“Again” meant Tate grasping Jonas by the waist and tossing him bodily through the air to splash in the deep end. This had been going on awhile and me, and two twenty-something girls in bikinis across the way from me, had been watching it avidly.
This was because Tate, slicked with wet, his eagle tattoo on show, his powerful muscles bunching when he tossed his son around the pool, was a sight to see.
It was late afternoon but the day was still hot. Tate and Jonas had dropped me off at boot camp and picked me up afterward. I’d packed our bags for the pool visit before boot camp and changed at Ned and Betty’s house while Tate and Jonas hit the pool.
Jonas had swim trunks.
Tate didn’t. Tate hit the pool in a pair of faded, cutoff jeans shorts. Another reason to watch him avidly for he might pull himself out of the pool, his whole body slick and those shorts plastered on him was not a sight to see. It was a sight to prove there was a God and that God might just be Tate.
I watched Tate throw Jonas again and watched Jonas land with a splash. He surfaced laughing and shaking his head. As beautiful a child as Jonas was, and he was more beautiful when he was laughing, I noted the twenty-something girls kept their eyes glued to Tate who had lifted a hand to run his fingers over his wet hair, his eyes on Jonas, his lips smiling. All of this was fascinating and I was sleeping with the man. Those two girls probably thought they’d died and gone to biker babe heaven.
I should have been worried about the twenty-somethings. They were thinner than me, prettier than me, younger than me, their bathing suits were a lot dinkier than mine and they were making it obvious that Tate could have one, the other, or both of them at the same time if he just crooked a finger.
Instead, I was wiped from boot camp and as much fun as it was to watch a wet Tate in cutoff jeans shorts horse around with his son in Ned and Betty’s pool, I decided I was going to take a nap. I decided this firstly because I was pretty certain Tate was into me. Secondly, because Tyler’s program that day had nearly killed me and if one, the other or both of them made a play, I didn’t have it in me to fight for my man (or do anything with him for that matter).
I readjusted the back of my lounge, flipped to my belly and closed my eyes.
I was deep in a boot-camp-hot-sun induced snooze when I was torn from my catnap by a multitude of fat, cold water droplets raining on my back.
I lifted and twisted to see Jonas standing beside me shaking the wet in his hair on me.
“Stop, Jonas, you rat!” I girlie screeched.
He stopped and grinned at me. “Quit bein’ lazy, Laurie, and come into the pool with us,” he demanded.
“I am not being lazy. I spent an hour sweating and wheezing and panting, running around a hot gym. I’m giving my body the break it needs,” I returned.
“You’re bein’ lazy,” Jonas retorted.
“Am not!” I shot back.
Then, in a sneak attack coming from the other side, I was suddenly rolled to my back, curled into Tate’s arms and lifted.
“Tate!” I shrieked. “Put me down!”
He didn’t put me down. He walked to the edge of the pool.
“Don’t you dare,” I warned and then let out a shrill screech when I found myself flying through the air. I had the chance to close my eyes and pinch my nose with my fingers before I hit.
I surfaced gasping, the water freezing cold against my heated skin.
“You jerk!” I yelled and saw both father and son were standing side by side, staring at me and grinning identical grins. “And you are a rascal!” I said to Jonas.
Tate’s knees bent and then he propelled himself off the side, his body in dive position knifing into the water. Jonas followed him much less gracefully by doing a cannonball.
Stupidly, I kept treading water and glaring at their forms under it instead of making my escape. Tate’s hand wrapped around my ankle, yanked and I went under. I kicked at him under the water and he let me go but came up, grasping me at the waist and we both surfaced together, face to face.
“You dunked me,” I accused but that was all I got out. I had a hand on the top of my head and one on my shoulder, Tate let go of my waist and I was down again, Jonas dunking me this time.
Thus it started. I was able to get Jonas under the water, not Tate, and the horseplay lasted awhile before Tate wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled my back to his front, taking me with him as he did an underwater back flip. We surfaced, Tate still holding me close.
“Do me! Do me!” Jonas shouted, Tate let me go and then he flipped with Jonas.
He let Jonas go and as both of them shook the water from their hair, I wrapped one of my arms around Jonas’s middle.
“We’re going front this time,” I said in his ear and then I tucked us into a ball and propelled us forward in a front flip. When we surfaced, I let him go and he drifted away.
“See, it’s better in the water,” he told me on a big know-it-all smile.
I agreed by challenging, “Bet I could beat you by doing the longest handstand.”
“No way!” Jonas shouted, already striking out for the shallow end.