Page 31 of Fun Together (Make Romance #1)

Faye

Eli’s parents’ house is in a beautiful historical neighborhood.

Every house looks at least a hundred years old, but they’re all so charming. I imagine there’s constant ambient noise of lawn mowers and children giggling on their bikes in the distance.

I pull up in front of the house, the cutest brick bungalow I’ve ever seen, and am greeted in the driveway by a little girl with a mass of dark curls in a hot pink swim dress. Standing next to her is a giant black Great Dane that reaches to the top of her head.

I get out of my car, wondering if I have the wrong address when she says, “You must be Faye.” She adjusts the orange pool floaties on her arms and gestures for me to follow her. “Follow me, please.”

She leads me past the front porch (complete with rocking chairs and giant potted ferns by the front door) to the side of the house, and down a flower-lined path into the backyard.

When she opens the gate, the dog bounds in and runs up to where Eli is cleaning a small pool with a net.

He turns at our approach, face lighting up.

“I see you’ve met our concierge, Florence.

” He nods to the dog. “And her assistant, Pebbles.”

Florence runs ahead of me, clearly eager to get the swimming started. Eli pulls me in for a hug and plants a kiss on the top of my head. “Sorry, I’m on last-minute babysitting duty this afternoon. Emmett is running late with a contractor at his house.”

“That’s okay.” It’s kind of nice to have a little buffer. Not that I haven’t been thinking about being alone with him all day, but I feel a jittery anticipation about what might happen tonight. This will help take some pressure off.

Florence is already standing on the steps that lead into the water. “Come on in. The water’s fine,” she says with a twirl.

“Careful, Flo. Don’t get in until I’m in there with you.” She sticks her tongue out at him, and I laugh.

“You ready to swim?” he asks me.

“I love swimming.” My grandpa had a membership to a neighborhood pool in our town. It was small, a little rundown, but it was basically my second home every summer.

He looks intrigued. “I didn’t know that.”

I’m already wearing my suit under my dress, so I take off my sundress and set it on one of the pool chairs. I grab my sunscreen from my bag and apply it everywhere I can reach while Eli finishes cleaning out the pool.

“Almost done, Flo,” he tells her as he pretends to scoop her up with the net. “Just one last critter to fish out.”

She shrieks. “I’m not a critter!”

She clearly loves him, and he clearly loves her. “I see you’re the fun uncle,” I say, walking over to the edge of the pool.

“Of course,” he says, with a cocky grin on his face. “I’m her favorite uncle.”

“I don’t have another uncle,” Florence says with a perplexed look on her face.

Eli and I share a smile at her confusion. He tosses a pair of purple goggles to her. “Can you stay on that top step until we get in?”

She nods excitedly and places the goggles on her head.

I hold up my sunscreen. “Do you mind getting my back?”

He squirts the sunscreen in his hand and rubs his palms together before massaging it onto my back and shoulders. “Need me to get your front, too?” he asks quietly by right ear. It’s the same voice he used over the phone the other night.

“No, I think I’ve already handled that,” I say.

“Suit yourself. Can I borrow this? Don’t want to use up Flo’s.”

I hand him the bottle. “Sure.”

I watch him rub the sunscreen on his chest and arms, the white streaks disappearing into his skin the way butter melts into a hot skillet. “Earth to Faye,” he says.

“Hmm?”

He laughs. “I asked if you could get my back too.”

“Oh, yeah, sure.”

“Flo, I see you. Stay on that top step,” he says to her. He turns his head toward me. “She’s trying to be sneaky and see what she can get away with.”

“Wonder who she gets that from?” I finish applying the sunscreen to his back. “Okay, all set.”

He immediately dives into the deep end before the sunscreen even has time to set in. He pops his head back out of the water and slings his hair out of his face. “Want to practice swimming?” he asks Florence.

“If I can still wear my floaties,” she says, with a little hop into the water.

I ease my way in and sit on the stairs, so I’m submerged from the waist down.

“Let’s play a game,” Eli says.

“Okay! What game?” Florence asks.

“It’s called the telephone game,” he says. “I’ll stay down here and tell you something and then you have to swim to Faye and tell her what I said.”

