Neil gives them a final wave, grins at me, then leaves the café.
Now that’s what I call a friend with benefits.
Chapter 21
Late-September
Isabella is already outside the public swimming pool by the time I get there. She’s in jeans, a warm knit top and a scarf. It’s late September now but it still feels like winter as soon as the sun goes down. Tonight, Isabella has her frizzy brown hair in a ponytail, ready to do some serious swimming. I told her last year to let her artificially straightened, newly blonde hair grow back to its natural state to test whether Keats would still like her. It seems he still does.
I’m fifteen minutes late, but instead of the usual frown that my anal-retentive friend used to greet me for my tardiness, Isabella just looks relieved.
“Hi, Jess. Thanks for coming,” she says, getting off the eatery seat where she was waiting for me. She shoulders her gear bag and we make our way down to the entrance of the Olympic-sized indoor pool. “It would have been way too weird going by myself with Keats. Thank goodness he’s running late, too.”
I got the call from her last night about swimming after work tonight. I cancelled watching a movie with Neil to make it here, which is a big sacrifice because coffee with him the other week had been fun. That had been followed by lunch last week, which ended with the movie date invitation for tonight.
But there’s no way I was going to let Keats be alone with Isabella. They had chemistry once after all. Oh, and there is the wedding to save, of course. Besides, I have inside info that he’s horny as hell. That whole celibacy thing.
Isabella texts Keats that we’re inside, puts her bag down on a seat along the long edge of the Olympic-length pool and strips off her top and shorts, until only black bikini bottoms and a royal blue tankini remains. She looks like she’s gained weight in the month she’s been back living with her folks, and is now back to an Australian size 8—a size I would kill for—but her gown is a size 6.
“The dress doesn’t fit me again. I swear, my mother has no concept of a pre-wedding diet,” she complains.
I wish I had a parent who cooked me meals.
“She wants you to come over, by the way,” she continues. “Her plans to fatten people up doesn’t stop with me. You swimming tonight?”
I look at her tight body again. There’s no way I’m standing in swimwear next to that.
“No. Just here to chaperone.”
She winces. “Please don’t make it obvious though, okay? It was weird to say yes to tonight, but I thought it would be weirder to say no. Byron said he was okay with me going swimming with his brother. But, he’s so trusting.”
I nod with a thoughtful expression.
“I mean, Keats and I are over so it should be fine?” Isabella looks at me for confirmation. “People do stuff with their brothers-in-law, right? I didn’t want to read too much into this invitation.”
“Husbands do things with their brothers-in-law. Not wives with their brothers-in-law.”
Isabella nods, mouth tight with consternation. She exhales a slow breath as if to destress. “So, how was your lunch date with Neil?”
I shrug, unsure how much to tell her. Isabella had lived in England for five years before coming back to Australia for a few months last year. We might’ve shared (most of) our crushes and boy angst in high school, but she and I had never discussed our relationships before—we hadn’t had any till after she left Brisbane after uni.
“It was fine,” I say. I’d told Jillie more, like how flirty Neil had been. “But we’re going to have Friday night drinks tomorrow.”
“Oh, that sounds promising.” She gives my hand a squeeze, but her smile freezes a second later. “Oh crap, he’s here,” Isabella says under her breath. “Hi, Keats!” A big smile that looks genuine. I wonder what else she fakes if she can be this convincing.
“Hey. Sorry I’m late,” he says, walking up to her with a wry smile. He leans in and gives her a kiss on the cheek before he looks up and notices me. “Hey, Jess. You swimming?”
“Hell, no,” I say.
He raises a brow at me, probably wondering what I’m doing here if I’m not participating. I hate the fact he looks hot in tracksuit pants and a T-shirt, his nicely muscled biceps exposed. I want to be less attracted to him. I should be less attracted to him.
“Jess’s going to make sure I don’t drown. I’ve never been a very strong swimmer.” Even if Keats bought that lame excuse, Isabella’s guilty expression is a dead giveaway.
