by Mia Madison
I’ve been looking forward to that with equal amounts of anticipation and dread. She’s having a Hawaiian-themed party by the pool. It will be great except for two things; Gavin will be there, and I’ll have to wear something skimpy. With nowhere to hide.
CHAPTER 6
Gavin
I said Kate could do anything she wanted for her birthday, and I’m pleased she wants to throw a party at home rather than at that Fruit bar or some other godawful place. But then the alarm bells start ringing in my head.
My plan was to go out and leave Kate and her friends to it, but Kate insists she wants me there at her party, and asks me to stick around, in case anything gets out of hand.
I can’t say no to that, but it means there’s no way I’ll be able to keep entirely out of Lindsay’s way.
It’s not like I’m going to jump her bones as soon as I see her, but the less I think about how good that would be, the better. I ask Kate if it’s okay to invite Bob and Mary, seeing as the girls spent more time at their house than they did at ours over the years.
“Course you can. That will make it more fun for you.”
A few more responsible adults won’t go amiss. But the main reason I want them there is that they are the very people to prevent me even thinking about showing any kind of feeling for Lindsay, other than the fatherly kind.
But Lindsay shows up with a gift early in the afternoon of Kate’s birthday, hours to go before anything starts.
It seems Lindsay has come early so she and Kate can put the finishing touches to their outfits, and so she can help get things ready for the party.
I get out of there, put some music on the sound system and start tidying the pool area. Maybe fresh air, distance and David Bowie will take my mind off her sweet face and curves.
As Bowie belts out “The Man Who Sold the World,” the girls come outside to present their outfits, Kate dragging Lindsay by the hand over to where I’m hosing down the terrace, as if she doesn’t want to be shown off.
“Dad, what do you think?”
Fuck me! Bikini tops, pink grass mini skirts and floral garlands don’t leave much to the imagination. I’m not sure Kate should go out in public like that, but it’s Lindsay who is having an effect on me. Jeez. That cleavage and bare stomach. Give a guy a break.
“They’re a bit revealing, darling. I mean, you’re not little girls anymore.”
Kate bursts out laughing while her friend blushes. “What did you think we were going to wear at a Hawaiian party? Raincoats?”
I have to laugh too. Laugh and turn to get on with cleaning the patio. One look at Lindsay and my cock wants to burst right out of my pants.
“Oh, I promised to call Paul with directions,” Kate says. “It looks like you’re almost done with that. Can you help Lindsay with the decorations?”
“Yeah, all right.” I can’t say no. It’s Kate’s birthday, and I’m supposed to be helping, and so is Lindsay.
“I put them in the old garage.” Kate waves us off. She smiles at her phone, her mind already on her boyfriend.
The old garage is the one behind the house, that I left standing when I built a new, attached one. It’s part of the garden now. I like to think it adds a bit of character. Kate thinks we should knock it down and put a hot tub or a sauna there.
I follow Lindsay along the little path between the shrubs, finding it hard to keep my eyes anywhere but on her back, her legs, her ass, the garish pink strands of her skirt shimmying as she walks. Her long dark hair hides the straps of her bikini top. She could be topless if I didn’t know better. Just as well she has no clue how I feel about her. At least, I hope she doesn’t.
When we go in by the side door, the breeze blows the rickety door shut behind us. It’s dark in there out of the sun. Bowie blasting out of the iPad speakers feels like a world away. And we’re alone. I sense rather than see Lindsay in the gloom of the garage, the fresh smell of her perfume, and something good, indefinably Lindsay. We need to grab the decorations and get the hell out of there.
CHAPTER 7
Lindsay
The old garage is cool and damp. When the door clatters shut, I give a little shiver, but it’s not from the temperature. Gavin is so close, I smell the citrus of his aftershave and the male scent of him. I feel the heat from his body, my breath uneven, as if I’m anticipating his touch. I’m being ridiculous, but I can pretend anything in the dark, and I can’t help wanting him.
