Like I said, jealousy wasn’t a good look on anyone, and I was damn jealous of Archie at the immediate moment. Considering I knew exactly where Jake was last night, all night.
“Are you planning to get in the pool?” she called. “Or just stare like a pair of doofuses?”
The comment pulled me out of my reverie, and Archie let out a laugh as he strolled forward. Like me, he was dressed in swim trunks only, and he dove right in the pool. I hesitated, but only because I needed to get my mind on other things like…
Yeah, that wasn’t working, the only thing I could see was her, and I didn’t want to think about math formulas or baseball stats.
Not that I knew any stats.
Fuck.
Here was hoping the water was cold.
I hit it at speed. The water, while cooler than the temperature outside, wasn’t cold. Frankie’s laughter was my only warning before she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and twisted. I pivoted, catching her legs for balance and then got a face full of water from Archie.
Oh. It was on. I shoved Frankie up and back. She twisted as she dove back into the water, and I started flinging water at Archie before having to fend Frankie off, too.
“Two against one!” I complained in between bouts of laughter. The water was flying fast and furious.
“Aww,” Frankie said. “I’ll help!”
She vanished under water, and I couldn’t see where she went as I kept fending off Archie. Then he yelped, and I cracked up as she tugged his leg and dunked him.
When she would have shot away, he caught her leg and hauled her backward, and then lifted and tossed her. She emerged giggling, and I had to grin. There had been so much crap the last few weeks, I’d almost forgotten how good it was just to laugh with her.
Damned if I didn’t love her laughter.
She darted around me when Archie went for her again, and I blocked happily. We ended up wrestling, and both of us got dunked for our trouble. When I came back up for air, she was leaning against the side of the pool, grinning.
“Cannonball!” served as Jake’s announcement before he landed in the deep end with a terrific splash. The wave was impressive.
“Oh, I can beat that,” Archie announced as he climbed out. I pushed away from the center and swam over to Frankie in time to catch Archie’s demonstration.
He definitely made a bigger splash.
She snickered, and I grinned.
“Five bucks says Jake does it again,” she told me.
“No takers,” I countered and pointed. Jake was already climbing out of the pool. Her deep green eyes brightened as Archie let out an “Oh shit” a half-second before Jake hit the water not a foot from him, and he got nailed with the splash.
“Ten points!” Frankie called.
“But the Russian judge takes off at least one for artistic style,” Bubba called as he finally came out of the house. What the hell had taken him so long? I hadn’t seen any bruises on either of them when they came upstairs, but you could have cut the tension on Jake and Bubba with a knife.
Then Jake hit the pool almost a full five minutes before Bubba?
The smile lighting up Frankie when Bubba played along made me wistful. It really had been a while since she totally relaxed. Who could blame her? It had been a shit few weeks, despite how much I loved the fact she was interested in dating.
Dating.
Making out.
Kissing.
The kissing was good.
“Fuck the Russian judge,” Jake called out as he swam toward us.