it with a towel.
“Stay as you are,” Vera said with a serious tone.
What the heck?
Jessica waved to Theresa. Theresa lifted her chin in response. She’d been curt since Jessica arrived, but at least she usually smiled. Now she walked at a fast pace with her jaw clenched and her shoulders riding just below her ears. Her high-waisted khaki shorts hung nearly to her knees, and her polo shirt was primly buttoned. She had short layered hair, which, in combination with her outfit, looked a bit mannish.
Theresa crossed her arms and stared at Bella, tapping her foot on the concrete deck.
“Hi, Theresa. Here for a swim?” Bella set a pair of big round sunglasses on her nose and leaned back in her chair.
“I think I might.” Theresa wiggled out of her shorts, exposing far too much of her bare, white, cellulite-covered ass, the tiny triangle of a thong peeking out at the top of her butt crack.
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