The Pool Guy Came Tuesdays, and by July It Wasn't the Pool novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Wake

I woke at a quarter past five to nothing.

There was no hiss outside the window and no arc of water along the back wall.

For four months that sound had been the first thing in my day.

I hadn't known I was listening for it until it was gone.

The room was gray.

Nico was asleep on his stomach beside me with one arm under my pillow and his mouth open against the sheet.

His phone lay lit on the nightstand, and on the screen was the text from the night before.

Tucson route opened. $8k raise. Answer by Labor Day.

I picked it up and turned it face down.

Then I lay there looking at the back of his neck.

I looked at the damp curls and the faint line of sunburn and the thin chain of the medal.

Last night I had said he was mine in front of twenty people.

I had not slept alone.

I hadn't been touched by anyone who was angry at me, and I had not looked at the clock once.

I wanted something.

I didn't want it in the way I had wanted things for the last eleven months, from far away and with my teeth clenched.

I wanted it.

I threw the sheet off and rolled him onto his back.

He made a sleepy sound.

"Joelle?"

"Shh," I said.

"What time..."

"I don't care what time," I said. "Stay."

His eyes were half open, dark and soft.

He lifted a hand and pushed my hair out of my face, clumsy with sleep, and smiled the whole smile, chipped tooth and all.

I put one knee on each side of his head.

I was naked and warm and still a little sore from the dryer, and the light through the slats was just starting to go gold.

I took hold of the headboard.

"Open your mouth," I said.

"Yes, ma'am," he said, thick with sleep.

I lowered myself onto him.

His hands came up and found the backs of my thighs without looking for them.

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