by Nikki Sloane
“What now?” I groaned.
When I read the contents of the letter, I got so angry, I turned and headed for her house, cutting across the Lowes’ lawn and marching up her front porch steps. I stabbed my finger on the doorbell and crossed my arms over my chest, waiting for her to answer.
Like me, Judy was a relatively young divorcee who lived alone, but that was where our similarities stopped. She’d been married to a wealthy attorney, and the rumor was she simply lived off her cushy alimony. She didn’t have a job, other than making ridiculous rules for her neighbors.
Either Judy wasn’t home, or she was purposefully not coming to the door when she saw it was me, clutching her letter in my angry fist. I sighed, both impatient and frustrated.
“This is bullshit,” I said, not caring if she heard.
I stomped off her porch and was halfway back to my house when I heard water splashing, music playing, and conversations coming from the Lowes’ backyard. Was Dr. Lowe having a pool party?
I went to the gate on the side and stuck my head over the top. Sure enough, there were several people on floats in the pool or lounging on the deck with drinks in hand. Most of them looked to be Preston’s age. Dr. Lowe was close by, manning the grill while wearing only his swim trunks.
Since he was a trauma surgeon at the hospital, it was rare he was home. I needed to take the opportunity to talk to him while I could.
“Hey, Greg,” I called. “You got a second?”
Greg’s gaze lifted from the hamburgers and he spotted me through the haze of the grill. “Sure, come on in.”
I opened the gate and followed the landscaped stone steps toward him.
He flipped one of the burgers confidently with a spatula. This was a man who was an expert with a tool in his hand, although typically it was a scalpel.
He took a sip from his can of beer and then put his focus on me. “What’s up?”
“Honestly? I just need to vent,” I said. “I got a fifty dollar fine today from the HOA for putting my trash out too early.” I lifted the letter and read the section out loud. “Per our rules, trash receptacles must not be placed at the curb before dark, however yours were witnessed this past Sunday at the end of your drive at 8:03 p.m. Twilight does not conclude until after 8:20.” I gave him a pointed look. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
He shook his head and looked pissed on my behalf. “She’s out of control.”
“Who are we talking about?” Greg’s girlfriend asked, padding over to the grill. Troy had said her name was Cassidy.
She was young and beautiful, looking effortless in her black string bikini. She stood close to Greg and, as if their bodies were attuned to each other, he leaned back toward her. He was in his forties and she in her twenties, but they made a handsome couple despite the age difference. Maybe it was because they looked very much in love.
“Judy Maligner,” Greg said. “Erika got fined for putting out her garbage too early.”
Cassidy’s smile died and she shot a glare over her shoulder toward Judy’s house. “I kind of hate her.”
As he focused on me, his expression was filled with regret. “So, I kind of think this is my fault.”
I tilted my head. “What?”
He let out a tight breath. “Judy thinks my relationship with Cassidy is . . . inappropriate.”
His girlfriend snorted. “Yeah, because she’s a sore loser and doesn’t know how to mind her business.”
Sore loser? Had Judy wanted to date Greg?
That made sense. He was attractive, young, and a doctor.
Whatever face I was making must have asked for an explanation, because he set down his spatula and turned serious.
“Last year, Judy and I exchanged words, and not too many of them were nice. Things escalated, and since then, she looks for every opportunity to make our lives difficult. All these bullshit rules the HOA is implementing? They’re hers, designed to get at us.”
“She’s got the whole board wrapped around her finger,” Cassidy added. “They do whatever she says.” Her expression shifted and she looked smug. “I’m the devil girl who seduced Greg to the dark side. What they don’t know is I draw my power from their dirty looks.”
All my anger about the stupid fine Judy had slapped on me channeled toward this new information. Who the hell did this judgmental woman think she was? Cassidy was right. Who Greg dated was none of Judy Maligner’s business.
“Judy has always had a giant stick up her ass,” I said, “and a holier-than-thou attitude. I thought that was why she was doing this. I didn’t realize she was targeting y’all.”
