Preston shrugged. “He floated the idea recently, saying they don’t get to see each other as much as they want. I think he was putting feelers out.”
“Would you be okay with it? I mean, things are good between y’all, right?”
He considered my question, not sure how to answer. “Sometimes it’s weird, and other times, it’s no big deal. They’re happy, so that’s good, and if she moves in, I could probably deal. I’m not there much anyway.” He frowned. “But Cassidy being my stepmom? Yeah, I’m not ready for that.”
Truer words had never been spoken. “I get it.”
“I don’t think she’d say yes anyway if he proposed. Cassidy will want to get her degree first.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what else to say. They’d been best friends in high school, completely inseparable, and they’d made tremendous strides this past year, but their friendship could never be what it was.
Thankfully, Preston gave me an out when he picked up the game controller. It was a clear signal he wanted the conversation to be over.
“Hey, man,” I said, “I need to take off. Feel free to stay as long as you want.”
“Where’re you going?”
“Actually, over by where you live. I’ve got to clean Ms. Graham’s pool.”
He hadn’t restarted the game, so he was able to give me a knowing smile. “You took a shower . . . to go clean her pool?”
He wasn’t wrong with what he was implying, but I had to defend myself. “I was fucking gross. Besides, she won’t even be there.”
I’d been pushing my start time later and later in hopes of seeing her, but so far, no such luck.
“She’s always had that ‘Stacey’s Mom’ thing going on, but since she got her tits done?” My friend did a chef’s kiss. “She’s hot as fuck.”
I was well aware. Ms. Graham had been my primary source of spank bank material whenever I was without internet, and sometimes, even when I had access to PornHub. My fantasies about her were numerous.
And detailed.
“She isn’t married anymore,” Preston teased. “Now’s your chance, Troy.”
“Shut up.”
He laughed at himself, but then sobered. “Maybe that’s what I need to do, get me an older woman.” He did a terrible, dramatic impression of Liam Neeson. “One with a very particular set of skills that she’s acquired over her long career.”
I gave him a look to tell him I wasn’t amused.
He let it roll right off him. “All I’m saying is I’d let Ms. Graham ride me until she broke my back.”
“Great.” I picked up my keys off the counter and stepped into my flip-flops. “Lock up when you leave.”
What Preston had said bothered me the whole drive over to her place, mostly because it hit a little too close to home. I’d spent years trying not to think about her. She was older—not to mention married—and my mom’s best friend. Pursuing her would be stupid.
Then again, I wasn’t the smartest guy around, was I?
I parked my Jeep in the street, halfway between her mailbox and Preston’s, so I wouldn’t block her driveway if she came home early. The privacy fence surrounding her property looked like wood, but it was textured concrete slats, and the gate was heavy as I unlatched it and went through.
I needed to come up with a better plan for getting her to notice me because cleaning her pool once a week while she wasn’t there wasn’t working.
Her pool house had two doors, but the workshop where she stored her chemicals was on the far side, so I climbed the sloping lawn, went around the backside of the building, and pulled the workshop door open.
It was nasty hot inside the unfinished space, and I moved with purpose to get the netted leaf rake. It’d been windy the past few days, and my pool at home was full of cottonwood seeds, so Ms. Graham’s was sure to be the same.
The sun was so bright I didn’t see her at first when I stepped out of the pool house and started toward the deep end. When my vision adjusted, I saw her lying out on the lounge chair, but my brain was much slower to recognize she was wearing a bikini. A peach one that showed off her flat stomach and—
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
She wasn’t wearing a top.
I couldn’t stop my gaze from tracing every mouthwatering inch of her. The sight of her pale skin and dark pink nipples soaking up the sun wasn’t something I was prepared for, and my hands clenched in response.
Except doing that made the long pole of the rake pop free from my grip. It fell, almost as if in slow motion, and clanged loudly against the ground.
Ms. Graham’s head lifted at the same moment she pulled one of the earbuds out of her ear, and her focus snapped in my direction.
My goal had been to get her to notice me, so . . .