Page 15 of Outlier

Or the fevered dreams I still had about her every night, which had ramped up significantly since that day at her house.

All the women turned their heads towards me as I passed, and to my absolute shock, Vicky squeaked. The woman actually made a squeaking sound.

When I risked a glance back at the trio, the other two were staring at Vicky in open-mouthed shock. But Vicky? She was staring atme.

Lottie whispered something to her, but she didn’t respond to whatever the other woman was saying. So, as usual, fucking weird.

“Hey girls,” I said when I came up from my dive into the pool to smile at Hayley, Lottie’s little sister and Florrie, Ollie’s niece.

“Hey, Mike,” Florrie said, and Hayley gave me a shy smile.

“Uncle Ollie, do the thing! Do the thing!” Florrie shouted, then squealed as he plucked her off the side of the pool, lifted her high above his head and then launched her into the deep end, where she swam to me then stood on my shoulders until I launched her into the air again.

Hayley even managed a much gentler launch and came up with a proud, smiling face.

“That’s brilliant, Hayley!” I said. “I’m amazed you’ve learned anything from these losers, to be honest. You must be natural. How about you learn from the master?”

“Get over yourself, mate,” Felix said as he balanced Florrie on his shoulders. “We’rewaybetter swimmers than you.”

I snorted. “Only because you overprivileged losers had your own pool.”

Florrie was on my shoulders now, and I launched her high in the air, back towards Ollie.

Felix rolled his eyes. “You had use of the pool.”

“Okay, wellItaught Lucy to swim.”

“I taught Vicky to swim,” Ollie said.

“Lucy was younger.”

“Well, that’s nothing, Vicky was…” Ollie was interrupted by the sound of a sun lounger scrapping back.

We all looked over to see Vicky stand, shove a man’s large T-shirt over her head and run from the pool.

“Shit,” Ollie muttered.

“You swore again,” Florrie shouted. “I’m telling Granny!”

Ignoring Florrie’s threats to her uncle, I swam over to him. He was still staring after Vicky.

“Vicky was what?” I asked, and his gaze snapped to me before he frowned.

“My sister was and is none of your fucking business,” he said.

“Granny’s gonna be super mad, Uncle Ollie,” Florrie put in helpfully.

I stared at Ollie for a moment but then he broke eye contact when his sister Claire, and her dickhead husband, Blake arrived.

“Come on, Hails,” Florrie said, her expression now grim as both girls glanced up at Claire and Blake before exchanging a look. “We’d better go and muck out Legolas and Bertie. We said we would.”

Christ, that kid really did not like her stepdad.

Was that why Vicky ran? But they only just arrived. No, it was when Ollie was about to say something about her to me. Why would she run? I knew I’d spent way too much time thinking about Vicky lately, but I couldn’t shake the gnawing thought that I was missing something. And the way her hands shook after I’d been a shit to her that day was still playing on repeat in my mind, making my chest tight.

I made a decision and hauled myself out of the pool.

“I’ll see you later,” I muttered to Lucy as I stalked by her and Lottie on the sun loungers, grabbing a towel from my sister to dry off as I went.