Held A New Adult Romance(11)

She slips my mind too easily, though. I worry I'm giving her the wrong idea. I can't stop thinking about John Gillespie's daughter. I don't know why. That paparazzi photo planted something inside of me. The white of her thigh, the private inside of it that no-one should see - every time I think of it I feel sick with anger that someone could treat her in that way. Like a zoo animal. Like a fucking fish in a tank.

When I get to work the big house is quiet. John Gillespie is in Prague for a couple of days. Uncle Steve has gone to his new job with the Douglases and there's just us grunts doing the rounds for Amber. Her wing of the house is maybe the best protected, tucked against the hillside and protected by dense woodland. Sometimes I hear helicopters overhead, but she's well sheltered there.

I don't expect to see her. I've spoken to her maybe six times in all. The first was when she had a panic attack. The second was when I came back to deliver her cigarettes. The rest of the times were pleasantries and for some reason with every passing instance we got stiffer and stranger with one another. Then yesterday when I went back there was no sign of her but a pale pink envelope taped to her closed door. Inside was a twenty and a note saying 'Jimmy - I'm sick today. Please can you leave me some smokes next to the aloe plant by the door?'

I wouldn't know an aloe plant from a cactus if I was peeing on one.

The door is closed, but the drapes are open. Maybe I should knock, but then I'm reminded of a fish tank again. Tap on the glass. See what they do. For a moment I hesitate, then make my way carefully around the edge of the pool. Maybe I'll catch her next time round.

She catches me instead. I didn't even realize I was stealing past like a thief, not until I heard the rasp of the sliding door on its tracks and found my heart in my mouth. "Holy shit."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to make you jump."

"I guess you owe me," I say. "I nearly fell in the pool."

She's wearing loose white linen pants and a little blue top. Her feet are bare and while she's not shifting her light weight enough to actually move her feet, I can see the tension in her hips. It reminds me of the way that just the touch of her toes in the water could make the whole surface tremble. She holds her arms folded, her elbows held still in her hands.

"It's not cold," she says.

"I don't care. I can't swim."

Amber frowns, and then for a second a smile touches the corners of her mouth. Her hair is sloppily tied back with a white ribbon and the wind catches a strand, blows it across her lips. She unsticks it with the nail of her thumb and quickly returns her hand to her elbow. "I thought everyone could swim," she says.

"Not me." The wind is strong enough to stir the surface of the water today. It's the kind of wind that makes the forest rangers and firefighters super antsy. One dropped cigarette butt and whoosh - wildfire. It flattens the thin linen against her thighs and hips and I can see the pink of her skin and the white of her panties. And then it's like I just light up. Just that one stray thought and I'm gone, thinking about what's under her clothes. I'd learn to walk on water if it meant I could get to her side that much faster.

"I'm sorry about yesterday," she says. "I hope you don't think I was being rude."

"No, not at all." Forget it. No way. This is stupid. Rich girl, white girl, crazy girl. Not for you. You don't even know her, dumbass. "I mean, I know you've got that...thing, right?"

She nods and presses her lips together, making a thin line of her mouth. Her bottom lip is a little thicker than the top, or maybe it's where she's been worrying it with her teeth. "I have some days where I can't even handle talking," she says. "Yesterday was one of those bad days, so..."

"And today is better?"

"Today is better, yes." She tilts her head. All her movements are slight and slow, like she's afraid if she moves too quickly she'll go off like she did when I first met her. For a moment I kid myself that she's looking at me with the same interest as I'm looking at her. "Are you serious?" she asks. "You really can't swim?"

"No. Why are you so surprised? Do I look like a surfer or something?"

"I don't know," she says. "I just took it for granted, I guess. I thought everyone could swim. Didn't you have lessons?"

She moves to the side of the pool, to one of the little mosaic edged seats set into the wall. I follow her but I don't sit down - she looks nervous as a bug still.

"Some," I said. "But I think they got me too late, you know? Like I'd lost the natural instinct or something. You know how they say it is with little babies."

Amber cups a hand against the wind and lights up a smoke. "What about them?" she says, peering up at me. Her eyes look more green than blue in this light.