“I thought that’s why I’m here?”
“No, you’re my swimming buddy. I need to do laps regularly to fit back into my wedding dress.”
I pretend to scratch my nose to hide my smile. That felt so good listening to Isabella put Keats in his place. “Buddy” and “wedding” all in one breath. Take a hint, mate.
Keats slips off his shirt and even Isabella can’t hide her reaction to his body. Her eyes widen at the sight of his lion tattoo and abs that no one who wears a suit all day is supposed to have. Isabella takes a step back and turns away to rifle through her gear bag.
“What are you doing here?” Keats mouths at me while his ex isn’t looking.
I point at Isabella. “She asked me,” I annunciate soundlessly, hiding my disappointment that he’s not that happy to see me.
Isabella turns around, a navy blue cloth swimming cap and pair of goggles in hand. Damn. She is serious about this swimming. She puts the cap against her forehead to hold it in place while she pulls the rest of it over her head. Next, she works her fingers around the elastic, pushing stray hair into the cap.
“You missed a spot,” Keats says, reaching out to tuck the smallest wisp of hair near her temple. The heel of his palm brushes against her cheek, making Isabella suck in her breath and avert her eyes.
“Thanks,” she mumbles, walking away towards the water while she negotiates her tight goggles.
“Smooth, Keats,” I tease as he follows her with his gaze.
“I’m not done yet.” He grabs a pair of goggles from the backpack he’s brought with him, then slips off his pants to reveal fitted black Speedos that only ever look good on competitive swimmers, and him.
Isabella has chosen Lane 8, probably because it’s the widest and it’s closest to the wall. Only two other lanes are currently in use—it seems Thursday night is not exactly swimming night for a lot of people. One lane has a middle aged woman with a floatation belt around her waist and flippers on her feet. The other has a beefy man in his early forties, talking to himself whenever he stops at the ends of his lane.
“How’s the water?” Keats calls out to Isabella.
“Very slightly heated.” She smiles up at him as he bends a knee to dip his opposite foot into the pool.
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” he says, crossing his arms over his pebbled nipples. “That feels colder than usual.”
“Come on, best man,” Isabella goads playfully.
Keats takes in a deep breath and blows it out. “Fuck it,” he says before tucking himself into a cannonball and jumping into the deep end of the pool.
The splash makes Isabella squeal, and reaches me, almost drenching my tablet computer.
“Oi!” I complain.
“Sorry, Jess,” Keats says, winking at me. He pulls his goggles over his head, fitting them over his blue eyes. With his short hair, he doesn’t need a swimming cap, and with his hair wet and his body covered in water droplets—I’m in danger of melting into a pool of hormones. “So, what now?” he asks Isabella. “Do I race you to the other end?”
She chuckles. “Yeah, right. Not unless three laps for you counts as one for me.”
“We can do that.”
“All right then. Off you go. You can use that side of the lane. I’ll stay over here. Don’t watch me, okay? You just keep on swimming.”
Keats grins before he pushes off and does a leisurely freestyle. Isabella flashes me a grateful smile before pushing off herself. Her version of freesty
le isn’t so smooth. Her arms don’t quite glide through the water optimally, and her legs barely make a splash behind her. It’s kind of painful to watch. I just want to dive in there and coach her but that would mean getting in a pool in public. I sit on the bench at about the halfway mark just in case Isabella does need saving.
Keats reaches the other end of the lane before Isabella is even halfway through her first lap. He does an impressive underwater tumble and pushes off, passing Isabella on his way back to the deep end. By the time Isabella, touches the wall at the shallow end of her first fifty metres, she’s out of breath and Keats is just two seconds behind her.
“You okay?” I hear him ask her. The silence of the mostly empty facility allows his voice to travel back to me.
“I haven’t swum laps in years. I suck more than I thought.”
“It’s just practice.” His gentleness is heartbreaking. I consider walking away but it’s like a train wreck that I can’t turn away from.
