Deeper (7 page)

He nods. “You know I talk a big game but I won’t let anything happen.”

I want to believe him, don’t want to make myself Rain’s new bodyguard and make things weird between us, but somehow I can’t put her safety in his five foot ten hands. I’d rather take it in mine. I’d rather take her in my hands.

“Is she still here?”

He frowns, like he doesn’t want to tell me.

“Come on, Chad.”

“I think she went to test chemicals. With Nate.”

“She did? Thanks.” I turn my back on Chad and head over to the hot tub. She’s leaning over, watching Nate, our pool tech, pull out water and measure the PH by dropping chemicals in it and holding the color up to a slide of samples.

“So interesting. So basically, I can do this when I’m on shift without calling you over,” she says, leaning over his shoulder.

“Sure, but I’m already here.” Nate looks at her amusedly, curly hair bouncing as he turns. “But I’ve never had a senior guard interested in it.”

“I’m interested in everything about the pool.” Her hair isn’t up right now, and it’s drying with little curls around her face and shoulders. Beautiful. So beautiful. I want to slap myself in the face.

Patrick unbends his lanky frame and stands. Between his curly hair and his skinny body he’s one of the goofier looking people here, but he’s great at his job and I like him a lot. I’d trust him with my girl. Not that I have one. Two weeks working and flirting with someone doesn’t make them yours.

“Hey Knight, how come you’ve never asked me to show you how to test chemicals?” Patrick grins at me lopsidedly.

“Because it’s your job.” I give him a light shove and he shakes his head and gathers up his stuff.

“Let me know if you need anything, Rain.”

I give him another shove once he’s packed up, because I need time alone with her. He curses and shakes a fist at me playfully. “Damnit Knight, I’m going. Just ‘cuz we swam together doesn’t mean I’ll always put up with your crap.”

“Yes you will.” I grin.

“Damnit, he’s right,” Patrick mutters to himself as he strides away, case clinking in his hands.

Rain turns up to me, a playful but gentle look in her blue-gray eyes. Kind of like a stormy sky over the ocean. Oh no, she’s making me wax poetic. I could be freaking Shakespeare for her.

She can’t know I’m eating out of the palm of her hand like half of the guards around her. I don’t sit, because I like the height differential right now.

“So Chad says you’re going to his party?”

She blinks, and her eyelashes sparkle because they still have some pool water on them. “I guess so.”

“Why?” I cross my arms, both because I like the way it makes my biceps look, and because I’m gearing up for a fight and want to look intimidating.

“I thought it’d be good.” She shrugs. “I mean, to bond with the guards outside of work. Gain their trust, make them like me.”

“Do you need them to like you?”

“Not really. I just thought it would look standoffish not to go to something that everyone else is going to.”

“Go with me, then.”

Her eyes come up to mine in surprise, and her eyebrows lower as if she thinks I’m making fun of her. “Why?”

“Solidarity. We’re both sups.”

She shakes her head. “Which is exactly why we should go separately. We shouldn’t act like we’re better than them.”

“We
are
better than them.”

“We have more responsibility.” She stands and tries to glare into my eyes though she’s a lot shorter and I have to look down at her for her to do it. “That doesn’t make us better. It makes us responsible to them.”

“Yeah, but aren’t you just going to be trying to stop all the underage drinking and getting on them for their sloppy sexual habits?”

Her eyes narrow. “Just because I have preferences for my own behavior, doesn’t mean I go preaching it and forcing it on everyone else. What they do off job is not my business. Unless it’s something that would affect them at work.”

“Didn’t expect a Montana chick to be so chill with stuff like that.”

“My personal code has nothing to do with where I’m from. Besides, I’ve lived everywhere.”

There’s a story there, but I don’t have time for it. I need to convince her to come to the party with me. “Just come with me.”

“I can’t. I told Amy I’d go.”

“You know she told the guys you’re against sex.”

She raises an eyebrow, then shrugs. “It’s true, they might as well know. Probably her way of protecting me.”

That’s not going to protect her. But I could. I want to protect her.

“Obviously everyone here thinks I can’t handle myself. Like I’m some naive fool, just because I don’t engage in certain things. Hasn’t anyone considered it’s a choice I’ve made?”

