His shoulders slumped. “Ok,” he grumbled and meandered around the corner.
“He’s been looking forward to this since, oh, about six o’clock this morning,” Addison said with a smile.
“I’ve been looking forward to it since about that time, too,” I said, smiling back. “Deuce got tired of me talking about jumping off the high dive and playing Marco Polo.”
She crossed her arms, one eyebrow raised, looking skeptical. “Really?”
“Really. He’s been driving me crazy all week talking about how awesome his swimmers are. I figured I could return the favor and keep telling him how awesome this swimmer is,” I said, pointing a thumb back at myself.
She just shook her head at me and smiled as Jaxon came running back.
“I’m ready!” He grunted as he grabbed the beach bag, which was about twice his size.
“Why don’t you let me carry that to the car,” I said, grabbing it from him. “Six, right?” I turned to double check with Addison.
“Yep,” she confirmed as she walked us the rest of the way to the door. “That’ll give us time to take a bath and get to bed on time.”
“Come on!” Jaxon said impatiently, throwing his hands in the air. “Let’s go already!”
“That’s my cue,” I said, following Jaxon out the door.
Once we got on the road, Jaxon was a non-stop chatterbox. He talked about everything . . . his birthday presents, the turtle he found in his backyard, the time he woke up when his mom was trying to steal his tooth fairy money from right under his pillow. I found myself surprisingly entertained. I knew I enjoyed Jaxon, but it still surprised me how much he and I clicked.
When we got to my apartment complex, we headed straight out to the pool. I figured Jaxon wasn’t going to be patient if we had to go upstairs for me to change, so I was already in my trunks. It was a good guess on my part. He could barely contain himself riding the elevator up from the parking garage.
“Whoooa!” he said with wide eyes when we finally made it poolside. I understood where his seven-year-old fascination was coming from. Even as an adult, I knew it was a pretty sweet setup. It was a large L-shaped pool with a beachfront entry in the shallow end complete with those rain shower structures for the smaller kids to play under. The deep end was split into two sections. One side had two different diving boards, each a different height. The other side of the deep end had an awesome slide. It was at least fifteen feet up and was shaped like a corkscrew. I had never been on it before, but had a feeling I would be today.
“Can we go now?” he asked, bouncing up and down.
“Let’s grab a couple chairs for our stuff first and put on some sunscreen, ok?”
We found a place to drop our bag and towels and I started slathering him down. I tried to make sure I didn’t miss any spots, but it wasn’t easy with Jaxon wiggling around the whole time.
“Hey there, handsome,” a sultry voice said behind me. Jax and I both turned to see a bikini-clad redhead standing next to us, eyeing me up and down.
“Hey, Danielle.” I didn’t need more than a glance before getting back to the task at hand.
Danielle lived a couple floors below mine. With her husband. I learned pretty quickly that having a ring on a woman’s finger doesn’t always mean she is off the market. Especially when that woman is twenty-five years old and married to her fifty-seven-year-old former computer science professor, who also happens to be a highly sought-out consultant for some of the biggest companies in the world. Apparently traveling three weeks out of the month doesn’t always make for a happy marriage.
“Who is this handsome little man?” she cooed at Jaxon, putting her hands on her knees and bending over, giving us a both an eyeful of cleavage as she practically fell out of her top. As soon as I realized what she was doing, I looked back at Jaxon, whose eyes kept shifting from her chest to her eyes and back again.
I kind of wanted to high-five Jaxon for keeping his cool as much as he did with that much boob in his face. It’s not an easy thing for any man to do. Even the ones in elementary school.
“My . . . my name is Jaxon,” he stammered. “I’m Jason’s friend.”
“Well hi there, Jaxon. My name is Danielle. I’m a friend of Jason’s, too.”
I grimaced momentarily, but caught myself before she saw. I wouldn’t classify her as a friend at all. More like a gold digger. And a dangerous one at that. I could spot them a mile away.
“I haven’t seen you around lately, Jason,” she said, picking up the bottle of sunscreen and squirting some on her fingers.