Birthday Girl(79)

The pool only goes to six feet, but I swim anyway, putting myself above the rings. Jordan is in the shallow end with Ava, who’s only two, and showing her how to blow bubbles in the water. I was relieved to see her come out in a more conservative bikini than that damn sea shell one, but I’m not finding the no-cleavage halter top of this one any easier to take, unfortunately.

“Ready?” I say, tearing my eyes off her soaked hair plastered to her back and look at Jensen.

He nods, like his head is too much weight for his body, and I suck in a breath, launch up, and then fall feet first to the bottom of the pool, releasing air as I descend and pushing the water up with my hands.

My feet hit the floor, I grab a ring, and I push myself back up to the surface, taking in another deep breath. He pops his head out of the water, sputtering a little water.

“Did you see?” I ask, wiping my eye. “I let out bubbles and pushed the water up above me, and it helped me sink to the bottom.”

He nods again.

“Wanna try?”

He shakes his head.

I laugh, slicking my hair back. “Okay. Another time then.”

Just then, a stream of water pummels my back, and I look over my shoulder, seeing Jordan shooting me with a squirt gun. The little girl on her hip laughs, and Jordan scrunches up her nose, making a battle-ready face and aiming the water at my head. I jerk away, hearing the little girl cracking up behind me.

“I want one!” Jensen rushes for the side of the pool and grabs one of the Super Soakers Dutch left when he brought his kids over one day last summer. I grab the other one, and all of us start filling up our weapons, Jordan giving hers to the toddler and getting another for herself.

For the next ten minutes, we barely stop to take a breath as we laugh, attack, and dart around the pool to escape the onslaught. Everyone turns on each other, the baby shooting Jordan right in the eye, and Jensen hitting me in the head.

I grab the baby, using her for mock cover, and Jordan squeals, diving under the water to escape shots coming from Jensen, Ava, and me.

The boy eventually pushes himself up on a step to sit, and both Jordan and I are breathing hard from the exertion. I set the baby on the deck, and she walks over to the picnic table and starts munching on watermelon. Jensen joins her, taking another slice of leftover pizza.

Déjà vu hits me. I’m surprised I still have the energy for this. Seems like ages ago I was trying to teach Cole how to swim and letting him bring his first girlfriend over in middle school while I covertly kept an eye on them from inside the house. This wasn’t as stressful as I remember it being, though. Maybe because I’m older.

Or maybe because it’s easier when there are two adults wrangling the kids instead of one. I actually had fun tonight.

I watch Jordan as she hops up onto the pool deck and sits with her legs still dangling in the water. Taking each water gun, she empties and shakes them out, setting them aside.

The duality of her swimsuit has the coils in my brain twisting tighter and tighter, and I’m so confused. She wears black on the bottom. Adult, sexy, and beautiful against her tanned skin. And pink on the top. Innocent, sweet, and entirely Jordan, because she can be such a girly-girl.

Her thighs, toned and smooth, and the cute, studious expression on her face as she furrows her brow and concentrates on her task. Everything about her is young.

Except her eyes.

Eyes that can be so patient, because she’s had years of practice being disappointed, but eyes that can also be angry, because you know shit has been hitting the fan in her life since day one and hasn’t eased up one bit.

You can see her brain working through every decision and every interaction, because she’s so good at assessing consequence and danger by now that it’s become second nature.

She knows that time always passes and her day will come. Just hang tight.

She has the smooth skin and body of a young woman, but the eyes of someone who’s seen decades.

My eyes fall to her mouth, remembering the feel of her kisses, and another rush of heat coats my chest just under my skin. I turn away, running my hand through my wet hair.

It wasn’t a fluke. I want her.

I love the smell of her in the house, the way when she sits next to me, either here or in the movie theater that first night, so easily and comfortably like we’re two peas in a fucking pod, and how I’m excited to wake up every day, knowing I can see her.

“Jesus Christ,” I say under my breath.

I’m having my first fucking crush in like twenty-years.

“What?” I hear her ask.

I lift up my head, turning toward her. Did I say that out loud?

“Nothing,” I shoot back.

She peers up at me as she empties the last gun, and I pull the noodles up out of the pool and toss them up on the deck to evade her eyes.

I want more of what happened last night, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.

A phone starts ringing on the picnic table again, and I look over at her.

“Your phone’s ringing again.”

She nods, a slight frown crossing her face. “Yeah, I know who it is.”

My eyebrows rise a little. Who’s she trying to avoid?

The phone had rung several times since I’d been home, and to my knowledge, she hadn’t answered it.

She looks over at me, seeing me staring at her with a questioning look on my face, no doubt.