His bare arm brushes mine, and I swear every hair on my body stands on end at the feel of his skin for that brief moment.
“There’s a light switch here somewhere,” he says, his voice creating a hot, thick sensation in my belly. “Yeah, over there. I remember.”
“I’ll just…” He brushes past me again, the whole of him this time, and I gasp, heat flooding my core.
“Hey.” He grabs my hand. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t.”
But he doesn’t let go of my hand, doesn’t put on the light, and I should be scared because without any further words between us, he pulls me to him, and we are kissing as if we don’t have a moment to lose, hard and deep. A moan escapes my lips. I don’t believe it. I’m kissing Gavin. And he’s kissing me right back. Oh my god.
I’ve been kissed before, but never this thoroughly, and never by someone I wanted to kiss as much as this. The butterflies in my stomach do triple Salchow loops as I feel his hard body against me and his mouth takes possession of mine.
And then it becomes more than a kiss. I grasp his shirt, his ass. I want to touch him everywhere. His hands are on my bikini top, pulling it away to the sides, exposing my breasts to the cool air. He bends his head, kissing me there, sucking at my nipples. My fingers are in his hair, my body one mass of red hot need as he sucks.
I hear footsteps and frantically pull Gavin off me and adjust my bikini. I only need to say one word “Kate” for him to get it. I smooth down my hair and hope she doesn’t notice my red mouth or face.
Gavin reaches for the light and switches it on, and we look at each other, stunned speechless for a moment, before we start rummaging around at all the various boxes of drink, plates and glasses Kate put there, looking for the ones with party decorations.
As the footsteps get nearer, Gavin murmurs, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
What does that mean? Not here? Or not ever?
There’s no time to ask. We just manage to gather up all the fairy lights, candle lanterns and flower decorations from the piles of party stuff when she opens one of the main garage doors. God, I hope she doesn’t notice anything odd.
But Kate is in full-on party mode. “Aren’t the decorations lovely?” she says. “It’s going to be a great evening. Paul is on his way. I thought we might start early, seeing as Lindsay and I are already dressed. We can have a snack and a drink before we decorate.”
My mind in complete turmoil, I make sandwiches in the kitchen, pleased to have something to distract me, while Kate whizzes up some fruity cocktail-type drink. I can’t help sneaking looks at Gavin. Did all that in the garage mean anything, or could I have been any woman in a bikini in the dark? Did he just mean he shouldn’t have done that with me?
He seems perfectly normal, chatting away to Kate, as if he kisses all his daughter’s friends like that, as if it’s something he does to women he meets in dark garages every day. How can he be so nonchalant when he just turned the world as I know it upside down?
It’s only when Kate goes off to answer the door that Gavin says, “I should regret that, but I can’t. Even so, we had better not do it again.”
CHAPTER 8
Gavin
I can’t look at Lindsay with Kate and Paul in the room. If I look at her, I’ll want her. I’ll give away how I feel about her in front of everyone, especially now that I’ve kissed her, and had my hands and my mouth on her soft, sweet flesh. So beautiful, so full of life and such a good friend to Kate. I can’t ruin that.
Exactly wh
y I knew I shouldn’t go there.
But I did. Fuck!
I don’t know what happened in the garage. The dark? Her scent? That sexy-as-sin outfit? The way she gasped when I accidentally brushed past her? The whole situation took over my brain. I should have stayed away, told Kate no to the pool party. Taken her and her new boyfriend out to dinner at some swanky place.
Who am I kidding? I’ve been thinking about Lindsay for too long. I rarely see her, but when I do it is as if the place lights up.
If Lindsay is not cool with me losing my head in the garage, it could end up being such a fucking mess. And I only have myself to blame.
Kate has made some kind of drink she calls Sangria in a big punch bowl. Sangria? Christ, that stuff would blow the head off a mule.
“What on earth did you put in that?” I ask her. “Do you want the guests to go around like zombies after a couple of glasses?”
“Oops,” she says. “Is it that bad? Drink some of it, and I’ll add another carton of fruit juice or soda or something once there’s room.”
