The afternoon sun is a hot, heavy blanket over Johnny’s backyard. He stands at the sliding glass door, looking down at the empty pool. The water is a flat, chemical blue. Paige comes up behind him, her bare feet silent on the tile. She rests her chin on his shoulder, her arms sliding around his waist. Her skin is warm from the sun through the windows.
“What’re you looking at?” she murmurs, her breath against his neck.
“That,” Johnny says, nodding toward the water. “You ever think about it? The day you and Marla came over to swim. Last summer.”
Paige goes still against him. Then a low laugh vibrates through her chest into his back. “Oh my god. That day. I remember.”
He remembers. The memory is a physical ache, a knot of want he’d carried for months. It had been a Tuesday. His parents were at work. Jim was at a friend’s. The house was his, and he’d felt like an imposter in his own skin, all nerves and sharp angles.
“You wore a black one-piece,” he says. His voice is quiet, almost lost to the hum of the pool filter outside. “It wasn’t like… super revealing or anything. It was just a normal bathing suit.”
“Modest,” Paige supplies, her tone teasing. She knows.
“Yeah. Modest.” He swallows. “But it was wet. And it hugged you. Everywhere. Like it was painted on. I could see… everything. The shape of you. The curve of your tits. The line down your stomach. Your ass.”
Paige doesn’t say anything. Her hands flatten against his stomach, holding him tighter.
“You kept diving under,” Johnny continues. The image is crystalline. “You’d come up, and your hair would be slicked back, water running down your neck, into that suit. You’d shake your head and laugh. And you kept looking at me. Teasing me. Asking if I was just gonna sit there and watch. Asking if the water was too cold for me.”
“It was,” she whispers. “You were so red. I thought you were sunburned.”
“I wasn’t sunburned.”
He turns in her arms. Her face is close, her dark eyes wide and serious now. The teasing glint is gone, replaced by something raw. He sees the girl from that day superimposed on the young woman in front of him. The same full mouth. The same knowing look.
“I sat on the edge,” he says, his hands coming up to cradle her face. “My feet in the water. And you swam over. You put your hands on my knees. Your fingers were cold from the water. You looked up at me and said… you said, ‘You’re kinda cute when you’re shy, Johnny McHale.’”
Paige’s breath hitches. “I said that?”
“Yeah. And then you pushed off my knees and swam away. And I just sat there. Hard as a rock. Terrified you’d see. Terrified Marla would see. I didn’t move for like ten minutes.”
“I knew,” she says softly. A confession. “I saw. When you stood up to get a towel. Your shorts were… I saw.”
A jolt goes through him. He’d been so careful. He’d thought he’d hidden it. All that time, she’d known. She’d seen the effect she had on him, the physical proof of it, and she’d just… swam away. Teased him. Let him suffer.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks. His thumbs stroke her cheeks.
“I was scared, too,” she admits. Her gaze drops to his mouth. “I wanted you to do something. I was waiting for you to make a move. I thought… if he wants me, he’ll show me. But you didn’t. You just got a towel and went inside. I was so mad at you. I thought you didn’t want me.”
The admission hangs between them, fragile and huge. All that missed time. All that silent wanting.
“I wanted you,” Johnny says, the words rough. “I wanted you so bad it felt like I was gonna die. I lay in my bed that night and I could still smell the chlorine on my skin. I could still see the water dripping off your eyelashes. I thought about what would’ve happened if I’d just… reached out. If I’d pulled you out of the water. If I’d kissed you right there.”
“What would’ve happened?” Paige’s voice is a thread of sound.
“I don’t know. Maybe we would’ve done it right there on the hot concrete. Maybe Marla would’ve freaked out. Maybe my neighbors would’ve seen. Maybe it would’ve been our first time. Not in a van a month later. Here.”
He looks from her eyes back to the pool. The sun glints off the water, a blinding white shard of light.
“I wish I had,” he says. The regret is a tangible thing, a hollow in his chest. “I wish I’d made a move that day. I wasted a whole month being scared of you.”
Paige is quiet for a long moment. She studies his face, her expression unreadable. Then she takes his hand from her cheek and brings it to her lips. She kisses his knuckles, once, softly.
