“Sorry to hear that, Harley. But you’re here on your own for the whole week? And your pops was okay with that?”
She put her hands on her hips and scoffed. “I’m twenty-three, I went to college alone!”
“Yeah, right,” I muttered, going back to the condenser. Harley flounced off to either get my tools or forget about them. I searched my phone for the make and model of the cooling unit. If I could fix this today, I’d be pissed at myself for not doing it sooner. Sweating my balls off for two days in the blazing sun. A record-breaking heat wave and I’m out doing a full day of manual labor with no cloud cover.
I head a screech and splash and turned to see Alexandra being pushed into the pool by Gianna. She surfaced and gasped for air, smoothing her long hair back.
“You bitch!” she screamed playfully at her friend.
Gianna was wearing the skimpiest piece of material that could possibly be called a bikini.
“Hey handyman! Want to get wet?” Gianna called.
I knew she was referring to me, but I decided not to look up and pretend she was calling for the pool maintenance guys.
“Come cool down, we’ll make it worth your while,” Alexandra tried with a less practiced seduction attempt. Alexandra Pruit was not as sleazy as her friend, but the real shame was that she looked up to Gianna and followed her around like a puppy off its chain.
Gianna, on the other hand, was bad fucking news. She slummed it up every Friday hitting some new guy's bed when she had a steady boyfriend. Girls like her were the ones I avoided like the plague, and truth be told, the kind I hated. Girls like Gianna Delacourt wanted to live dangerously, and they thought people like me were their ticket to the amusement park. I wasn't interested in any of it.
"I'm good, thanks," I said to Alexandra. I avoided looking at Gianna. Eye contact with Medusa was a mistake and I had work to do.
“Guys, leave him alone,” came after a slam of the patio door. Harley made her way over lugging my entire tool box. The thing must have weighed fifty pounds and I had a flash of guilt for making her bring it. I met her halfway across the patio and took it from her hands. She smiled at me and rolled her eyes in the direction of her friends. “They suck, just ignore them,” she said. I liked how her two front teeth were slightly longer than the rest. Her hair looked almost auburn in the bright sun and I could see a smattering of freckles on her chest and the crest of her shoulders.
“You didn’t have to bring them all, but thanks.” I took the tools and went back to the box. I wondered if she’d just stand there and watch me or if she’d join her friends in the pool. When I glanced up, she was faced away from me chewing on her nails, likely trying to decide what to do.
I went back to work on the box while scrolling through my phone trying to find an English translation for the manual I was using. From what I could discern from the noises behind me, Harley had gone back into the house while her friends frolicked in the pool with a maintenance guy captive audience.
The unit was hella frustrating and I had a mind just shoot it with a gun and call it a fucking day, but my bladder called from all the water and I stood up to take a piss and a much needed break.
Gianna was tanning on her stomach and the back of her bikini was a G string through her ass cheeks. She was engaging the pool guys, because girls like her thrived off of any kind of attention. When she talked one of them into getting a picture of her ass from a certain angle for her social media feed, I lost it and chuckled out loud at how desperate she was.
“What’s so funny, grease monkey?” she said with disdain.
“Is there a pisser out here or do I have to go inside and drip my sweat on all of that pristine carpet?”
One of her eyebrows shot up like she was devising a plan. This girl was trouble and I needed to stay the hell away from her, she couldn’t act straight if she were hit in the head with a level.
“That door right on the left side of the pool house,” Gianna said haughtily.
“But Gianna—” the Pruit girl tried to interject.
“Alex, Mr. Brooks wouldn’t appreciate the help tromping though the house.” Alexandra’s mouth stayed open to catch flies. I strode over to the pool house eager to escape their rich girl eyes. Giana was asking one of the pool boys to rub tanning oil on her. I didn’t call girls sluts, but if I did, Giana would be a prime candidate for that word.