“Why do hot tubs make you nervous? If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll wear my lifeguard whistle and you can put on some of those arm floaty things.”
“I’m not nervous I’m going to drown. It’s just...”
“What?”
“It’s embarrassing.”
Ian’s eyes widened. “Tell me the embarrassing thing right now. That is an order.”
“I got a rash in a hot tub when I was a kid. That’s all.”
“A rash.”
“Yes. A butt rash.”
“You got a butt rash from a hot tub when you were a kid. Like...a small rash?”
“Not small.”
“Big?”
“Picture a pizza, Ian. That was my twelve-year-old ass.”
“Oh, my God! That’s so disgusting. I’m never eating pizza again. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still eat your ass, but I’m not touching pizza.”
“See? You’d be hot tub shy, too, if one turned your ass into a pizza. I couldn’t sit for a week. I had to sleep on my stomach. My poor mother had to put the ointment on me. It was a nightmare.”
“Where did you get this hot tub butt rash?”
“We went on vacation when I was a kid and stayed at a hotel with a hot tub.”
“Okay, hotel hot tub was your first mistake. And your second. One mistake for each ass cheek. Those things are cesspools.”
“Now you tell me.”
“My hot tub is brand-new, just installed. I cleaned it myself, bleached it twice. The water is perfect. It will not give you a case of pizza butt, I swear.”
“You’re never going to let me forget about the pizza butt thing, are you?” she asked.
“No. Never. As long as we both shall live.”
“Yeah, I thought so. Now you have to tell me something embarrassing.” She slowly rolled onto her side to face Ian.
“Something embarrassing? Okay, this isn’t as embarrassing as pizza butt, but I could tell you about the time I had sex with my girlfriend and I forgot to get rid of the condom wrapper and my dad found it on the living room floor the next morning.”
Flash winced in sympathy.
“Oh, that’s bad. When was this? High school?”
“This morning.”
Her eyes went wide. “Oh, shit! What did your dad say?”
“He gave me that dad look, you know...” Ian contorted his face into an expression of seriousness mixed with sternness with a dash of trying not to laugh. “Then he asked, ‘Anyone I know?’ which is a weird thing to say if you think about it.”
“Did you tell him it was me?”
“I did.”