He either took it in stride or put on a brave face for his girlfriend’s benefit. “It’s all right. Nothing we can’t handle.” He nodded toward the people in the pool. “What’s the verdict?”
Cassidy brightened. “Everyone wants a burger except Lilith.”
He nodded and began counting the patties on the grill but paused as he thought about something. “You want one, Erika?”
“Oh, that’s nice and it smells great, but no. Thank you.”
“You sure? We’ve got plenty of food.”
I smiled. “I’m sure. Are you celebrating something?”
His tone was warm as he exchanged a look with his girlfriend. “It’s Cassidy’s birthday.”
“Oh. Happy birthday,” I told her.
She grinned. “Thanks.” And then she leaned in, setting a hand on Greg’s shoulder. “You need anything? Another beer?”
He picked up his can to evaluate how much he had left. “That’d be great.”
As Cassidy left us, it was good timing for me to make my exit. I was out of place in slacks and a blouse, while everyone else at the party was in swimsuits. Plus, Greg and I were the only ones who didn’t appear to be in their twenties. But I didn’t move. I was rooted to the ground beside the grill, partially obscured from the partygoers’ view by a crepe myrtle bush.
My voice was low, but loud enough for Greg to hear over the music and sizzling grill. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
If that made him nervous, he didn’t show it. “Sure.”
“Dating someone a lot younger than you are. Is it hard?” I frowned. “I mean, do you worry about what other people think, or—”
“No,” he answered quickly. “In the beginning, yeah, it was tough. Especially for her because people assumed the worst. I was just the guy with the trophy girlfriend. And Judy’s been a real piece of work.” His gaze drifted toward the pool and all the people there, oblivious to our conversation. “The hardest part for us was our situation with Preston. Once we got a handle on that, we didn’t really care what other people thought.”
I nodded, not sure what to say. His priorities were absolutely in the right place.
“It gets easier too,” he added. “In a few more years, she’ll be in her late twenties and no one will care we’re together.”
He saw his relationship with Cassidy going the distance, even with how complicated the dynamic was with his son. My relationship with Troy had less obstacles. Just my friendship with Jenna, and how Troy was my client. Easy by comparison to Greg and Cassidy.
“So . . .” Greg’s expression turned devious, “you and Troy, huh?”
“What?” I blurted out. His direct question rattled me, and I groaned my irritation. “Did Preston tell you?”
He laughed. “No, I made an educated guess. I was on-call last week, and when I came home, I noticed Troy’s Jeep in your driveway—at four a.m.”
I threw my hands up in the air, because why fight it? It felt sort of good that people knew, and there was no judgment in his eyes. I tucked my mail under my arm and twined my fingers together. “Okay, yeah. Troy and I . . . I don’t know how it happened. But it has.”
“Hey,” he sounded amused, “if anyone’s going to understand, it’s going to be me.” His expression turned thoughtful. “My unsolicited and clichéd advice? Do what makes you happy. That’s coming from someone who spends a lot of t
ime dealing with the unexpected, like motorcycle accidents, strokes, and aneurysms.” It carried far more weight than a simple platitude. “Life is short.”
There was a loud splash from the pool, followed by the playful screams of those who’d gotten drenched.
“You’re an asshole, Preston,” a girl scolded.
It broke the tension between Greg and I, and he turned, pulling down a branch of the crepe myrtle to check on his son. What I didn’t realize until the flowering branch was out of my way, was I recognized one of the guys sitting at the edge of the pool, his feet dangling in the water. He laughed as a girl wrapped her arms around Preston’s shoulders and tried to dunk him.
Greg heard my sharp intake of breath. “Oh, yeah. Preston invited him.”
It was surreal to see Troy like this, and an uncomfortable pain banded across my midsection. Wasn’t this how he was supposed to be? Hanging out with friends who were the same age as him? Dating a girl who didn’t know what the other side of twenty years of marriage looked like?
