Chapter 5: Jasmine's Unannounced Return
The water around me seemed to freeze.
Jasmine’s voice, that familiar, saccharine dagger, sliced through the twilight calm. “Marky! I figured you could use some company after sending your little friend away.”
I turned, my hands gripping the cool tile edge. She stood silhouetted in the light from the house, holding a bottle like a trophy, already in a short floral dress. Her eyes scanned the patio, dismissed me with a flicker, and locked onto Mark.
He was halfway through drying his hair, the towel halting mid-motion. I saw the corded tension in his forearm. “Jasmine. This isn’t a good time.”
“Nonsense,” she chirped, clicking across the tile on wedge heels. She set the bottle on the table with a definitive clink and gracefully lowered herself onto the lounge chair he’d just vacated, draping herself over it as if claiming a throne. “It’s the perfect time. Sunset. A beautiful pool. Just us.” Her gaze slid toward the water, toward me, and her smile didn’t change, but it hardened at the edges. “Well. Almost.”
I remained still, the water lapping at my chin. My heart was a trapped bird fluttering against my ribs, a frantic rhythm I felt in my throat. She thinks I’m just some girl. A nuisance.
Mark’s voice was a low, warning rumble. “Jasmine. Leave.”
“Why?” she pouted, running a finger along the arm of the chair. “Afraid I’ll corrupt your new… pet? She’s very young, Mark. Isn’t she a little barely-legal for your usual taste?” Her laughter was a light, poisonous trill. “Though I suppose the body is exceptional. If you like that… obvious kind of thing.”
Shame, hot and prickling, washed over me. But beneath it, a colder, sharper spike of anger ignited. It was my anger, Justin’s anger, cutting through the fog of alien sensation. This woman was insulting me, and using my friend as her playground. The logic of the cover story crystallized into a desperate, reckless plan.
I moved.
Pushing off the wall, I paddled the short distance to the steps. The water fell away from my body in heavy, clinging sheets. As I rose, the cooling evening air hit my wet skin, raising instant goosebumps. I felt everything with excruciating clarity: the dripping weight of my long hair plastering my back, the sudden, liberated sway of my breasts as they left the water’s support, the sleek, cold trickle running down the pronounced curve of my spine and into the precarious dip of the bikini bottom. The thin red fabric was saturated, clinging to every contour, leaving nothing to guesswork. My small feet, pale against the dark tile, found each step, the arch higher, the toes more delicate than my mind could accept.
I didn’t look at Jasmine. I kept my eyes on Mark.
He was watching me, his expression unreadable, but I saw the slight widening of his eyes, a silent question. What are you doing?
Jasmine had gone quiet. I felt the heat of her stare on my back, on the roundness of my ass where the strings dug in, on the water droplets tracing the backs of my thighs. It was an evaluative, hostile scrutiny.
I walked toward Mark, each step a conscious effort. My hips had a natural, rolling sway in this form—a biomechanical fact I couldn’t suppress. The sensation was profoundly wrong, a puppet mastering its own strings. My chest bounced with a soft, persistent jiggle that made my face burn. I was aware of the space between my legs, the strange, specific chill of evaporation from the wet fabric there, the foreign folds beneath, all of it feeling perilously exposed.
I stopped in front of Mark. He stood rooted, towel hanging from one hand. Up close, I had to tilt my head back to meet his eyes. The sheer scale of him was dizzying. I smelled the chlorine on his skin, the faint, clean soap beneath it.
My voice, when I found it, was higher than I intended, breathy from cold and fear. “Hey, baby.”
His gaze bored into mine, searching. I gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. Play along.
Before he could react, before I could lose my nerve, I rose onto the very tips of my toes. My balance wavered; my small feet, with their chipped pink polish, strained. I placed a hand on his bare, damp chest for stability. The feel of his solid muscle under my palm, the heat of him, was another shock.
I leaned in and pressed my lips to his.
It wasn’t a kiss. It was a collision of realities.
His lips were firm, startled into stillness. Mine were the plush, alien softness I’d only felt from the inside. The sensation was overwhelming—the pressure, the warmth, the stark, intimate contact of a mouth that wasn’t my own kissing my best friend. I could taste the faint residue of pool water, a metallic hint. The kiss lasted only three seconds. It felt like three hours.
I dropped back onto my heels, my pulse roaring in my ears. I kept my hand on his chest, my fingers trembling against his skin.
I turned my head, slowly, to look at Jasmine.
Her predatory smile had vanished. Her face was a rigid mask of stunned fury. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the lounge chair.
Mark’s arm came around my bare shoulders, pulling me sideways into the solid wall of his torso. His skin was warm, his grip firm, almost too tight. “You were saying, Jasmine?” His voice was calm, flat, a stark contrast to the feverish hammering of my heart I was sure he could feel.
Jasmine recovered with viper speed. She unfolded herself from the chair, a smooth, angry motion. “Cute,” she sneered, her eyes raking over me, over where Mark’s large hand splayed across my upper arm. “Really.A performance. I didn’t know you were into children’s theater, Mark.”
“I think you should take your wine and go,” Mark said, his tone leaving no room for argument.
She snatched the bottle from the table. “Oh, I’m going.” Her gaze landed on me one last time, and it was no longer merely disdainful. It was calculating, storing details. “This isn’t over. You don’t fit here, sweetie. You’re a temporary ornament. He’ll get bored. They always do.”
She turned and walked back into the house, her heels striking the tile like gunshots. The sliding door hissed shut behind her.
The moment it closed, Mark’s arm dropped from my shoulders as if burned. He took a full step back.
We stood there, two feet apart, in the thickening dusk. The silence was absolute, broken only by the steady plink of water from the pool’s edge. My lips still tingled, a phantom brand. The place where his arm had been felt colder than the rest of me.
He rubbed a hand over his mouth, then down his face. He wouldn’t look at me. “That was…”
“I know,” I whispered. The word barely escaped my constricted throat.
“It worked,” he said, finally meeting my eyes. His were dark, conflicted. “It fucking worked. She’s never left that fast.”
A hysterical laugh bubbled in my chest, but it died before it reached my lips. The victory felt ashen, toxic. I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly aware of every goosebump, every droplet, the way my nipples were tight and visible against the wet fabric. The kiss had been a transaction, a piece of theater. But the body it happened with didn’t understand theater. It recorded sensation, and it was replaying the press of his mouth on mine on a loop.
“I need… I need to get dry,” I said, my voice small.
He just nodded, turning away to gather the towels. I walked stiffly toward the house, the sway in my hips gone, replaced by a numb, mechanical shuffle. The cover was solid now. It was also a cage we had just welded shut around ourselves, and the bars still hummed with the aftershock of what we’d done to build it.