“Okay! I give! I give!” I laugh, painfully aware that I have to hold her up high enough that she doesn’t notice my instant, throbbing erection. What can I say? If there is a woman twisting my arms, I’m hard. That’s just how I am made.
“I’m the winner!” she laughs, muffled against my side. I know that she’s close enough to bite me, and if she does, I’m definitely going to take us both into the water. I am only human.
Carefully, strategically, I set her back on her feet and then edge away, watching for signs that she’s going after me again. I am laughing so hard that my sides are stitched, and she looks absolutely resplendent in victory.
“I just needed you to know!” she pants. “I am not a little girl anymore, Jack!”
“Noted!” I agree. “You are… all woman! Your point has been made!”
She straightens up primly, eyebrows raised, pressing her clothes back into order. Man, I have missed her. Such a little elf, yet with such a deep reserve of strength. She surprises me. I wonder how long it has been since I was surprised?
“Whew, suddenly I’m hot!” she sighs, brushing her forehead with the back of her hand. “I wish I brought a swimsuit with me. It didn’t even occur to me that you would have a pool!”
“Uh-huh,” I answer, trying not to imagine her in a swimsuit.
I remember it now. White with black dots. Or black with white dots? I remember that swimsuit. I remember her sitting out in a lounge chair, under a giant hat that was meant to keep those freckles at bay. She always had some friend or another with her, like they were standing guard. I guess that was smart. Like I said, we were perfect gentleman when we were kids, but if pushed too far, any boy can make a spur of the moment decision.
And looking at her now, her brilliant smile, her confidence, her curves… Knowing what I know about women now, she is one of a kind. Absolutely.
“I’m really glad you’re in such a nice place,” she says modestly.
“And you? Are you still in the family house? Oh wait… No, never mind, that’s a stupid question,” I finish awkwardly.
It all sort of comes back to me in a lump, like an anvil landing on the concrete between us. After our parents died on a trip to Las Vegas, caught in a cloudburst that washed out the road and their car with it, we discovered the estate was not much better than broke. There wasn’t a lot left after we sold the house and paid for the funerals. Chance and I got swept up in business, working long hours and probably burying our emotions in the tech world. We knew that Chelsea went to live in the dorms at Northwestern University, but I don’t remember ever making an effort to visit her. It seemed like there would always be time, like “maybe next month” became a permanent situation. And then I guess we fell out of touch.
“Yeah, but… I do still live in Evanston,” she remarks breezily, carrying the conversation past the awkward bit.
“Oh, that’s nice. And I guess you got your degree?”
She nods, her hair brushing the tops of her pink cheeks. Shrugging, she drops into a deck chair, crossing her legs casually. I can’t help but notice that her skirt rides up over her knees, revealing tanned, muscular thighs, right out of a memory.
“I’ve got a degree in education with a certification in early childhood,” she shrugs, but then her eyes dart away. “But for now I work in a coffee shop. Well, it’s my boyfriend’s coffee shop. Well, I guess he’s my boyfriend. Anyway, it’s his coffee shop.”
“Are you enjoying yourself?” I ask gently, though I am fairly certain the answer is no.
“Is anybody really enjoying themselves?” she counters cleverly.
I can see it in her eyes—the disappointment. The dreams that kind of pile up at some arbitrary starting gate, never daring to move past it, but still stalled. I’ve seen it thousands of times. It sounds like a particular kind of hell.
“You probably should’ve gotten some of what we got,” I answer, instantly sort of ashamed at how true that is. “I mean… some of this. Some of this house. Some of the tech company.”
“No, no, that’s all right,” she says in a hurry, her hands raised defensively. “You guys built it. You earned it. It’s yours.”
“Yeah, but you are family,” I shrug awkwardly.
Her eyes go shaded as she glances away. She’s proud, always has been. She doesn’t ask for much. Not even if it is an emergency. If I’m going to give her any of this, I am going to have to do it on the sly.
My phone goes off suddenly, and I look up at her with a grin until she smiles back.
“Looks like Chance is home,” I inform her, waving my phone with the security alert that someone has breached the front drive checkpoint. “Let’s get this party started, shall we?”
Chapter 7
Chance
As soon as I walk through the front door, this sensation of nostalgia hits me like a ton of bricks. Jack is grinning at me with Chelsea standing right next to him. They both look like I’ve interrupted the conversation in progress, like they are waiting for me to catch up. Like there is a joke or a punchline that’s about to land.
This is how it always seemed to feel, or that is how I remember it, anyway. This feeling of pleasant anticipation. This feeling of comfort, of being in the one place where everything was all right. Maybe even better than all right.