“Come on,” she says.
She leads him away from the door, through the dim, cool living room, and back out through the kitchen to the side gate. The metal latch clicks. The California heat wraps around them again, thick and dry. She walks ahead of him, across the scorching patio stones, to the pool’s edge.
She turns to face him. Her eyes are dark, determined. Without breaking his gaze, she reaches for the hem of her tank top—a plain white one today—and pulls it over her head. She drops it on a patio chair. Her breasts are bare, the nipples already tightening in the hot air. Her hands go to the button of her denim shorts. She pops it, slides the zipper down. She pushes the shorts and her underwear down her thighs in one motion, stepping out of them. She kicks them aside.
She stands naked at the edge of the deep end. The sun paints her skin gold. Her curls are a dark halo. She is every curve he remembered, every line, but real. His.
“It’s not a black one-piece,” she says. Her voice doesn’t waver. “But it’s the same me.”
She takes a step back and lets herself fall.
The splash is clean, sharp. She disappears under the blue surface. Johnny watches, his heart hammering against his ribs. Seconds pass. Bubbles rise. Then she breaks the surface in the middle of the pool, pushing her hair back from her face. Water streams down her neck, over her shoulders, beading on her collarbones. She looks at him. Exactly like she did a year ago.
“Well?” she calls, treading water. Her voice echoes off the stucco walls. “You just gonna stand there and watch?”
A laugh punches out of him—disbelieving, wild. He’s moving before he thinks. His shoes. His shirt. His jeans. He leaves them in a pile on the hot concrete. He is naked, exposed, his skin prickling in the sun, his cock already half-hard just from looking at her.
He doesn’t sit on the edge. He walks to the steps at the shallow end and descends into the water. The chill is a shock, raising goosebumps on his arms and legs. The water climbs his thighs, his waist, his chest. He starts walking toward her.
Paige watches him come, her expression solemn. She doesn’t smile. She doesn’t tease. She just waits.
He reaches her. The water is at his shoulders here. She is shorter, so she floats, her feet brushing his legs under the surface. They are inches apart. Chlorine stings his nostrils. Her skin is slick and cool where his hands find her hips.
“This is what you should’ve done,” she whispers. Her legs wrap around his waist under the water, locking at the ankles. Her arms circle his neck. Her body presses against his, from chest to thigh. The heat of her cuts through the pool’s chill. He can feel the softness of her stomach against his, the firm points of her nipples. The rough patch of hair between her legs brushes his lower belly.
“I know,” he breathes.
He kisses her. Her mouth tastes like pool water and Paige. She opens for him immediately, her tongue meeting his. The kiss is deep, hungry, a year of wanting poured into it. Her fingers tangle in the hair at the nape of his neck, holding him to her. He groans into her mouth, his hands sliding down to grip the full curves of her ass, holding her tight against him. Under the water, her hips make a slow, grinding circle against his stomach.
He breaks the kiss, gasping. Water drips from his hair into his eyes. “I’m not scared now,” he says.
“Prove it,” she challenges, her eyes blazing.
He walks them backward, her legs still locked around him, until his shoulders bump against the rough wall of the pool. The tile is cool through the water. He adjusts his grip, lifting her slightly. She understands, shifting in his arms, guiding him. Under the surface, hidden from the world, he feels the hot, slick center of her brush against the head of his cock.
He looks into her eyes. She nods, once.
He pushes up into her.
The water changes everything. There’s no dry friction, just a smooth, yielding slide. She is hot and tight inside, a shocking contrast to the cool water surrounding them. She lets out a choked gasp, her head falling forward against his shoulder. He’s fully sheathed in her, their bodies joined in the silent, blue world beneath the surface.
He doesn’t move. He just holds her there, feeling her clench around him, feeling the frantic beat of her heart against his chest. Her breath is ragged in his ear.
“Johnny,” she whispers. It’s not a tease. It’s a prayer.
He starts to move. Slow, at first. Long, deep strokes that make the water swirl around their waists. Her nails dig into his shoulders. Her hips meet each of his thrusts, her body moving with a natural, fluid rhythm. The only sounds are their ragged breathing, the soft lap of water against the tile, the distant drone of the filter.
