After Hours: Her Best Friend Claims the Pool

Hailey stretched out on the lounge chair like she owned the place, which, for the next ten days, she basically did. Her parents’ mansion sprawled behind her in all its ridiculous glory—four-car garage, chef’s kitchen she never cooked in, and this backyard pool that looked like it had been airlifted from a five-star resort. Crystal-blue water lapped at the infinity edge. Soft landscape lights glowed under the palms. The air smelled like chlorine and money.

She was twenty-two, white, blonde in that effortless California way, and currently wearing the tiniest red bikini her sorority sisters had dared her to buy. The triangles of fabric barely contained her full tits; the bottoms rode high on her hips and dipped low enough in back to make any passing neighbor choke on their kombucha. She was house-sitting. That was the official story. Unofficially she was avoiding three midterms and enjoying the fact that no one could tell her to put on a robe.

Her phone buzzed.

Dante: Just clocked out. You still need “help” with those chores or did the laundry magically fold itself again?

Hailey grinned, thumbs flying.

Hailey: The laundry is judging me from the hamper. Get over here, big guy. Bring that work ethic… and maybe beer.

She set the phone down and felt the familiar flutter low in her stomach. Dante. Her best friend since sophomore year of high school. Tall, dark-skinned, built like he’d been assembled in a gym that only served protein and bad decisions. He’d filled out even more since then—shoulders broad enough to block doorways, arms thick from loading trucks on the late shift, abs she had accidentally felt once during a drunken piggyback ride and never forgotten. They’d circled each other for years with jokes and lingering looks and that electric almost-touch energy that never quite crossed the line. Tonight the line felt thinner than her bikini string.

The side gate clicked twenty minutes later. Dante strolled in like he belonged, still wearing his faded black work shirt unbuttoned halfway down a chest the color of rich espresso, cargo shorts hanging low on narrow hips. Sweat from the shift still clung faintly to him; he smelled like clean musk and the night air. When he saw her sprawled out, he stopped dead, one eyebrow climbing.

“Damn, Hails. You house-sitting or casting for a very specific kind of pool boy fantasy?”

She sat up just enough to make her breasts bounce. “You’re late. The pool filter’s making a weird noise and I refuse to get my hands dirty.”

“Uh-huh.” He dropped a six-pack of fancy IPA on the table and kicked off his sneakers. “Weird noise. Sure. Definitely not an excuse to get me over here so you can watch me bend over the equipment in this lighting.”

“Maybe both.” She popped a beer and took a long swallow, eyes dancing. “You’ve been teasing me for six years, Dante. Payback’s a bitch in a red bikini.”

He laughed, low and warm, the sound rolling over her skin like steam. “I’ve been teasing? You’re the one who used to ‘accidentally’ stretch in front of me during study sessions wearing those tiny tank tops. I still have psychic scars.”

“Psychic scars didn’t stop you from staring at my ass every time I walked to the fridge.”

“Fair.” He peeled off the work shirt completely and tossed it onto a chair. Muscle moved under dark skin, smooth and powerful. A thin trail of hair disappeared into his waistband. Hailey’s mouth went dry. He knew exactly what he was doing. He always did.

Dante walked to the edge of the pool and crouched, checking the filter housing with exaggerated seriousness. The shorts pulled tight across a truly unfair ass and thick thighs. Hailey watched the play of muscle in his back and felt heat pool between her legs that had nothing to do with the evening air.

“Filter’s fine,” he called over his shoulder. “You just wanted an audience.”

“Maybe I wanted company.” She stood, stretched deliberately, and dove in with a clean splash. Water closed over her. When she surfaced, slick and dripping, Dante was still crouched there watching, a slow smile spreading.

“You’re trouble in a two-piece,” he said.

“Takes one to know one.” She swam to the wall beneath him and rested her forearms on the deck, chin tilted up. Water beaded on her cleavage and ran down into the valley between her breasts. “You gonna keep pretending you’re here for chores or are you getting in?”

He stood, unbuckled nothing, just shucked the cargo shorts down to black boxer-briefs that clung wetly the second he hit the water. The cold did absolutely nothing to hide the thick outline already half-hard against his thigh. Hailey’s eyes flicked down and back up; she didn’t even try to be subtle. Humor was their armor and their foreplay.

“Jesus, warn a girl,” she laughed, voice a little too breathy.