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I’m not sure I actuallypromisedthey could swim without life jackets today. I think I merely suggested it waspossible, and now I’d like to suggest it’s not. I’m always outnumbered with them. I could save one drowning child—I can’t save two. But they both know how to dog paddle, and I guess, at some point, it’s sink or swim…literally.
“Okay,” I say with a sigh, and she runs out the back door gleefully, screaming,No life jackets!at the top of her lungs.
I’m grabbing my beach bag to follow them when my phone chimes.
JEREMY
Do you ever bother to even take the kids anywhere, now? Or is it just easier to put them in front of the TV all day?
There’s a briefpingin my gut, as if I should question this text more carefully, because how does he even know we’re home? But there isn’t time, with my kids running headlong toward the water and toward Caleb, who stands on the dock.
A thrill climbs up my spine at the sight of him, only in part because he’s currently shirtless. He has a tattoo high on the back of his shoulder, one I never noticed before. I want to inspect it up close, except if it’s for his wife, I’ll wish I hadn’t. Sophie is talking to him, and when he glances up at me as he replies, I walk a little faster. God only knows what she’s told him.
“Mommy!” she shouts. “Caleb says we can go on his boat, which is way better than ours!”
“Full disclosure,” he says as I approach, “I never claimed my boat was better. That was her.”
He also didn’tsuggestthis outing. My hands go to my hips. “Sophie, did you ask Mr. Lowell to take us on his boat? Because we’ve discussed this.”
“Wecall him Caleb,” she scolds. “And he said it was fine.”
“You do not invite yourself into other people’s homes,oronto their boats.”
Caleb shrugs. “It’s okay. I’m not doing anything.”
I still don’t want to reward Sophie for a behavior we’ve had several conversations about, but the twins are already scrambling aboard. “Yes, they’re monsters who will steal your youth and your disposable income,” he adds, “but I doubt your kids can do that from the inside of my boat.”
I’m laughing as I concede. He helps me climb up, his hand warm and rough and so much larger than mine. For just a moment, his eyes are on my face and we’re standing close and my stomachtips, a tiny but thrilling rise and fall.
“Thanks,” I whisper, looking away. It would be a lot easier to stop picturing him as Prince Charming if he’d stop fucking acting like him.
I go to the back and Sophie and Henry snuggle up beside me while Caleb unties the boat then jumps in—surprisingly graceful for his size.
He takes the seat up front and backs away from the dock carefully, his tricep popping when he moves the throttle, his bicep bulging as he grabs the wheel.
Jeremy started going soft months after we got married, while there is nothing soft about Caleb. He’s long and lean, ridiculously muscular for a guy who does nothing but work. I picture him flat on his back, spread out for me like a banquet, and feel a deep pinch of desire, so sharp it steals my breath.
Sophie leaves me at last and goes to the front of the boat. “Come on, Henry,” she says—bossy, parental—and he follows happily. For the next ten minutes, she delivers a nonstop dissertation on pandas to Caleb while he drives, and then he cuts the motor and comes back to sit with me while the twins take turns pretending to steer the boat.
“Thanks for this,” I tell him. “Obviously, it’s the highlight of Henry’s year.”
“It’s kind of fun to have some company,” he says. “I’m happiest surfing, but this is a close second.”
I smile to myself. “I remember you guys with all the surfboards in the back of someone’s truck.”
“You sound like you did nothing but watch my life from the window.”
I laugh. “A bunch of hot, teenage surfers staying at the house next door to me? Find me one pre-teen girl who wouldn’t have been obsessed.”
His grin turns sly. “Obsessed, huh? This is getting interesting.”
I’m not about to let him know just how obsessed I was. “Why’d you move to the lake instead of the ocean if you’d rather surf?”
He hesitates. “I didn’t really buy this place for myself. Mymom always pictured renovating and retiring here with my dad, hosting all the grandkids.” He gives me a half-hearted smile. “I guess she wanted your fairy-tale thing too. I’m trying to give her the house at least.”
“It’s notmyfairy-tale thing. Everyone wants to matter to another person. Everyone wants someone to grow old with. It doesn’t have to include kids.”
He shakes his head, watching Sophie march toward us. “I don’t. Life’s a lot easier when you don’t matter to anyone at all.”