He kisses her neck, her jaw, her mouth. She tastes of salt and chlorine. Her legs tighten around him. The pace builds. He fucks her harder, driving her back against the pool wall with each thrust. The water sloshes, splashing up onto the deck. Her moans are swallowed by his mouth, by the heavy afternoon air.
Her body begins to tighten around him, a familiar, delicious coil. Her breaths come in sharp, desperate pants against his lips. “Don’t stop,” she begs, her voice breaking. “Please, Johnny, don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. He keeps the pace, deep and relentless, watching her face as she comes apart. Her eyes squeeze shut. Her mouth opens in a silent cry. He feels her inner muscles flutter and clamp around him, a rhythmic, pulsing wave. She trembles violently in his arms, a sob escaping her throat.
The sensation tips him over the edge. His own release crashes through him, a white-hot current that empties him into her. He buries his face in the wet curve of her neck, his hips jerking through the last few, shallow thrusts. A low groan is torn from his chest, muffled against her skin.
They stay like that, locked together, panting, as the waves subside. The water settles around them. The world comes back: the sun, the hum of the filter, a plane droning far overhead.
Slowly, he softens inside her. She loosens her death-grip on his shoulders, her legs sliding down from his waist. Her feet find the bottom of the pool. They are still pressed together, chest to chest, in the shoulder-deep water. Her forehead rests against his collarbone. Her breathing slowly evens out.
He kisses the top of her wet head. “I proved it,” he murmurs.
She lifts her head. Her eyes are clear, sated. A slow, real smile touches her lips—not a tease, not a challenge. Something softer. Something sure.
“Yeah,” she says. Her hand comes up, cups his cheek. Her thumb strokes his cheekbone. “You did.”
She leans in and kisses him, soft and lingering. A seal. A promise.
“We don’t have to wish for that day anymore,” she whispers against his mouth. “We have this one.”
“I wanted you that day, too,” Johnny whispers back, his lips brushing hers with the words.
She hums, a low, satisfied sound in her throat. Her hand slides from his cheek to the back of his neck, fingers playing with the wet ends of his hair. The water laps gently at their shoulders. The sun is a warm weight on the parts of them that are above the surface.
“I know you did,” she says, her voice soft. “I could see it. All over your face. In the way you wouldn’t look at me straight.”
He rests his forehead against hers. Their noses touch. “I was trying to be good.”
“You were being stupid.”
He laughs, a quiet puff of air. “Yeah.”
She kisses him again, not deep, just a press of lips. A punctuation mark. Then she sighs, her body going a little heavier against his. The post-sex languor is settling in, thick and sweet. He can feel his own limbs turning to lead, the pleasant ache in his thighs from holding her up, the dull, satisfied throb between his legs.
“We should get out,” she murmurs, but makes no move to let go.
“In a minute.”
He shifts, just enough to slide his arms more securely around her back. Her skin is slick and cool from the water, but beneath that, she’s warm. He can feel the steady beat of her heart. He looks past her shoulder, at the empty deck chairs, the sliding glass door leading into his dark kitchen. The world is quiet. Suspended. This feels stolen, even now.
“Your parents are gonna be home eventually,” she says, reading his thoughts.
“Not for hours.”
“Jim?”
“At Marla’s until dinner.”
She leans back to look at him, her dark eyes searching his. “So we have the house.”
“We have the house.”
A slow, wicked smile spreads across her face. It’s the Paige-smile. The one that started everything. “Then what are we doing standing in the pool?”
She unwinds her arms from his neck and turns, breaking their contact. The loss of her heat is immediate. She paddles a few feet away, then turns to face him, treading water. Droplets cling to her eyelashes. “Race you to the steps.”
Before he can answer, she’s off, cutting through the water with clean, efficient strokes. He watches her for a second, the flex of her shoulders, the kick of her legs just below the surface. Then he pushes off the wall after her.
He catches her at the steps, his hand closing around her ankle just as she reaches for the railing. She yelps, laughing, and tumbles back into him. They fumble in the shallow water, a tangle of limbs and laughter, until they’re both sitting on the second step, the water lapping at their waists.
“Cheater,” she gasps, shoving his shoulder.
“You had a head start.”