She glares at me again, and I try not to look down at her swimsuit. She’s hot when she’s mad. Damn hot. “So you won’t go with me?”

“No. But I’ll see you there, I’m sure.”

“Why? I don’t get it. You’ll be safer with me.”

She throws up her hands. “Seriously? You too? What do I need to do to prove I’m capable?”

It’s not that she isn’t capable. Maybe there’s just something about her that makes people want to watch out for her. Something good, something prickly, something innocent, maybe. She just seems like she’s been through less than the average person, and I have this insane need to keep it that way.

“I’ll see you there, Knight. Try not to be an ass and I might even hang out with you a bit.” She wraps a towel around her waist and strides off to the guard room.

Damn she works a towel. She’s going to cause me all kinds of trouble this season. I can just tell.

“You told Knight no?” Amy pauses, her blush brush tickling my cheek. “You told
Knight
no?”

I cringe against her brush. I hate makeup, it makes me itch. “I can talk better if you give up on this makeover thing. There’s no point to it after all, I’m not going to be hooking up with anyone.”

“I just think everyone should see you made up. You’re always trying to be plain at work.”

“Why does it matter how I look? I’m just a supervisor. I need to look professional.”

“I know you’ll hate this, but you’ll get more respect from the guys if you’re hot. At least if you try.” She dips her brush in the pan and swirls it, then brings it back to my face.

“Not the kind of respect I want.” I hold still while she rubs my cheeks for what feels like the fiftieth time but is probably the third.

“There. Perfect.” She holds up a mirror and I’m shocked. Not the clown face I was expecting. The coral flush on my cheeks looks natural, beautiful with my light brown hair. Well sort of light brown, I’m quarter Filipino and the only place it shows is my hair. It’s a multicolored mess that everyone thinks is cool but weirds me out.

“That looks amazing. You’re a miracle worker.”

She grins. “Wait till I’m done with your eyes.”

“Wait, eyes too?” I’ve already put up with foundation, concealer, and blush. I don’t want to know how itchy the eye makeup is going to be. “Can we take a break first?”

She lunges over her bed to grab her phone and checks the time. “Yeah, no one gets there early anyway.” She chucks the makeup brush on the bed and flops down beside me. “So let’s talk about Knight.”

“What about him?”

“No one says no to him.” She smiles, and her warm brown eyes twinkle at me.

“I did.”

“But why?” She bites her lip. “He’s sex on wheels.”

I stifle a grin. “That’s my co-sup you’re talking about. He’s just another supervisor.”

“No he’s not. He’s totally hot.” She flops on her back on the bed and sighs up at the ceiling. “Wish he had asked me. He keeps pretty distant from the girls.”

“That’s good. He should. It’s only professional.” Now he should just keep pretty distant from me.

“Most of the girls don’t want to be distant from him though.” She circles herself with her arms and sighs again. “Me included.”

“What’s so great about him?” I ask, not sure if I want to know the answer.

She huffs and glares at me. “You mean, aside from his killer, chiseled abs, his super blue eyes, and his biceps the size of my head? Gee, I don’t know.”

“I mean, what makes up for his personality?”

“Oh, you mean, super controlling bad boy that’s always in charge and the best at what he does? You’re right, such a turn off.” She laughs and sits up on the bed. “Seriously Rain, you don’t want him, none of the other girl guards are going to be broken up about it. Me included.”

“So, are you gay, or not? You’re confusing me here.”

She purses her lips and cocks her head. Sometimes she reminds me of a cocker spaniel, with her quirky movements and her big brown eyes and her silky brown hair always in a ponytail. “I don’t really know. I mean, I have two moms, so I’ve seen women kissing my whole life. That’s what’s normal to me. At the same time, I really like guys.”

I nod. It makes sense. I met her moms this afternoon and both are awesome and feminine and just all over each other.

“Say, Rain.” She comes closer, batting her eyelashes, boring into my eyes with hers. “Have you ever kissed a girl?”

“Can’t say I have,” I pull back a bit. I love being around Amy, love how uninhibited she is and how girly she is, because it’s everything I’m not. But I have no interest in making out with her.

She puts her hands on my knees and looks up at me through her lashes. “It’s way nicer than kissing guys. Really soft. Tastes better.”