“Did you really do three laps?” Isabella keeps herself submerged to her chin.
Keats nods, smiling.
“How did you do that?” Her smile is reserved, and appropriately not flirty. “You don’t even look tired.”
He stands up, and in the shallow end, the water only reaches halfway up his abs. Isabella stays low in the water, whether to escape the chill from the persistent, cold spring air or to hide her body, or both, I’m not sure. But she keeps at least a metre away from her ex-boyfriend.
“If you lift your legs higher up in the water, that would reduce your drag and actually help propel you forward. You got a kickboard?”
Isabella shakes her head.
“You kinda need to…” He stops and mimes a beautiful freestyle stroke out of the water. “You need to lengthen your body more—try to use your core to pull your legs higher in the water.”
“That sounds like an awful lot to remember. I’m practically drowning here.”
“It’s easy. Here.” He takes a step towards her.
Isabella takes a matching step back.
“No, I’m fine. I’ve got it. Thanks.” She pushes off and swims away, looking even more uncoordinated while she tries to lift her legs up to the surface.
Keats looks at me and shakes his head before swimming after her.
I watch him cut through the water with relaxed-looking strokes, legs long and kicking behind him, flicking water as he easily passes by Isabella again. He’s waiting for her by the time she reaches the other end.
She returns his smile as she clings onto the side of the pool but her eyes suddenly pop out when she spots her left hand. “Fuck. My ring!”
Isabella dives back under the water, bobs up, duck dives again, bobs up and barely gets in a breath before diving back in.
Keats grabs her by the shoulder when she next surfaces. She’s such a shorty, the water is way over her head where she’s searching. “I’ll look for it.”
He dives down, his outline under the water scouring the floor of the swimming pool. He’s under for at least a minute and I actually stand up wondering if I have to dive in to save his chivalrous arse from drowning.
Isabella’s expression is stricken like she lost her fiancé instead of a piece of jewellery. Hands clasped together as if in prayer, her brow knotted as she watches Keats search underwater. When he finally pops up, he’s got the heart-shaped diamond ring between his thumb and forefinger, holding it out to her like he’s proposing.
Isabella smiles in relief and gives him a brief hug before motioning for me to take her engagement ring for safe-keeping. Keats follows her with his eyes as she hands me the symbol of Byron’s offer of marriage.
“All right. I better make my way back. Don’t wait for me,” Isabella instructs Keats, then waits till he’s set off. After, she goes on her back and floats leisurely for a bit, her arms moving at her sides like she’s making snow angels with tiny wings.
“That doesn’t look like exercise,” I tell her.
“I need a breather,” she says but rolls into a weird kind of breast stroke which keeps her head out of the water.
Keats stops when she accidentally kicks him. Isabella clings onto the wall while he treads water.
“I’m sorry. I like swimming but I suck.”
“That’s all right. The important thing is you’re trying. You gonna be okay?”
She nods, and he sets off first because I think he finally gets the fact she’s self-conscious of her strokes.
I turn on my tablet and connect to my mobile’s Wi-Fi. Miz Peggy’s inbox is full of requests for advice. Lately, the number of emails has been so overwhelming that I’ve put a disclaimer on the site that I can’t answer everything. I’ve taken to choosing only the most interesting or popular lines of questioning.
Tonight there are quite a few questions about plus-size bridal wear. I’ve added a new service to the site—wedding advice, products and services for the full-figured bride. Preparing for Isabella’s big day has shown me what a lucrative industry it is, and that it’s much more enjoyable for me to rate cake shops and bouquets than low-fat edible undies and sex toys.
I must be getting old.
***
“How many laps did you end up doing?” Keats asks Isabella as they pull themselves out of the pool an hour later.
“I was aiming for one kilometre, so twenty?”
“So I must’ve just swum three ks.” He purses his lips thoughtfully. “I usually try for four in an hour.”
Isabella’s eyes widen. “Four ks? I would die. My muscles are killing me now.” She gingerly rotates her right arm forward.