But then his posture stiffened as he went on alert, and it only took a single heartbeat for me to know what had set him off. His eyes, hidden from me behind his sunglasses, had discovered me lurking behind the bush with the other adult. He put his hand down on the concrete so he could pull his feet from the water, and when he stood, he no longer belonged with the rest of these twenty-something-year-olds.
He was meant to be with me.
“You can grab your suit and join us,” Greg said.
I had no idea if he was being genuine or simply polite, but I flashed him a hurried smile. Troy was stalking across the pool deck toward me, and I was coming apart at the seams, both dying to talk to him and desperately not ready. Our date had been fantastic, but it was a baby step to being a true couple and hanging out with Troy’s friends was a gigantic leap I hadn’t prepared for.
“Ms. Graham.” Troy’s hair was wet from the pool, and he wiped a hand over it to push it back out of his eyes. His gaze bounced from me to Greg and back again. “Hey, I haven’t checked on your pool yet. Should I do it now?”
I bit down on my bottom lip, feeling Greg’s knowing gaze burrow into me. “Uh, sure.”
“Cool.” Troy’s coy smile was dazzling. “Let me grab my stuff and I’ll be right over.”
He bounded back the way he’d come, reaching for his bag with his towel, phone, and presumably a shirt.
Greg cleared his throat. “Let him park in your garage. It won’t be long before Judy notices his Jeep, and then I expect she’ll find a way to complain about it.”
“Fucking Judy,” I muttered.
“Yup,” Greg agreed.
TWENTY
Troy
As I got my shit together and stepped into my flipflops, Preston slapped the surface of the pool and flung water at me.
“Where the fuck are you going?” he asked.
His grin said he already knew the answer. He’d seen Erika talking to his dad, and then the way I’d hurried over to her. Could he blame me? She looked so fucking hot today, standing on the stone paver in her skinny pants and off-white shirt, her reddish-brown hair falling past her shoulders.
I wanted to grab a fistful of that hair, jerk her head back, and kiss her until she begged me to fuck her. It was what I’d been planning since Preston invited me over this afternoon. Yeah, I’d wanted to be there for him as he dealt with helping his dad celebrate Cassidy’s birthday, but I’d also been biding my time until Erika got home.
But when I left the Lowe house, let myself in through her gate, and walked up the hill toward her pool, she was nowhere to be found.
“Erika?”
I dropped my bag on one of the loungers and peered toward the windows of the house. We’d come a long way in our relationship but barging in uninvited to her house wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing yet, plus I was still wet from the pool. Maybe she was in her pool house.
Heat rose inside me at that idea. We could role play and reenact when we’d watched each other jerk off, only this time we’d get to do all the things we’d wanted to do then. That could be hot.
But she wasn’t in the pool house either.
I stared at the work bench where she kept her chemicals. Fuck it. I was here and I was supposed to do it anyway. I grabbed the water test kit, went outside, and plunged the plastic collection block elbow deep into the pool, turning it right side up to let it fill with a sample.
I put the drops in and swirled the block, checking all the levels—which were fine. The skimmers were mostly clean, but I emptied them anyway. I dumped the sample water in her rock bed, repeated the process for the spa, put the kit back in the pool house, and measured out the chemicals I needed. She didn’t use her pool much, but it’d been a few weeks since I’d shocked it.
When I came out of the pool house carrying the measuring cup, Erika was standing in the shade of her covered patio. I tossed the cup of powder into the deep end, then set the plastic measuring cup on the table beside the lounger, making my way up the two steps to meet her.
Holy shit.
Around her shoulders was a white, gauzy cover-up, but I was more focused on what was beneath. I gazed at her blue-green bikini with a small ruffle accentuating her magnificent cleavage. “Is that new?” I grinned. “I like it.”
“Thanks.” She seemed distracted as she pulled out a chair at the table to sit. “Can we talk business for a minute?”
