Page 11 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

“Come warm up then!” I say, gesturing to the hot tub. And then wonder if you’re supposed to say that to strangers. Really hot strangers. “I mean—you said that’s the whole point. The back and forth, right?”

He looks at me for a moment, like he’s trying to figure out whether I mean it or if I’m just being polite. I’m not. The problem with me is my mouth runs away before I’ve figured out the polite thing to say most of the time.

Then he’s lifting himself out of the pool in one smooth motion, water cascading off his muscular chest and abs and?—

And I’m now looking at the moon again with great focus.

He stops, dripping, at the edge of the hot tub.

“You sure? I don’t want to interrupt.” His pause holds the hint of a smile. “Whatever it is you were doing.”

He saw the shimmy. He definitely saw the shimmy.

“I was celebrating,” I say, with as much composure as I can assemble. “I made a significant life decision today.”

“Congratulations,” he says, and steps in.

He settles on the bench across from me and sinks down to his chest. He exhales long and slow in the bubbling hot water, then he’s still. Like he doesn’t have to work at performing ease or filling the space. And he doesn’t ask follow-up questions about my significant life decision.

I like that.

I like how he’s doing nothing except existing, quiet and all but meditative, in the hot water across from me like he does it allthe time. Maybe he does. I did clock him as a fuck boy. So maybe this is just a normal fuck boy move.

The question is… how do Ifeelabout it?

Not how do I feelrequired to actin this situation… but if it’s just me, making up the rules and writing the story as I go along… how do I feel about being in the hot tub with a hot stranger?

Well, it’s definitely nice to just be able to sit with someone without the expectation of talking. Usually I get really anxious around new people and have a lot of difficulty just letting myselfbeme.

It’s unusually easy with this stranger, though.

I play with the bubbles at the surface like I was before, determined not to let his presence affect my enjoyment of the hot tub experience. I like the way they pop against my palms. And how the light of the neon bounces in shifting light as I airplane my hand back and forth through them.

“I’m August,” he finally says, breaking the quiet. “I live here. Just so you know you didn’t end up alone in a hot tub with someone who appeared from the void.”

“I would certainly appreciate it if you’re not a serial killer,” I say, because I’ve decided I’m just saying whatever thought comes into my head instead of shoving it back down inside and judging if it’s normal or not before I let them out of my mouth. Just like I’m not lowering my volume anymore.

“I’m Marie.” My middle name just pops out of my mouth even though I haven’t used it as a first name since high school. Usually I go by Lennon, but there’s something freeing in using the older name tonight. “I don’t live here. I just needed somewhere to be tonight.”

He nods.

A couple cuts across the far end of the plaza, and the man calls out without breaking stride: “August! Laps in January, man, you’re crazy.”

“Always,” August calls back.

The couple moves on. So he does live here. Good. And now I’ve got witnesses in case of, you know. It would be my luck, the first day I finally decide to choose freedom, I end up in a hot tub with a handsome serial killer.

We sit for a while. The neon lights shift underneath us, blue to purple to green. I’m aware of him across the water the way you’re aware of a fire in a room. Even when you don’t look directly at it, you’re aware of the location of the warmth.

“Did it hurt?” I ask out of nowhere, gesturing vaguely toward the wall of ink across his chest. Apparently my mouth has decided that subtlety is for people who have their lives together and I am not currently one of those people. “The tattoos.”

He looks down at his own chest.

“Yeah,” he says. “They hurt like hell.”

“Most people avoid pain at all costs.”

He looks up.