Starlight (Peaches Monroe #2)(27)
Author: Mimi Strong

He swam close enough to retrieve one of the pool noodles for himself, then swam away again.

“When you were ten, did you long to be twelve?” he asked.

“Doesn’t everyone? I wanted to be sixteen, so I could drive a car.”

“I wanted to stay ten forever.” When he said that, his youthful face looked even more innocent, his brown eyes wide and honest. He continued, “When our eleventh birthday came, I told everyone that only Katy was turning eleven, and we weren’t twins after all. I said I was younger than her, and the whole twin thing had been a prank.”

I took the pool noodle he’d left behind and wrapped it under my legs, balancing on it like a chair.

“I didn’t know you and Katy were twins. Did people believe you?”

“Yes. Even teachers believed me. I knew it wasn’t true, of course, but the idea that people would just believe whatever an eleven-year-old told them—it shook me. That’s my first memory of realizing how chaotic the world is.”

“That’s a tough age for a lot of people. I was about that old when I figured out that eventually everybody dies. Not just sheep dogs and goldfish, but everyone.”

“It’s tough to be a kid,” he said solemnly.

“It’s tough to be an adult.”

The courtyard was so quiet, I could hear cars in the distance and people inside their apartments running water and washing dishes.

As the sun set and the light disappeared, Keith’s muscle contours picked up shadows, and he looked less like a boy and more like a man—like a sinewy god of the sea, with a lavender pool noodle.

We both started paddling, moving in a clockwork direction. We moved slowly at first, then sped up, like each was trying to catch the other by the foot, but pretending that wasn’t the real goal.

Finally, Keith snarled like a dragon and shot out of the water, seizing me around the waist. I let out a startled cry, then was pulled under.

Once underwater, he released me, and we opened our eyes and found each other under the surface. He opened his mouth like he was speaking, but only bubbles came out. I did the same, and he smiled. We repeated this until we were both out of air and had to surface, laughing and gasping to catch our breath.

He caught me in his arms, and as his skin connected with mine, I realized the water had cooled me, and I craved his heat. With one look into his brown eyes, I craved even more than his heat.

He asked, “What do you like to have after swimming?”

“Hot chocolate with mini marshmallows.”

“You’re in luck. I actually have the stuff to make that.”

I leaned over and slurped the water beads off his beautiful shoulder. Once I started, I couldn’t stop, and soon I was slurping my way up to his ear, sucking on his earlobe.

He growled with enjoyment as I gave him a nibble, then he steered me over to the side of the pool, so he could hang onto the tiled edge and grind against me.

We kissed, my legs wrapped around his waist again, then he said, “Would you like me to f**k you before, or after the hot chocolate?”

“How about after? I’m trying to practice my patience.”

“As you wish,” he said, in his best Westley-from-Princess-Bride voice.

For the second time, he jumped up and then slipped down and away from me, through the water. He surfaced, and started up the steps. Once out of the water, he picked up the two orange towels, holding one between his knees for himself, and holding the other one open for me to walk up to and get wrapped in.

I stepped up out of the pool and into his waiting arms.

“You make me feel pampered,” I said as he rubbed me dry with a towel for the second time since we’d met.

“It’s the least I can do for someone who makes me feel so happy.”

He gave me a quick kiss, then switched to drying himself.

Oh, Keith, I thought. You’re too good to be true.

Sure, the meditation stuff was kookier than a barn full of cuckoo clocks, but sweet mercy, the man was as thoughtful as he was gorgeous.

Following him back into the apartment, I tried not to think about how this short-term relationship of ours was doomed.

As we stepped inside and he pulled me into his arms and rained kisses all over my shoulders, I tried not to think about how a long-term relationship would be equally doomed—assuming he would even want one.

“I was promised hot cocoa,” I said, pushing him away playfully.

After a sly wink, he moved into the kitchen and started preparations.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Ten. I refused to blow out the candles at my birthday parties, so I’m only ten. Ask any grown-up. That’s how it works.”

“How old is your sister?”

“Old enough to manage the landscaping business on her own, just as soon as I catch my next big break.”

I sat on a kitchen stool and looked down, feeling worse than ever about him losing his big break.

“Maybe I’ll ask around on your behalf,” I said.

“I didn’t tell you about Milan, did I?”

I looked up, surprised by how upbeat he sounded, considering he’d been drinking when I got there.

“Flying scares me,” he said. “I actually turned down another job to do Peaches Monroe.” He laughed.

“Uh, to do me?”

Still laughing, he said, “Little did I know that doing Peaches would lead to doing Peaches.”

“Keep saying my name like that, and you won’t be doing anything tonight but listening to whale songs and playing a five-finger solo on the man-banjo.”

He stirred some hot cocoa mix into boiled water, in two matching red mugs.*

*The only thing better than hot cocoa is hot cocoa in a red mug.

He said, “I need to call my agent and do a little B-B-B, but I think I can still book the job. They really liked me.”

“What’s B-B-B?”

“Beg, Bribe, Blow. A great business plan for anything you want to do in life.”

“Gross.” I accepted my mug of cocoa and took a sip, inhaling the tiny marshmallows into my mouth. “Perfect. Tell me more about this other modeling job.”

He scrunched his face. “You’ll just find the details boring.”

“If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.” (Wow, I totally just quoted my mother there.)

Keith got a happy look, and started telling me about the clothing line. As he talked, some of the details flew over my head, but I discovered something beautiful. When Keith talked about this job, his face lit up the same way it did when he named the different tree species at the big garden.