Florence’s eyes light up as she turns to me. “Faye, do you want to play?”

“I would love to,” I say.

I watch as Eli whispers something in Florence’s ear. She paddles her way over to where I’m sitting and motions for me to lean down. She whispers, “Eli said that you’re really pretty.” I can’t help the smile that blooms on my face.

I cup my hands around her ear and say, “Can you tell him that I think he’s really pretty too?” She giggles and swims away. When I see her tell him, he makes eye contact with me and his smile is so big and beautiful that it makes my chest ache.

Oh, he’s very pretty.

We play the telephone game a little longer, until Florence wears herself out. Eli wraps her in a towel and hauls her over his shoulder to carry her inside. She cackles all the way in. I dry off as best I can before wrapping my towel around me and following them inside.

Eli is standing with the freezer door open. “Alright, Flo. Here are dinner options. Chicken nuggets or . . .” He rummages around. “You good with chicken nuggets?”

She nods. “Is there enough for Faye?”

Eli looks over to me and grins. “Faye, would you like some chicken nuggets?”

“No thank you, I’m good.”

“Faye and I are having grown up dinner later.”

We sit around the kitchen island and not long after Florence finishes her nuggets, a man who looks like a more serious, but just as good-looking, version of Eli comes in through the side door.

“Emmett, this is Faye. Faye, this is my older brother, Emmett.”

I go over and shake his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too. Sorry Flo crashed your date. I had to meet with a plumber.”

“We had a good time,” I say.

Florence bounds up to her dad and grabs his legs. “We played the telephone game!”

Eli takes a sip of his water. “Maybe we’ll go without the floaties next time,” he says with a wink.

Florence, suddenly shy, hides behind Emmett’s legs. Obviously, she’s not ready to go floatie-free.

“We’ll head out so you two can enjoy your night. Let’s go, Flo.” He grabs her hand and gives me a wave. “Nice to meet you.”

“Bye Faye!” Florence shouts as they leave.

After they leave, Eli saunters around the counter and loops his arms around my lower back. “Finally. I thought we’d never be alone.” He snuggles into my neck. “Are you hungry?”

I turn my head and bring my mouth to his. It’s a little awkwardly done, and he doesn’t expect it. Very quickly, our mouths course-correct and we kiss each other with an impatient sweetness, like we’ve been waiting all afternoon for this.

“I guess that’s a yes,” he says smiling down at me.

“Actually, I am starving. For food,” I clarify.

“I thought I’d make some chicken and veggies on the grill. Is that okay?”

“That sounds great.”

We chat while he grills, and then we keep chatting more while we eat.

He tells me about an apartment he looked at yesterday where the entrance had ten different locks to get inside.

I tell him about a dream I had last night where I was trapped inside the conference room with Guppie, forced to complete a series of riddles to escape.

I tell him the food is delicious. He tells me I look beautiful in the evening sun.

We finish up just as the sun is setting, hot and orange behind the tree branches.

“How do you feel about night swimming?” He leans back in his chair and places his arms up behind his head. This draws my attention to his tattooed biceps, to the sprinkling of hair that covers his chest and stomach.

I stand up and shed my towel. “It’s a perfect night for it.”

He watches me, and I don’t feel self-conscious when he drinks me in. Because I see the same hunger in his eyes that I’m sure he just saw in mine.

This time, I dive in first. It’s not my best dive, but I feel a little rush of adrenaline from it, anyway. I come back up to the surface and he’s standing by the edge of the pool, looking down at me with an impressed grin.

Then he cannonballs in with a big splash. He doesn’t come back up, though, and I look down to see his shadow beneath the water swimming around my legs. I know what he’s doing, and I try to swim away before he can catch me.

I’m having an actual giggling fit as he chases me through the water. I’ve felt this giddy energy bubbling beneath the surface all afternoon, and it’s finally coming out.

When he catches me, he pulls me toward him and I wrap my legs around him as I loop my hands behind his neck. His skin is still slippery from the sunscreen he put on earlier.

I’m still laughing when he kisses me. He pulls away and both of us are a little out of breath. “Shit, I’m out of shape,” he says.

