Quickly I crossed over to the water, and lowered myself in.This didn’t seem like the “big splashy jump” sort of place.
Kai let himself drift away from the side, gently bobbing in place in front of me.“Nice, right?”
Slowly kicking my legs, I ran my hands through my hair and nodded.“Really nice,” I conceded.
His face lit up in a smile.“Excellent.Maybe those all-important sessions this afternoon don’t seem quite so important now...”
I rolled my eyes at him.“You don’t give up, do you.”
Kai shrugged, or at least tried to while floating.“If it’s wrong to want to keep you here, all wet and slippery, then I don’t want to be right.”
I narrowed my eyes.“Which reminds me, what happened to my shorts?”
“I checked your deck, thinking you might’ve forgotten your suit, and sure enough you had.Accidentally, I’ve no doubt.”
“Very helpful of you,” I observed, dryly.
“Hey, I like seeing you in the gray ones,” he said, with a smirk.
It was tough to be too frustrated with him, when he was being so flattering.I decided to cut my losses.“Fine.But don’t get any ideas about doing actual laps.This is purely for relaxation, okay?”
Kai rubbed a wet hand across his face.“Sure, fine, whatever you say.I won’t push my luck.”
True to his word, he didn’t.Instead we drifted on our backs for a while, interrupted by an impromptu game of tag when he splashed me and I retaliated, before finding ourselves braced on the edge of the pool on the far side from the restaurant.Maybe it was the lunch rush, but it seemed like most people were more interested in eating than they were swimming.Aside from the two of us, there were only a small handful of other people actually in the water now.
“I was thinking about last night,” Kai said, suddenly, breaking into the companionable silence.“I know we said we’d table the whole ‘what exactly is this’ conversation for a while, but I feel like there’s probably never going to be an actual chunk of time with nothing else to think about.Maybe we just try to figure it out piecemeal, and live with whatever discomfort might come with stretching the whole thing out.”
I thought for a moment.“So, like, slowly tugging off the sticking plaster over an extended and probably excruciating period of time?”
Kai laughed.“Better than leaving it on forever, and never seeing what’s underneath, though, right?”
Grudgingly, I had to concede that he might have a point.
He gave me a slightly pitying look.“Do you want me to go first?”
I gnawed on my lip, then nodded.Ashamed at myself for my cowardice.
Kai nodded, like my reticence came as no sort of surprise.“Well, first off, I’ve really enjoyed being with you, and I’m glad I almost gave you a coronary from shock that day we first met.”
Despite my ominous feelings about the topic at hand, I had to chuckle at the memory.Back then it seemed like I was very much caught up in my own little bubble of introspection; having Kai puncture it really had been a surprise.
“Anyway, since then the sex has been really great.Like, really, really great.”
I glanced at him, to find he was already giving me a salacious side-eye.Grinning, I gestured at him to continue.
“But it’s also been good to get to know you,” he added.“I mean, I wasn’t expecting or intending to meet someone on my break.”
“You just wanted a pool, yeah?”I teased.
“A pool and a dick, please,” he corrected.
I shook my head in mock-dismay.
“But yeah, that wasn’t the plan.And now I can’t help but feel a little nervous because, well...the break is almost over.”
It felt like a cold hand, fingers of ice, closed around my guts and squeezed.Draining all the sensation from me, and leaving me feeling heavy as stone.Instinctively I tightened my grip on the side of the pool, suddenly afraid that if I didn’t hold on I’d sink, straight down and fast, to the very bottom.
Of course, he’d have thought about it.Had the calendar pages flipping in the back of his mind while we were together, counting down until the day he went back to his normal life.Hurriedly, I tried to rewind back through my memories of the time we’d spent together; not the sex, but those moments in-between.The times I might’ve led him to think I expected more, or was getting too attached, too needy.The times that would be making him nervous now, fearing I’d make a scene as he said goodbye.
