December: You’re good people. Rare.
She said this like she knew my thoughts, my body hitching a seat against the pool’s handrails. I’d hung my jacket there and leaned against it.
Me: I’ll always be there for you. Always.
Famous last words, words that killed me, but I wouldn’t let them. I stayed strong. Even when she texted me goodbye. Even when I said goodbye back and knew she was on that next leg of her journey. She was heading into the night of her fairy tale, found her literal prince, and I was in the other kingdom, a place where she hadn’t chosen to stay for her reign. That castle would remain dark, dormant.
Angling my phone in my pocket, I flicked the Zippo at the joint in my mouth, attempting to light it.
But then a plop.
That shit came out of nowhere, above.
Plop.
Another, the pool expanding in ripples. Peering in, something dark landed in the shallow end, about a foot or so away from something also dark.
What the fuck?
I arched my neck in the direction of the ceiling, finding the high dive. Imagine my surprise to find a woman up there, seated and dangling her legs over the side. She kicked out bare legs from beneath a black dress, a flourish of chiffon and never-ending tulle. I’d seen enough of it inside bridal shops.
&n
bsp; Her fingers on the sides, she craned a look over the edge.
My heart rattled.
The woman was easily more than one story up, sitting on the edge of a high dive like she wouldn’t mind falling off. Hell, she would fall off.
Tossing the joint at the bleachers, I advanced toward the high dive, scaling the steps in quick time. Even with as much cardio as I did (I ran five miles a day), it still took me a moment to get up there, and I was out of breath by the time I did. I think mostly from adrenaline. The woman sat at the edge, her back to me, but shit really hit the fan at what I saw sitting beside her. A bottle of wine.
And the empty glass beside it.
Chapter Three
Ramses
I obviously approached this situation with caution, not knowing what else to fucking do. A woman was up here with a bottle of wine, an empty glass, and fully dressed like she wanted to take that evening gown out for a swim. I didn’t know if she wanted to just be alone or what, but this felt like a really weird situation.
“Everything okay up here?” I asked, completely bothered when she didn’t even move.
Not an inch.
Not a flick of the shoulders, a flinch of the fingers. I made myself known, and she still sat there.
I swallowed. “Miss?”
Say something, goddammit.
I approached her slow, casual with a lifted hand. I didn’t know what she’d do honestly, why she was up here. If she wanted to jump, she definitely could. I looked around. “Probably shouldn’t be…”
Eyes, dark eyes like onyx glass in an ebony sea. They pinned me in place, a fan of her hair gracing her shoulder. A tumble of dark waves cascaded down the bare flesh of her back, the woman honeyed like pure caramel and just a shade or two lighter than me. She either held a glorious tan or some kind of distinct ethnicity, my guess Latina. Though I wasn’t sure. People often guessed wrong when it came to me, half Syrian on my dad’s side. It gave me thick curls and hair only slightly lighter than this woman’s. Though just barely.
And woman, she was. Not a miss, or a girl. A straight nose sloped and complemented her cupid’s bow, her lips like two full strokes of a paint brush. I didn’t paint a lot, more a fan of physical art with hard metals and fortified steel. I was into metalwork when I could, sculpting.
She had hard yet striking angles to some of the more softer elements of her face, her nose buttoned at the tip and her overall face shaped like a heart. She was also intentional and completely deliberate in the way she stared at me. It took me a second to realize her ruby-red lips were actually speaking to me.
And when I did, I questioned verbal assault.