The concrete is rough under his thighs. The air feels cooler now on his wet skin. He looks at her, really looks. Water streams from her hair down her chest, over her breasts. Her nipples are tight from the chill, or from memory. He wants to put his mouth on them. He will, soon.
She stands, water sluicing off her body. She offers him a hand. He takes it, and she pulls him to his feet. They stand dripping on the hot concrete, naked in the broad daylight. There’s no one to see, but the exposure still sends a thrill through him. She doesn’t seem to care. She squeezes the water from her hair with both hands, a practical gesture that is somehow incredibly sexy.
“Towels are in the cabana,” he says, nodding toward the small, wooden structure by the fence.
She doesn’t go for the towels. She walks to the pile of his clothes, picks up his discarded t-shirt, and uses it to roughly dry her face and arms. She tosses it to him. It’s damp and smells like chlorine and her. He wipes his face, his chest.
“Come on,” she says, and turns, walking toward the sliding glass door. She doesn’t look back. She knows he’ll follow.
He scoops up the rest of their clothes—his jeans, her tiny skirt and top, her underwear abandoned somewhere near the door—and follows her inside. The kitchen tiles are cold under his feet. The air-conditioned house is a shock after the humid pool air. She’s already at the sink, drinking water straight from the tap, her back to him. He drops their clothes on a kitchen chair.
She turns, water dripping from her chin. “I’m still sticky.”
“From the pool?”
“From you.”
The words hang in the cool, still air of the kitchen. Direct. Unashamed. A fact.
He crosses the room to her. He doesn’t kiss her. He puts his hands on her hips and turns her gently back toward the sink. “Then we should wash it off.”
He reaches around her for the dish soap. The bright yellow liquid. He squirts a dollop into his palm, then sets the bottle down. With his other hand, he turns on the warm water, testing it with his fingers.
“What are you doing?” she asks, but her voice is curious, not wary.
“Proving something else.”
He wets his soapy hands under the stream, then brings them to her stomach. She inhales sharply as he begins to wash her. His hands move in slow, deliberate circles over the flat plane of her belly, the curve of her hips. The soap is slick, creating a lather on her skin. He washes the chlorine smell away, replaces it with the clean, lemony scent of detergent.
His thumbs dip into the hollow of her navel. She braces her hands on the edge of the sink, her head bowing forward. He moves lower, his soapy fingers sliding through the coarse hair between her legs, over the soft, swollen flesh beneath. He is meticulous. Gentle. Cleaning her of him.
Her breath hitches. Her thighs tremble. He feels her muscles clench under his touch. He works in silence, his focus complete. He washes every fold, every secret place, rinsing her with handfuls of warm water from the tap until the soap is gone and she is clean.
He turns her around. Her eyes are dark, her lips parted. He soaps his hands again and begins on her chest. He washes the slopes of her breasts, the undersides, his thumbs brushing her nipples until they peak hard against his palms. He washes her collarbones, her shoulders, the long line of her neck. He is claiming her in reverse. Not with possession, but with care.
When he is finished, he rinses her one last time. She is shivering, though the water is warm. He reaches for a dish towel hanging on the oven handle. It’s clean, white cotton. He dries her with the same slow thoroughness, patting the moisture from her skin, absorbing the droplets from her hair.
He kneels in front of her. He dries her legs, one at a time, lifting her foot to rest on his thigh so he can dry between her toes. He looks up at her. Her expression is unreadable, solemn. He leans forward and presses a kiss to the inside of her knee. Then the other.
He stands. He is still naked, still wet. She takes the towel from his hands. “My turn.”
She makes him stand still while she dries him. Her movements are less ritualistic, more efficient, but no less intimate. The rough cotton drags over his chest, his arms. She dries his back, her hands firm. She kneels before him, and his breath catches as she dries his thighs, his calves. She does not touch his cock, which is hardening again under her gaze. She simply dries around it, leaving it be.
When she stands, she tosses the damp towel onto the counter. They are both clean, dry, standing in the middle of his parents’ kitchen. The refrigerator hums.
“Now what?” she whispers.
He takes her hand. “Now we don’t waste the house.”
