Page 10 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

The fuck boy absolutely saw you staring. He also definitely saw the shimmy.

Only when I can’t hold my breath any longer, I come back up.

And oh my god, he’s swum to the edge of the pool closest to the hot tub. His arms rest on the pool deck, chin level with the surface, and he’s watching me with an expression he’s working to keep neutral. Except there’s a shimmer of something at the edges of it that might be amusement.

“Hi,” he says.

The steam is still rising off him. Just curling up off his shoulders into the cold air.

“Hi,” I say back, all my nerves suddenly alert and alive.

Up close I can see the tattoos better. The chest piece is enormous and intricate—gargoyles in stages of agony against a stormy sky, perched on castle parapets—and below it, something that continues down his sternum, his ribs, disappearing into the water. How much of his body is covered? The ink goes all the way down both arms, which I can see now that he has them folded on the pool deck.

I realize I’m staring at his chest.

I look at the pool.

I look at the moon.

I look back at the pool, which is where he still is.

The thing is—I’ve been married since I was eighteen to the first and only boyfriend I’ve ever had. I met him when I was seventeen, which means I haven’t navigated this particular situation, the situation offuck boy, hot tub, evening, steam,in approximately a decade. Or likeever, in actuality.

Suffice to say, it’s been a long time for the general occurrence of hanging out with a hot fuck boy with even the potential to flirt?—

Jake, says a voice in my head.You’re married.

Right. Except, I left Jake. Four hours ago.

I informed him of my decision and packed a bag and walked out the door, which means that technically, as of four hours ago, the rules?—

What are the rules?

Can someone please hand me a new script? ’Cause I knowblah blah blah, liberated woman, I threw the old one out… but I could really use some fresh stage direction.

Is there supposed to be a waiting period? I understand there are divorce proceedings, which in Texas take a minimum of sixty days, but in terms of the norms aboutlookingat someone, or the implications of what it means that I noticed this man’s chest before I noticed anything else about him?—

Could somebody please just let me know how close I’m allowed to get to the sexy, shirtless man while still getting to call myself a good, normal person?

Oh lord, I’m clearly not nearly as liberated if I think all I want is to throw out one script and grab for another. Wait. Do I care more about beinggoodor beingfree? And by whose standards am I trying to begoodanyway?

“Is that pool heated?” I ask, because I need to say something instead of spiraling silently in my head, and this is apparently what my brain has produced.

“No.”

I look at the steam still rising off him, happy to be distracted. “That water must be?—”

“Sixty-two degrees,” he says. Like this is a completely reasonable water temperature to voluntarily be in.

“That’s not—” I try to work out if that’s dangerous. “Is that safe?”

A shrug, unhurried, those enormous shoulders lifting and dropping.

“If you keep moving.” He nods toward the far end of the pool, where the evidence of his laps is still rocking in slow wavesagainst the wall. “I like the extremes. Cold plunge, then warm up in the hot tub, back to the pool. It helps regulate me.”

I look at the hot tub. Then back at him.

He’s shivering. Just slightly. It’s the controlled shiver of someone who has made peace with shivering as a temporary condition.