Laiyla had won every swimming and breath-holding competition ever held at the lake in our younger years.
“Prick,” she mutters without any heat, reaching for the rope.
“Still sassy, I see. Thought the corporate ladder would numb you out.”
She doesn’t wait for me to reel her in, she does that herself, hand over hand until she drags her butt to the swim platform at the back of the boat, facing away from me. “I lost one of my boots, and they were freaking expensive. Goddammit.”
The water has turned her long hair, golden on top and darker underneath, almost black. It’s not as long as it used to be, but it still stretches past her toned, tanned shoulders and collects in a V between her shoulder blades. A rivulet of water trails from the bottom of the V and slides down her spine and beneath the edge of her blouse as she catches her breath.
It’s the same path my lips traveled once upon a time.
She drags off her other boot then her socks and pushes them into the lone boot.
“Are you going to sell this place?” I ask, studying the way her blouse—if you could call it that—had gone transparent, showing the rich tone of her olive-tinted skin through the fabric. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to the flip side of this view. “Because I’d like to be first on the list to buy it.”
“You?” She glances over her shoulder, all attitude. “How could you possibly afford a place like this?
“I’ve been mowing a lot of lawns since you’ve been gone, and I guess I could cut back on beer.”
That gets a laugh, but she turns away, so I miss the smile. And I’m dying to see her smile.
“I’m not sure what I’m doing,” she says. “I’ll have to talk to my people.”
I snort a laugh. “Listen to you—your people.”
She doesn’t take the bait.
“Everyone in town wants to know what you’re gonna do with this place. And I, for one, have been wondering why it’s taken you so long to decide. Because in the meantime”—I use my bottle to gesture to the slowly disintegrating marina and its neglected houseboats—“it’s rotting away. I gotta tell you, this would cause Otto real heartache.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Her snap draws my gaze back to her face, on full display with her wet hair swept back.
I’ve seen a few pictures of her over the years. I sometimes went in search of them if I was feeling melancholy, usually when yet another relationship blew up in my face, or when nostalgia hit me.
She didn’t have much of a social media presence, and all I’d been able to find were a few professional headshots on the Saxon Hotels website sitting above a description of whatever position she held at the time. It was all so cold and sterile, so utterly unlike the woman I’d loved, that I finally stopped looking.
Last I read, which was about two years ago, she’d been the chief operating officer of the western hemisphere for Saxon Hotels.
But in person, she is even more gorgeous than I remember. Man, why couldn’t she pale in comparison to my fantasies? Now, her warm eyes flash with emotion, and her face shifts with micro expressions that pull me in and hold me captive. In person, she takes up space inside me. I can’t quite figure out where, but she’s in here. Only now, staring at her sitting on the end of my boat where she spent so many unforgettable summers, am I aware that she never really left.
“I have no idea what you know or don’t know,” I say, trying to keep my tone indifferent. “I know so little about who you are now, I wouldn’t begin to presume I could guess.”
“Presume?” she turns a little more, bending the leg closest to the boat and exposing the smooth, tan length of her inner thigh. I’ve kissed that path too. Something I sure as shit don’t need to see or remember. “Who the hell are you?”
“How long are you in town?”
“A week. I’m meeting some girlfriends for a getaway.” She glances toward the parking lot where her car, a silver BMW coupe, sits, so obviously out of place. “Can you take me back to the lot? Judging by the state of the marina, I’m going to have some cleanup to do at the house before my friends get here.”
I’m confused. “House? What house?”
She gives me a what-house-do-you-think look. “Grandpa’s house.”
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“If you’re not going to drop me, I’ll swim. Just let me know so I can get going.”
I lower my feet and lean forward.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she wants to know.