He leads her out of the kitchen, down the hall, past the living room where the TV is dark. The carpet is soft under their feet. His bedroom door is open. The bed is unmade from this morning, sheets tangled.
He doesn’t lead her to the bed. He guides her to the full-length mirror on the back of his closet door. He positions her in front of it, standing behind her, his chest to her back. He meets her eyes in the glass.
“Look,” he says, his voice low.
She looks. At their reflection. At her own naked body, lean and curved and still holding the faint tan lines from her swimsuit. At his body behind hers, paler, leaner, his arms wrapped around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder. At the way they fit together.
“This is what we missed,” he says into her ear. “A whole year of this. Of afternoons. Of seeing this.”
She doesn’t speak. Her eyes are wide in the mirror. He sees her throat work as she swallows.
His hands slide up from her waist to cover her breasts. He watches her face in the mirror as he touches her. Her eyelids flutter. Her head falls back against his shoulder. He rolls her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers, feeling them tighten, watching the pink flush spread across her chest.
One of his hands drifts lower, over her stomach, through the dark hair, down to the heat between her legs. She is already wet again. Slick for him. He slides a finger inside her, and her mouth opens in a silent gasp in the mirror. Her eyes lock on his reflection.
“See?” he breathes, moving his finger slowly in and out. “This is what you felt like that day. This is what I wanted.”
“Johnny.” It’s a plea. A confession.
He adds a second finger. She is tight, hot, clenching around him. He watches her face contort with pleasure in the glass. He watches his own hand moving between her legs. The visual is almost too much. His cock is hard and aching against the small of her back.
He works her with his fingers, steady and deep, until her knees buckle. He holds her up, his arm tight around her waist, as she comes against his hand, her body shuddering, a broken cry escaping her lips. He watches it all in the mirror. The way her eyes squeeze shut. The way her mouth goes slack. The way she goes completely limp in his arms when it’s over.
He withdraws his fingers, brings them to his mouth, and tastes her. Her eyes fly open in the mirror, watching him. He holds her gaze as he licks his fingers clean. Her taste is musky, sweet, entirely her.
He turns her around to face him. He doesn’t carry her to the bed. He lowers them both to the floor, right there on the carpet in front of the mirror. The pile is rough against his knees. He lays her down, her hair fanning out around her head. She looks up at him, her eyes dark and sated, but with a new hunger waking in them.
He settles between her thighs. He doesn’t enter her right away. He just rests there, the head of his cock nudging against her wetness. He braces himself on his elbows, caging her in. The afternoon sun slants through the window, painting stripes of gold across their bodies.
“Tell me you see it now,” he says, his voice rough.
“I see it,” she whispers. Her hands come up to frame his face. “I see you.”
He pushes inside her in one slow, relentless stroke. She is so open, so ready for him, that he sinks to the hilt without resistance. They both groan. The fullness is exquisite. Different from the water. Dry, hot, intimate.
He sets a slow, grinding rhythm. Their hips roll together. The carpet fibers scratch his knees. Her heels dig into the backs of his thighs. He watches her face. Every flicker of pleasure, every hitch of breath. He kisses her, swallowing her moans.
This isn’t frantic. It’s deliberate. A reclamation. Every thrust is an answer to a year of silent wanting. He feels the pressure building, low and deep in his gut. Her nails rake down his back. She is murmuring his name, over and over, a chant.
When he comes, it’s with his eyes open, locked on hers. It’s a quiet, shuddering release that empties him into her warmth. He collapses on top of her, his face buried in her neck, breathing in the scent of clean skin and soap and sex.
They lie there on the floor for a long time, a sweaty, tangled heap. The sunbeam moves across the room, leaving them in shadow. Somewhere outside, a lawnmower starts up, then fades into the distance.
Finally, she stirs beneath him. “The carpet is itchy.”
He laughs, the sound muffled against her skin. He rolls off her, onto his back. They lie side by side, staring up at his ceiling. The familiar water stain in the corner. The glow-in-the-dark stars he never took down.
“We have to get up,” she says, but she doesn’t move.
“I know.”
He reaches for her hand. Their fingers lace together. They lie there in the gathering dimness of the room, in the quiet of the empty house, the proof of their afternoon drying on their skin.