“Yup.” I sat in the chair opposite her. “Before I forget, you’re almost out of shock for the pool. Want me to order more for you?”
“What?” She blinked. “Uh, sure, but I need to find someone else to handle that going forward.”
I couldn’t help my teasing, hurt tone, and pressed my hand to my bare chest. “Are you saying I can’t be your pool boy anymore?”
Her smile was humoring me. “I highly doubt you’re going to have the time.” She drew in a deep breath. “And also . . . I can’t be your manager anymore.”
It was warm outside, but the way her voice broke as she said it left me cold. “Sorry, what?”
I hadn’t noticed the papers on the table until she pushed them toward me. “This transfers the copyright of ‘Power’ over to you. I retain the credit, but it’s your song, Troy.”
I picked up the paper and stared at the dense, legal text, but couldn’t process any of it. She was just giving me the song she’d written? “Wait, go back to the part where you said you can’t be my manager anymore.”
Her eyes were wide and full of fear, and it turned my stomach. “Ardy has offered to pay me a finder’s fee and take you on as a client.”
Anger flared inside me. “And you’re just going to let him?”
“No,” she said. “I asked him to.”
“What?” I stood fast, making the chair chatter over the wooden planks of her deck. “Why the hell would you do that?”
She swallowed so hard I saw the bob of her throat. “Because,” she whispered, “if we’re going to have a chance at a future, I can’t be your manager.”
My body froze as her meaning hit me. Future. This was fucking huge. The power of it was enough to drive me to my knees beside her chair and slide a hand into her hair, cupping her cheek.
“Okay, wait.” My voice was as uneven as I felt inside. “Just wait a minute.”
“I don’t want to hide anymore. We do this, and no one’s going to say I took advantage of you, or that you’re just fucking me to get ahead.”
I scowled. Would people think that? Ardy had said he respected my hustle when he’d found out I cleaned Erika’s pool. If he knew we were dating, it was possible he’d think that was true.
Oh, shit. “You don’t think that, do you?”
The corner of her mouth lifted like she was amused I’d even had to ask that question. She covered my hand on her cheek, moving it enough so she could plant a kiss in the center of my palm. Her stunning tenderness lit me on fire. She’d been bossy and needy with me, but never like this.
&nb
sp; “We can tell your parents,” she said.
I wanted that.
Fuck, I wanted all of it out in the open, where I could show her off and not worry about who’d see us together. But I was smart enough to understand there wasn’t much risk for me. My mom was going to love me no matter what, but Erika had a boss who might fire her, and a friendship that could be destroyed.
“I want that,” I said, “but not like this. I don’t want to do it without you.”
Her gorgeous face twisted with anxiety. “Troy.”
My hand firmed beneath hers, and I shot her the most determined look I possessed. “Remember when I wasn’t going to audition if you wouldn’t give me a chance? We do this together.”
“I’m doing this so we can be together.” She lifted my hand away from her face, threaded her fingers through mine, and matched my determination. “Look, I don’t want to hand you off to someone else either, but this is the best I can come up with. I’ll still be a part of the things Warbler offers you.”
“No,” I said. “This is ours.”
Resignation swept through her. She knew I was going to fight her on this, and now she was willing to play the card she didn’t want to have to. “The rights to ‘Power’ are contingent on this deal.”
I shot to my feet, breaking the connection of our hands. “You said it was mine.”
“It is.” Her eyebrows pulled together. “I want you to have it, and I want us together. Don’t you want that too?”
“Yeah, I do, but I also—”
“Part of being an adult is compromise, not getting everything you want.”
I should have been happy. She was giving me so much of what I wanted. The chance at a career with a top-tier manager. The rights to her song. The acknowledgement that what we had wasn’t just casual sex, but more.
But her statement pissed me off.
I hauled her up to her feet, tightening my grasp on her arms. “I’m not some kid you can boss around.”
It was the wrong thing to say because . . . wasn’t that exactly who I’d asked to be to her?