The Pool Guy Came Tuesdays, and by July It Wasn't the Pool novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Tuesdays Only

She rubs sunscreen between his shoulder blades, sets three rules at the outdoor shower, and tells him out loud in the yard that next Tuesday he'll be under her.

By the third Tuesday, the back of his neck was burning.

I saw it when he bent to dig out the skimmer basket, a red band above his collar with the skin starting to shine.

"You're cooked," I said.

"It's fine," he said.

"It's June, it's 107, and you've been working in a polo since April," I said.

"It's a company shirt, ma'am."

"It's a company shirt that's going to leave you a lobster with a name patch."

On the fridge, under a magnet, the service invoice said Technician: Nicolas Ramirez.

I took the sunscreen from the hall closet and went back out.

It was the good kind, a spray-on SPF 50 that Craig bought by the case and never used.

"Cabana," I said. "Sit."

The cabana was the one place on the property with real shade, a wooden roof over a daybed and two cushioned chairs.

Nico sat on the edge of the daybed with his boots on the stone and his hands between his knees.

"Shirt off."

He looked at the gate.

"The wall's six feet," I said. "Nobody sees in."

He pulled the polo over his head and dropped it beside him.

I stood behind him and I forgot to breathe for a second.

He had a swimmer's back, wide at the top and tapering, with the shoulder blades moving as he breathed.

There was a pale tan line at his waist and a long thin scar on his left side, from a fence, he told me later.

His skin was a deep warm brown, and wet at the spine.

I squirted sunscreen into my palm and rubbed my hands together.

"This is going to be cold," I said.

"Okay."

I put both hands flat between his shoulder blades.

He shuddered.

It went up his whole back, under my palms, and I felt it in my own arms.

"Cold?" I asked.

"A little."

It wasn't cold.

I'd warmed the stuff between my hands first.

I smoothed it up to the burn at the base of his neck and out over his shoulders, slow.

His head dropped forward an inch at a time.

He made a small sound and tried to swallow it.

I watched the muscle in his throat work.

Heat stroke, I told myself.

He's a kid in 107 degrees with no hat.

My hands didn't stop.

They went down his ribs, around the scar, up again.

I stood there much longer than any sunscreen needed, with my own breath loud in the shade.

"Done," I said, finally.

Neither of us moved.

I walked out to the lounger by the pool, the one with the sun-faded cushion, and sat with my feet up.

"Come here," I said.

He came.

He sat on the stone at the end of it, looking at my bare feet with their chipped pink polish.

Then he looked at me.

"Can I?" he said, and I held up one finger.

"No asking," I said. "Do it or don't."

He picked up my right foot in both hands.

He turned it in the light.

He bent and kissed my instep, soft, and then again higher.

A third time on the inside of my ankle.

I put my head back and shut my eyes.

I had been married ten years, and nobody had ever kissed my foot.

"Joelle," he said, against the arch, "you have to tell me what you want."

"I just told you."

"I mean for after."

I opened my eyes.

The sun was behind his head, and his hair had a bright edge on it.

"Come to the shower," I said.

The outdoor shower was around the corner of the cabana, behind a screen of woven reeds.

It had a stone bench and a rain head the size of a dinner plate.

I turned on the water and stood in front of it in my shirt and shorts.

I told him my terms.

"One. Tuesdays only. You come at 9:40 and you leave at noon."

"Yes, ma'am," he said.

"Two. Nothing leaves this yard. Not a word to your boss, your roommate, your mother. Nothing," I said.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Three. When the pool is fixed, it's over."

He stood with the water running onto his boots and looked at me for a very long moment.

Something moved across his face, and was gone.

"It might take all summer," he said.

"Then it takes all summer."

I turned the water off.

I walked him out through the side gate, along the house, past the air-conditioning unit and the gas meter.

At the control box for the sprinklers, a gray metal panel at knee height, he slowed.

He didn't stop.

He just looked at it for the length of a step, with his jaw set, and then he went on.

"Problem?" I said.

"No, ma'am. Habit."

At the gate he turned and put his polo over his arm and shouldered the net.

His ears had gone red again, all the way down his neck.

I stood three feet from him in the side yard, in the shade, with my hair coming out of the clip.

I looked him straight in the eye.

"Next Tuesday," I said, not quietly, "you're going to be under me."

His mouth opened.

On the other side of the wall, a screen door slapped.

"Morning!" the neighbor called.

I turned my head.

"Good morning," I said, in my calmest voice, the one I used for the HOA.

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