“Same, my lungs are on fire.”

He holds onto me and spins us around slowly. “Thank you for having dinner with me,” he says.

“Thank you for making me dinner.”

I feel a drop of water slide down into my cleavage and I feel his eyes follow it. “I like hanging out with you,” he says. “I like kissing you.”

He kisses me again, and somehow I feel light but grounded, too. Like I fit here, with him, and this pool is a magical place where outside worries don’t exist.

“All day at work I thought about this,” he murmurs against my cheek. “Your wet skin under my hands. Grabbing your hips and kissing your neck.”

Even while kissing, the man can’t stop talking. I huff out a laugh, and he stops the trail of kisses he was running across my collarbone. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say innocently.

He hefts me up and tightens his grip on my thighs. “Tell me.”

“I love how much you talk. Like you have to say what you’re thinking, or you’ll die.”

He smiles and it’s almost sheepish. “I don’t even know what I’m saying half the time.”

“I bet you got in trouble a lot for talking in class.”

“Yeah, but I always got to sit next to the girls like you.” He kisses my shoulder. “The ‘pleasures to have in class.’”

I laugh because it’s true and we just look at each other, smiling and swaying in the water. I reach up to brush his hair back. “What’s next?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean . . .” I don’t know how to ask this, but I really think we should talk about things before taking this any further.

We’re entering dangerous territory, despite all the warning signs, such as, maybe you shouldn’t fuck the person who is quickly becoming your best friend—who is also your ex’s best friend.

“We should probably talk about this first.”

“I agree.” He hasn’t stopped kissing anywhere his mouth can reach.

“Are you even listening?”

“Mm-hmm,” he says, face buried in between my boobs. “Definitely listening.”

I lift his face up to look at me. “I need to know something.” He moves so that he’s at eye level with me.

“You helping me with the sex stuff . . . it isn’t like a pity thing, is it?

” I don’t think I could stand to know he’s only interested in that just because he feels sorry for me after failing twice to find someone to sleep with.

“Pity?” He shakes his head as if he can’t comprehend the question. “If anything, you’d be taking pity on me for all the things I’ve wanted to do with you.”

Oh . “What kinds of things?” I ask. I’m greedy now and I want to hear him say it.

He licks his lips. “The first day I saw you again in the elevator, I thought damn, how is she more gorgeous than I remembered ? Then, I thought about that fucking vibrator and if you used it that entire weekend.” He runs his hands along my waist, sliding his fingertips under the band of my bathing suit top.

“Then, I thought about you coming in my lap so many times, it’s a wonder I’ve been able to function at all.

” He grinds against me, and I can feel his hardness so close to where I want him to be.

“I want this with you, not because of your list, but because I—because you’re all I think about. ”

I lift my hips to meet his and move that we’re pressed together as close as we can possibly be. “Want to know a secret?”

He uses his fingertip to follow a drop of water down my chest, tracing a circle over my heart. “I want to know all your secrets.”

And I’m starting to want to tell him every single one.

“I may or may not have accidentally fantasized about you the first time I used that vibrator.”

“Accidentally?”

“Yeah, I sort of just let my mind wander. You were some type of ranch-hand and we were having a rendezvous in the barn.”

He bursts out laughing at this. “Farm fantasy? I’m banking that one for later.”

“So you don’t want this to be a one-time thing?”

“I have a feeling one time won’t be enough for me. What about you?”

I swallow down a lump that forms in my throat, not knowing what to say.

My thoughts want to spiral, thinking of all the reasons we shouldn’t make this a one-time thing, much less a many-times thing.

I’m scared to express these thoughts out loud, like it’ll burst the bubble we’re in right now.

Instead, I kiss him, hoping that’s answer enough.

He pulls back. “I’m starting to get a little pruny. You want to see upstairs?”

“You’re not showing me the basement? I wanted to meet your roomie, Santa.”

Another sheepish smile. “Since my parents are gone, I get to sleep in the office that’s also a guest room.” He pulls me closer and his deep voice rumbles in my ear. “Santa doesn’t need to see what we’re about to do.”

An expectant shiver runs through me. “In that case, I’d love to see upstairs.”