I laugh but turn away. I’ve never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. “Sorry, not my thing.”

She sighs melodramatically and turns away. “Worth a shot.”

“Anyway, most of the girls like Knight?”

She straddles the chair next to the bed, facing me over the back of it. “Like is an understatement. They love him. Like, fan club status.”

“See? It’s good I told him no. That’d be a great way to make them hate me.”

She closes her eyes for a moment and takes a breath in. She opens them but looks at the ground. “I dunno. If Knight was happy, I guess we’d be happy.”

“Why?” I can sense there’s something no one is telling me.

“It’s not really my place to tell.”

“Come on, Amy.”

“But I guess someone will tell you if I don’t.” She rests her chin on the top of the chair back and thinks for a moment. “Knight lost his girlfriend a few years back.”

“Lost, like broke up?”

“No.” She scratches her head. “I’m really not sure I should say this.” She bites her lip and stares at nothing in particular. “She killed herself.”

My throat catches, suddenly dry. I never would have known. No wonder I recognized something similar in him when he was swimming like that. Something no one else recognized. It’s weird that we have death in common, not that I’m going to tell him, or anyone, that. “How does everyone know?”

“It was his senior year. Lots of us went to school with them, around here. I was a freshman at the time.”

I swallow. I can’t even imagine what he felt then. Shame, humiliation, pain, fear. He was only 18. I don’t know how I can look at him the same after this, even though it would drive me crazy to have someone look differently at me for such a reason.

I fill my mind with pictures of Knight teasing, Knight being belligerent, and assure myself he’s fine. I have to treat him normally, because it’s what I would want. “That’s awful.”

She nods, and her eyes look a little wet. “It’s still hard for a lot of us to mention it, even now. Shook the whole school. Even those of us who barely knew her felt like we had failed.”

“There’s nothing anyone could have done,” I tell her, wishing I could tell her the same about my own situation.

Amy nods but doesn’t meet my eyes so I set a hand on her shoulder and wait for her to look up at me. “There’s nothing you could have done.”

“Thanks.” She smiles and wipes her eyes. “Anyway, enough about sad things. So you turned Knight down, how’d he take it?”

“He wanted to know why. Asked again. I said no. Again.”

“He was probably pretty shocked. Most of us would have been happy to go.” She goes to her makeup bag and starts pulling out eye shadows. “And you’re going anyway. Oh well.” She pulls out a brush and swipes it against her hand a few times to clean it. “As long as I get to rub it in his face that I stole his date.”

I laugh. “Go ahead.” Closing my eyes while she applies the makeup gives me time to ruminate. Now I know why people don’t do anything when Knight swims too long, or acts weird. They’re all treating him with kid gloves.

“What about Chad?” I ask, as she brushes shadow on my eyelid.

“What about him?” She isn’t nearly as excited to talk about him as she was to talk about Knight.

“Just wanted to know?” Truthfully, Chad seems pretty harmless, and I’m thinking I could probably use him to keep Knight off. I’m not in any danger of falling in love with Chad. Harmless Chad.

“He’s just very average. Average guy. Average rep. Freshman in college at a state school. Off for the summer, like you. I don’t know why we are even talking about him.” She gets more shadow on a brush and blows the excess off. “He just broke up with Di, one of the front desk workers.”

“Oh yeah. Knight thought I was one when he first met me at the bonfire?”

“You were at the bonfire? Why didn’t I see you there?”

“I was pretty low profile. Just trying to get the hang of things.”

“Here.” She holds up a mirror in a compact and I’m shocked. My eyes look bigger, wider, and with the dark smoky eye look she’s given me, really sultry.

“Not sure this is what I should be wearing to a work party.” I blink, glad she didn’t insist on mascara. “Seems pretty heavy.”

“Nah, never. She who is prettiest has the power.”

“I guess that’s you then.” I stand and stretch, unable to keep still anymore. “Can we go now?”

“Didn’t know you were in such a rush. But no, we have to pick outfits.”

An agonizing hour later, we’re finally pulling up in front of Chad’s place. It’s not a big house, maybe 3 or 4 bedrooms, packed with teenagers. “Does he live with his folks?”

“No. Just shares with Jason, one of the other guards.”

“Isn’t that expensive?”