“I don’t think I’d better drink any more of that,” Lindsay says. “It’s going right to my head already.”
She wanders inside. She looks okay to me. Scratch that. She looks fucking good.
Kate busies herself serving Paul with more sandwiches and snacks. They prattle away, getting on well. He seems like an okay guy. I’m pleased she found someone who seems to treat her right. She looks up. “Can you see if Lindsay is all right, Dad?”
I expected her to come out before now. I’ve avoided going in to find her so far. But now, it’s as if Kate is pushing us together, though I’m sure she has no clue. She’s too much in new-boyfriend mode to notice. Probably just as well.
Lindsay is in the kitchen, holding her wrists under cold running water. She looks at me, blushes and turns away. “I had to get out of the sun. And that drink, whatever Kate put in it…”
“Out of the sun or away from me?”
“A bit of both.” She can’t look at me.
“Right.” What the fuck have I done? Who in their right mind comes onto their daughter’s best friend?
“You said we had better not do that again.” She glances at me, her face about to crumple as she speaks. Did I upset her by saying never again?
I don’t want her to cry. Because of me. About anything. I want to put my arms around her and make her feel better. “Almost as soon as I said it, I knew I was talking crap.”
“Oh?”
“I can’t stay away from you. Not now.”
She turns off the water and grabs the kitchen towel. “It’s just that…you were probably right to say that. Kate will hate it.”
“Yes, she probably will. Just as well one of us is making sense today. If I kiss you again, give me a big slap.”
“It’s not your fault. I wanted to kiss you.”
CHAPTER 9
Lindsay
He can’t know he’s been kissing me in my head for months, or that the reality was so much better than my imagination. He takes my hands, still cold from the water, and warms them in his. And just that simple touch, his closeness makes me want to kiss him all over again. He looks down at my hands in his, as if chewing something over in his head, and then he looks up and I want to lose myself in his eyes. “Look, today is not the day. We’ll have to keep our distance at the party. But I’ll talk to Kate and see if I can make this okay.”
“You really think you can do that?” He knows her as well as I do, but…
“She’s a big girl. And she loves us both. Maybe she’ll cope better than we think.”
“I’m not sure about that.”
He pulls a face. I can tell he’s not sure either. “Anyway, that’s for another day. We had better go back out.”
It’s time to wind the fairy lights around the trees, and distribute the candles and flowers around the little cloth-covered tables that Kate rented for her party.
I’m acutely aware of every movement Gavin makes and of everything I do that he can see. His words keep coming back to me—and that kiss. But there’s nothing I can do about any of it now.
I have to be careful not to make my attraction to him too obvious, and I make myself busy until the other guests start arriving. Once the party is in full swing, it’s easier to focus on what’s going on so I don’t spend the whole time watching him or thinking about what happened. Even so, my eyes sometimes follow him. I can’t seem to help that.
There’s dancing, but I don’t dance with him. I wouldn’t dare and he doesn’t ask me.
I drink more of Kate’s lethal concoction. And she makes a slightly weaker version. Too late, as pretty much everyone is already feeling the effects of the first batch.
Mom comes up to me around ten o’clock. “Everything seems to be under control, so we’re going to shoot off.” I think she’s at a different party from me. It seems anything but controlled to me in all kinds of ways. “Do you want to come home, too? People will start drifting off soon.”
“No, I’ll stay until the end. It’s Kate’s birthday.”
“Okay then, we’ll catch you in the morning. Just be careful. You’ve had a lot to drink.”
She gives me a hug, and I wave bye to Dad.
I’m hoping without my parents there, Gavin will find a place where we won’t be disturbed. And he can kiss me again.
But he keeps his distance. He told me not tonight, and it seems he means it.
And then the games begin.
Kate, hater of swimming pools, suggests we all jump in. Paul and another guy, I think his name is Ryan, peel off their Hawaiian shirts, grab her hands and go for it. It’s not deep. No one is going to drown, but I watch Gavin keeping an eye on everything. Most of the girls, fearful for their hair and makeup, don’t follow Kate’s lead.
