The water is cool and it’s the best kind of contrast to the dry heat of the July night and the warmth of the scotch in my stomach—and to the new kind of warmth that’s agitating in my chest, something frictive and thrilling pressing up against my anger and my broken heart. Something that started the moment Devi brushed against my arm.
I jumped into the deep end, so it’s a few beats before my feet press flat against the bottom and I can push myself back up. I break the surface, sputtering, and awkwardly try to swim over to Devi with one hand still clenched around my scotch bottle. She treads water as steadily and gracefully as a water nymph, her long hair floating around her shoulders and her gold top drifting away from her skin, giving me just the barest glimpse of one nipple, dark rose and peaked into a tight furl. Water droplets cling to the thick fringe of her eyelashes.
“You’re not very good at swimming,” she points out as I make my way closer.
“Never liked it much,” I say, swimming past her and moving to where my feet can touch. With a sigh of relief, I set my feet down, examine the scotch bottle to make sure no pool water leaked in, and then take a long drink. I’m on my way to being drunk, and I’m intent on sealing the deal. What can I say? I’m a finisher.
Devi drifts up next to me, holding something in her hand. It takes me a minute to realize that it’s my phone, the entire reason we spontaneously jumped into the pool in the first place. And somehow, miraculously, the pricey case the Apple Store girl talked me into buying has saved the phone. The screen still glows with my unwritten text message.
Somehow, between the pool and the scotch and Devi Dare with no pants on, I’ve lost the urge to talk to Raven. I take the phone and toss it carelessly onto the concrete and then turn back to Devi.
“You, on the other hand, seem like quite the swimmer,” I say with a smile, offering her the scotch. She takes it and raises the bottle to her lips.
“I was raised in California, you know,” she says and then takes a drink.
“Well, so was I. But my parents are Boston transplants, so I guess they never saw swimming as a priority for me.”
She hands the bottle back to me. “I think I had floaties before I had a bicycle. My parents are very, uh…” She searches for the right words. “Natural people. They think it’s important to be periodically cleansed of negative energy, and flowing water is one of the best ways to do that. So we went swimming at least once a week.”
I can see the faintest blush coloring the apples of her cheeks, as if she’s embarrassed by what her parents believe. And then I wonder if she’s embarrassed because she believes it a little too.
God, that blush is so sexy. I want to lick it right off her face. And then pin her down and lick her everywhere.
She tilts her head to the sky. “You can see Cassiopeia tonight.”
I look up, following her gaze, but I see nothing other than the golden glow hovering above the city and a smattering of faint, twinkling stars. “Is Cassiopeia a constellation?” I venture.
She laughs and nods, and then she reaches over and takes my head in her hands. My pulse thrums, that warmth in my chest explodes into flames, and I want her to kiss me kiss me kiss me, but before I can turn my head to her, she trains my face to the sky, facing the right direction this time.
“Do you see it?” she asks. Her mouth is close to my neck, and I wonder what it would feel like if she bit me there. “It looks like a letter M.” She traces the shape of it with her fingers, until finally I see it—an underwhelming handful of tired stars.
“You can’t see it this far into the city sometimes,” she continues.
“Cassiopeia sounds like a porn name,” I say frankly and she laughs again.
“Ptolemy named it.”
I give her a blank look. I got pretty good grades in school, but it’s been more than ten years since graduation, and anything not intimately related to film or the kind of math I need to run my business has been filtered out of my brain.
“Ptolemy was a Greek astronomer,” she explains, giving me an amused glance. “He named it after a famous queen in Greek mythology. She was so beautiful and vain and boastful that she brought the wrath of Poseidon down on her kingdom.”
Beautiful, vain, boastful. My mind swerves back to Raven, possibly still in this very house, possibly still being screwed with that evil smile on her face. Where is Poseidon when you need him?
No.
No, I won’t let Raven crowd into my happy, drunk moment with Devi and the scotch. I speak as much to drive away thoughts of my ex as to comment on Devi’s astronomy knowledge. “You know a lot about this shit,” I tell her, turning my eyes back to her face completely.
And now she really blushes. “I really like astronomy. Stars and galaxies and stuff. It makes life feel so...big...you know?”
The thing is, I do know. That big feeling, I mean. I get it every time I watch an amazing film, every time I imagine my own films with just the right setting and just the right cinematography and just the right score.