They’d run a water hose from the campsite nearest, which happened to be ours, and then allowed it to slowly trickle down the length of the black tarp-like thing.
When Wyett arrived with the bottle, she uncapped it and slowly started to pour it down the length of the makeshift slip and slide until she reached the water’s edge. Then she turned around and repeated the process until the entire bottle was empty.
“Ummm,” Sin said as he watched Six and Wyett. “This looks like it’s going to be dangerous.”
“It might,” Zach said. “I haven’t been on a slip and slide in a long time. But what I do remember are grass burns, broken fingers from going head first, and bruises on the front of my body from running and sliding.”
“I remember just having a whole lot of fucking fun,” Swayze murmured. “I can’t run anymore like I used to, though.”
In between an injury when she was younger, and a broken leg more recently that she was still sporting a boot that kept her lower leg immobile for, I wouldn’t imagine so.
“You can sit this one out,” Trick suggested. “Maybe take some photos for your own personal enjoyment.”
Trick ripped his shirt off and then started on his jeans.
“Hope you have swim trunks under there,” she murmured softly.
I heard a belt clink on my other side and saw Sin doing much the same.
“Nope,” Trick said. “Didn’t think to pack any swim trunks.” He handed his beer off to Swayze. “Hold this so I don’t spill it.”
He’d managed not to spill it at the removal of his shirt, but apparently the pants were another story.
Swayze took it and watched with hungry eyes as her man undressed. Then handed it back when he was down to boxers and nothing else.
“You first, Hunt,” Wyett called loudly.
I was already shaking my head.
“Sorry, but hell no. I don’t do lake water,” I murmured.
And I didn’t.
I’d never done lake water. It grossed me the fuck out.
And it wasn’t the fish, or even the possibility of gators—which you couldn’t convince me that there weren’t any in there—but it was the thought of what else was in the lake.
Like dead bodies.
You couldn’t convince me that those weren’t in there, either.
Just because you couldn’t see them, didn’t mean they weren’t there.
Speaking of…
“Did you hear that there was a twenty-one-year-old that tried to swim the length of the lake and then drowned?” I asked. “It happened yesterday. At the marina right over there.” I pointed across the lake at a small speckle of shimmery glass.
“That’s sad,” Wyett said as she started stripping off her shorts.
When the bright red fabric of a bathing suit came into view, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Wyett’s body was a work of art. In her underwear and bra, she made the breath stall in my chest.
I didn’t know that I could handle her trouncing around in her underwear for all to see.
She was mine, and I’d never liked sharing my toys.
CHAPTER 13
To be clear, the South is not afraid of a hurricane. They’re afraid of having no power in ninety degree heat.
-Wyett to Hunt
WYETT
The first person to try out the slip and slide was Six.
With everyone watching on, she took a running start, then launched herself down the length of the black mat butt first.
She started to veer off about halfway down, but she was able to stick her foot out and correct her trajectory.
Lynn came up to my side about the time she started to even out on the flat ground.
Seconds later she was launched over the side of the lake and went up high before falling into the murky depths.
When she came up for breath moments later, the man at my side took his first full breath.
“She’s pregnant,” he said. “Should she really be doing that?”
I knew my friend was pregnant.
She’d been that way for a while.
“You could try to tell her not to,” Bruno drawled. “But I highly doubt that she’d stop. She still rides on the back of your bike, and you said you weren’t going to do that anymore.”
“Because,” Six said from right in front of us, “he’ll keep me safe. No matter what. What does it matter if I ride? I’m not even showing yet.”
She wasn’t.
In her tank top and bathing suit bottoms that she’d borrowed from me—because she wasn’t getting her no-boob self in the top—she looked as normal as ever.
If I didn’t know she was pregnant, then I wouldn’t assume that she was based on the look of her.
“Who’s next?” Six clapped, causing droplets of lube and water to splash on us all.
Trick decided he was next and launched himself down the path face first.
He went much faster than Six had and landed even farther into the lake with a whoop.
All the while he held onto his beer.
When he went under, he managed to keep the thing above water.