“We should stretch,” Keats suggests. He stops drying himself, and shoulders his towel. “Here. Give me your hands.”
Isabella sneaks a look at me before trusting him with her appendage. Keats takes her hands gently in his opposite ones and crosses them over at the wrists.
“Okay, put your feet together in front of you and pull back like you’re sitting. Head down though. Can you feel that stretch?”
“It hurts.”
“We’ll do it gently. How’s that?”
“Better.”
“Okay, we’ll do it the other way, too.” He lets go of her left hand so he can grab it under the right one this time. “How’s that?”
Isabella straightens up and moves her shoulders gently to test them.
“Pretty good.”
Keats grins. “Great. You wanna come here again on Monday night? I can fit in two sessions next week.”
“Erm…” Isabella looks at me at the same time Keats does.
He nods faintly, urging me to encourage her to see him again. Right, like I would want that. Although, if she sees him, then I get to see him, too.
“I’m free on Monday.” That comment makes both of them ever so slightly frown at me.
“Great,” Keats says without the same enthusiasm as the word suggests. “I’ll see you both here. Jess, you need a ride home?”
Do I? If I’d known this would be the result of foiling his plans, I would make my double cross more obvious in future.
“I can take her home,” Isabella offers.
“I live closer,” Keats points out.
“Erm, okay. If that’s fine with Jess.”
I shrug like I don’t care.
“Okay, well, I need to shower and change. I’ll see you guys on Monday.”
Keats watches as Isabella wraps her beach towel around her slimmed down body and heads for the change rooms. He’s probably hoping she’d look over her shoulder at him. As soon as she’s beyond hearing range he turns to me and says, “You’re killing me here, Hay-gen. You’re not even swimming. I need some alone time with Isabella.” He pulls on his shirt and pants now that the show’s over, and hangs his towel around his neck.
“She doesn’t want alone time with you.”
“She worried she can’t control herself?” he asks with his usual swagger as we walk out of the public pool.
“No, you dumb fuck. S
he’s rightly worried you’re not over her.”
“Hm.”
I study his face, noticing the worry in his eyes.
“Do you really, honestly still want to be with Isabella? She and Byron seem pretty happy.”
“I can make her happier.”
“But would she make you happier?” Like I want to make you happy.
He doesn’t respond immediately, and when I look at him to see why, I find him biting his lower lip with a pensive expression on his face.
“I was happy when we were together. I was miserable when she left.” He shrugs.
“Are you still miserable now?”
“Only when she’s around and totally brushing me off.” He follows this with a mirthless laugh.
“I know how that feels,” I mumble to myself, alarmed when Keats raises an intrigued brow at me. I shake my head and he luckily lets me off without prying.
“It sucks extra when she and Byron are right in front of me,” he finishes.
We walk the rest of the way to his car in silence, our steps lit only by the street lamps that line the footpath at regular intervals.
“So, can you arrange to be busy on Monday?” he asks me.
“Isabella would cancel on you if I do. I guarantee it.”
“She doesn’t trust me that much?”
“She’s not stupid.”
“Shit.” He bites the tip of his thumb, thinking. When we reach his car, he unlocks the sporty Audi to put his gear in the tiny boot. “Maybe you can beg off once we’re all here. She’ll be less likely to leave then.”
“Remind me again why I would do that for you?”
“Because we’re buddies,” he says, putting a friendly arm over my shoulders and squeezing me to his side.
I stiffen at the contact as my whole body tingles in response.
Keats misreads my reaction and immediately pulls away, mumbling an apology for touching me as he lets us both into his sports car.
Chapter 22
Early-October
Is that a dent on my wall? I study the mark on the plasterboard just above my headboard from where I lie trying to catch my breath in the middle of the bed. It’s the first week of October and the early morning spring sun is high enough to illuminate my entire bedroom clearly. I tap my bare heel against the surface, causing a hollow thud to sound. It’s pretty solid. Maybe that’s not a dent. A smudge I’ve never noticed before?
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