MAX

Gripping the pool brush tightly, I clenched my jaw, a mixture of frustration and hidden longing coursing through me.

Unbelievable.

For the past forty-five minutes, I’d been cleaning the pool while Cole sat on the lounge with his AirPods in. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was mad at him for letting me do all the work or frustrated because he was being a distraction in a pair of shorts, no shirt, soaking in the sun. His body was amazing with those lean muscles that definitely hadn’t been there back in high school. He had washboard abs now—not as cut as mine—nevertheless, they were there.

Numerous times I’d had to swallow the saliva gathering in my mouth from staring at him. I wanted to kiss the bronze perfection of his skin.

I returned my attention to my task, scrubbing the pool’s surface. Every so often, my eyes flickered in his direction, but I never caught him looking at me. Not once. Was he really so indifferent to me? When I’d picked him up at the airport and touched his hand while taking his suitcase, I’d have sworn I felt a spark, but it might have been one-sided.

What would it take for him to look at me the way he had back in high school? That boy had been infatuated with me, and I’d taken advantage of it. Dammit, maybe I shouldn’t have lowered the bar to ask for friendship last night, but it’d seemed more attainable than suggesting we pick up where we’d left off.

A familiar ping echoed through the air, and I jerked my head up. A Grindr notification? Really? He was trying to find a hookup while he was here?

My stomach knotted. Rosewood might not be a big gay scene, but I’d found hookups in the surrounding towns. An hour’s drive wasn’t unreasonable for sex.

Unless I did something about it.

“Cole, aren’t you going to help me at all?” I called, hoping to distract him from whoever had put that smile on his face.

“But you’re doing so well at it.”

“Come on, man. Four hands will make the work lighter.”

“And risk Gladys complaining I don’t have the muscles to pull it off properly?” He gave me a thumbs-up. “I believe in you, Maxxy. You’ve got this.”

Maxxy?

I sucked in a deep breath. No one else had called me that in… ever. Only him. People close to me shortened my name to Max, but no one would ever see me as a Maxxy. Only him. I would always pretend to hate it while secretly enjoying his nickname for me.

I tried to ignore the flutter in my chest and returned to my task, but it was impossible to pretend he wasn’t sitting there talking to a guy he might meet up with later for sex. Evan and Ryker thought of me as a great wingman, but this was the first time I was being a cockblocker.

“Seriously, Cole. Get off the phone and help me.”

“Can’t. I’m busy. If you didn’t want to do it, you shouldn’t have offered. What are you doing trying to impress my grandaunt, by the way?”

“It’s called being nice,” I said through clenched teeth. I didn’t remember him being such an asshole.

“Nice? Hah! That’s a new one.”

His reaction got under my skin. Pool brush abandoned, I stalked over to the hose. “Get up and help me.”

Cole glanced up and put his phone down. “You wouldn’t da—ah!”

I directed the stream of water at him, drenching his body from head to toe.

Oh shit, what have I done? Isn’t this bullying him all over again?

I turned off the hose and dropped it, feeling sick to my stomach.

“What the hell, Max!” Cole jumped to his feet and shook his head.

Water glided down the solid wall of his chest, pooling down into his shorts. His soaked shorts, which molded to his thighs and crotch. The wet material outlined a rigid cock beneath.

Fuck. My mouth went dry. Had he been sexting with someone from Grindr? Was that the reason for his hard-on?

“I didn’t mean to.” I took a few steps backward as Cole advanced toward me, his lips in a thin line.

“Neither do I.”

“What?”

Cole picked up the hose.

“Now wait a—!”

Water sprayed into my face, and my vision blurred from the sheer force of it. I batted my hands in front of me. “Stop it!” I turned my back, and the icy blast hit my shoulder blades, almost knocking me off my feet.

“Doesn’t feel so good, does it, Max?” he asked.

“I didn’t spray you this hard and not so long.” I walked backward into the stream, turned at the last minute, ducked, and grabbed the hose. We wrestled for it, the nozzle switching from me to him, then back to me and him.

“We’re wasting the water!” Cole said, the nozzle of the hose poised in the air, raining droplets down on both of us. “Let’s call it even.”

“Fine by me.”

“One. Two. Three.”

We turned off the nozzle, his hand on top of mine. The heat generated by our skin touching made my stomach flip. We were both soaking wet, but the icy cold of the water gave way to a flame burning inside my gut.

“The Cole in senior year wouldn’t have fought back.” The moment the words had come out of my mouth, I winced. Why would I remind him of what I’d done to him?

“The Cole you knew back then isn’t the same guy. I grew up. Learned how to fight back, protect myself and the people I care about.”

And it was sexy as hell seeing him this way. Confident. A little cocky even.

“I get that.”

“I’m serious. Not the same guy, Maxxy.”

It was the Maxxy that did it. I would have stepped back, pretended his friendship was all I needed, but I closed the distance between us and pressed my lips to his.

Cole’s hand delved into my hair, loosening the band around my ponytail. My wet hair fell to my shoulders, clumps of strands sticking to my cheek. He lowered his hand and gripped my nape as he plunged his tongue into my mouth with an intensity that made my knees weak. He was holding me just the way I liked. Trapped in his embrace, his firm grip on my neck held me in place so I couldn’t escape his kiss.

A moan escaped my lips. Desperate to be closer to him, I clasped his hips and pulled him into me until we were chest to chest and our thighs molded together. The hard evidence of his arousal rubbed against mine. I arched my back, aligning our bodies in perfect synchrony. We were of similar height, and everything lined up just right.

“Cole,” I gasped, my voice heavy with longing. “Oh, god, I’ve missed you.”

I glided my hands up his sculpted back, tracing the contours of his sleek muscles, exploring every inch I could of this new physique I didn’t yet know.

“Ahem.”

A throat clearing shattered the moment I’d longed for since I’d picked him up from the airport. Cole dropped his hand and broke away from me, his breathing ragged pants that mirrored mine.

A man stood before us, dressed in blue overalls, an apologetic smile on his face. It was hard not to glare at him for interrupting.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’m the plumber you called. Here to take a look at the kitchen sink.”

Oh shit.

“The plumber.” Gladys swept out of the house, moving faster than her knees should have allowed. She grabbed the man’s arm. “Don’t worry, boys. I’ll take care of him.”

They disappeared into the house, the man not getting a word in edgewise, given Gladys’s moving lips. The poor man looked bewildered.

“I knew it,” Cole whispered fiercely.

“Knew what?”

“She’s trying to play matchmaker between us. That’s why she had you over here this morning fixing the sink and now cleaning the pool with me.”

“But you weren’t helping.”

“It serves you right for being so gullible and falling for her antics like a poor sap.” He shook his head. “Seriously, Max, open your eyes to what she’s doing.”

“Gladys wouldn’t be manipulative.”

He snorted. “No? You don’t know my grandaunt at all.”

“Actually, I’d say that over the past ten years, I’ve gotten to know her pretty well. And so what if she thought we would be suitable for each other?”

“But she’s wrong. Friends. That’s what you said. In a little over a week, I’ll be back in Atlanta, where my life is. Not back here in this town that holds horrible memories.”

Cole stalked over to the lounge chair, took up his phone, and headed for the house. I stared at his back, fingertips tingling at the memory of how it had felt to touch him.

They aren’t all horrible memories, though.