“What about your Dad?” Paul says to Kate. “Come in, Mr. Day. The water’s lovely.”
“Just keeping an eye on you guys,” Gavin says.
“Come in, Lindsay,” Kate calls over to me. “You never swim in the pool.”
I don’t want to say, “Neither do you.”
When Kate and everyone else turn their attention elsewhere, Gavin comes up behind me and whispers, “Go ahead, jump in, I’d like to see you in the pool.” His breath on my neck and the heat of his body behind me send a shiver of desire right through me, and my nipples tighten.
I pull off my garland and untie my grass skirt, sucking in my stomach. I get a low whistle from behind me where I know Gavin is still standing as I step over to the side and slip into the pool with as much dignity as I can. The water is cold in contrast to the heat of the evening, and I gasp.
One by one, Kate persuades everyone to get into the water, Gavin telling them just to jump or slide in from the side, not to dive.
And in the end, when everyone is in and no one has had any kind of mishap with diving in and hitting their head on the bottom of the pool, Gavin peels off his shirt and jumps in, too, carrying a ball, and we start to throw it around, girls versus boys, in a kind of water polo game without rules or nets, the boys jumping on any girl who gets the ball and vice versa.
Gavin stays close to me, not so close anyone would notice, but he’s not letting me out of his sight. When Kate passes me the ball, he grabs me from behind and wrestles me for it before anyone else can tackle me, and throws it to Ryan. As the play moves on, Gavin checks to make sure I’m okay, that he wasn’t too rough. I’m more than okay. That’s the most he’s touched me since the garage.
“You look fucking sexy with your bikini top all wet,” he says in my ear, and I feel all warm inside, despite the cold water. I can’t wait for what comes next.
In the end, there’s no opportunity for any kind of “next” after the game. Once we’re out of the water, Kate has piles of towels to give out, but we’re all chilled and after hot chocolate in the kitchen, it’s time to go home. I hug Kate and thank her for a great party and then I go home to replay the best parts of the day in my head. He wan
ts me! I hardly believe it, but he does.
*
After the party, I don’t see Gavin for five long weeks.
Is he avoiding me? I’m not sure. Is he waiting for the right time to speak to Kate? I don’t think there’ll ever be a good time to do that. Maybe in the cold light of day, he thought better of it.
He doesn’t seem to be around whenever I’m at Kate’s house, though I don’t see as much of her as I used to. She’s out with Paul a lot of the time. She’s in love again, and when I see her, she wants to talk about him and not her dad, funnily enough.
I envy her. She can be open and honest about what she’s up to and how she feels. She can meet up with her guy any time she likes.
All I can do is listen to Gavin on his radio show. I catch the odd song where I think, did he play that for me? He plays “I’ve Had the Time of my Life” today, but I have to tell myself I’m being ridiculous. Why would he do that and not speak to me at all? And now that I’ve experienced the real thing, a voice and a song, even if he plays all his songs for me, are not enough.
CHAPTER 10
Gavin
Bob and Mary are out. I saw them leave. Bob told me he was taking Mary out of town for their anniversary and they’ll be away all night. He asked me if I could keep an eye on the house and on Lindsay. “I’m sure she’ll be okay, but just in case,” he said.
And now Kate is out with her boyfriend.
It’s dangerous knowing Lindsay is home alone, no one there but her and her dog, and for once I’m alone, too. My schedule has been crazy lately with all kinds of promotion work, too lucrative to turn down when it lands in my lap. I’m doing everything I can to distract myself from what I really want to do.
I’m tempted to go next door, but I can’t. Good sense tells me I should stay away, that it will cause all kinds of problems with Kate, and probably with Lindsay’s family too.
I busy myself taking out the trash, doing the laundry, cleaning the place up like I don’t pay for a service to do it. But it’s not taking my mind off Lindsay. She’s next door. Alone. How can I stop myself going over there?