I take a breath and exhale slowly.
She gives the worst advice, at all the wrong times, but she’s right. I should do nothing. Nothing at all. Just act like last night didn’t happen.
Denial.
That’s totally healthy, right? When we bury things deep down inside of us and pretend they didn’t happen, nothing can go wrong.
I close my eyes, then I open them again, before finding the photo of Mr Ledger and drinking it in; his dark abs, his steel eyes, his stature, his bulge, and then I grin and tap send, click on Flick’s face and listen to the little whoosh. A moment later she sends me an animated image of a woman having a wild orgasm and I laugh.
I’m so fucked.
For a few minutes, I just breathe, my eyes closed as I settle myself.
This is ridiculous.
I have a stupid schoolgirl fixation on an older man. That’s all this is. I need to get past it before it costs me my job and to do that I need to draw a line in the sand, and if Kyle isn’t going to draw that line for me then I should do it myself.
I rub my eyes and then bring up his contact details on my phone, then I tap out the message I was hoping he would send me, and read it back as my finger hovers over the send button.
Hey, do you want to go out sometime? Xx
I look up toward the door, picturing it opening and Mr Ledger walking in, tearing my phone from my hand and sending it sailing out of the window and into the pool before he lays me down and kisses me in a jealous rage.
But the door remains resolutely closed.
I tap send.
Within seconds Kyle is replying.
Yeah, cool
Cool.
That’s it?
Cool.
My shoulders sag. I thought high school boys were the worst. Apparently, I was wrong.
I need to get up, get showered, get dressed and face the music. I might have a date, but I’m probably fired, and then I hear a thump at my door, and I sit up straight. I hold my breath, listening as hard as I can, but there are no other sounds, and the handle doesn’t turn, so I carefully step off the side of the bed and tip-toe across the carpet.
As quietly as I can I open the door, but no one is there.
I look up and down the corridor, and then I pale as my tummy fills with butterflies. Was someone eavesdropping on me? My eyes go wide as I consider the implications. If it was one of the girls, then I am fired. So fired. Load me in a cannon and stuff gunpowder up my ass, fired.
And then I look down at the floor by my feet and pale with relief as I find a neat little gift bag. Whoever it was, dropped it and ran.
‘What the fuck?’ I mouth.
I pick it up, close the door and step back inside, placing the pink package on the bed before I peer within as if it might explode. And then my jaw drops open, as I slowly remove a two-piece bathing suit, alongside a note that reads… For next time.
And my heart thumps.
*
If she’s going to swim in my damned pool, then she’s going to swim in an appropriate costume. At least that’s what I tell myself as I creep back down the stairs as silently as I can.
Finding an open swimwear shop at four o’clock in the morning in LA was no easy task, but it turns out it’s not impossible. Estimating Mackenzie’s size was also an effort, but I’ll admit to myself and absolutely no one else that I’ve looked at her figure enough to have a pretty good idea.