Free Pool Man by Sabrina York Page A

ready by the time we’d paid. The croissants were waiting for us at the pickup counter too. Without a word, I collected my poisons and headed for the table at the window. Where we always sat.
    Marlee took her usual seat and fiddled with the paper around her pastry. And then she gored me with a dark look. “I’m really pissed at you,” she said.
    It was unfortunate she said it just as I took a long draw of my caffè Americano with sugar-free vanilla and three Splendas, because it all shot out my nose. I grabbed a napkin and mopped up the mess. My gut churned.
    Oh God. What had Jimmy said?
    “Um. Okay.”
    She crossed her arms and frowned at me. “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation or something? It’s bad enough that you’ve been avoiding me—”
    “I’ve been swamped.”
    “Oh, cut the bullshit, Paige. We’ve been friends for too long. You’ve been swamped before and you never locked me out like this. What the hell is going on with you? And why didn’t you show up?”
    I gaped at her. “Show up?” Had I missed an event? A party? Christ, a birthday? Mentally, I scanned my calendar. No…“What are you talking about?”
    “I lent you my beautiful Caribbean home for an entire week and you never showed up.”
    I swallowed the massive lump in my throat. Or tried to. “I-I did show up.”
    Marlee frowned. “Jimmy said you never came.”
    I tried—rather desperately—not to laugh. I failed. It erupted in a snort. I had come. More times than I could remember. “I was there, Marlee. I…loved it.” Yeah. That word caught in my throat.
    “Do you need a forklift?”
    “What?”
    “For all the bullshit?” She leaned in. “Jimmy said you didn’t show.”
    Why on earth would he say that? Confusion swirled, fogging my brain. It was exacerbated by the guilt I felt—not just for falling for her pool boy, but because of the pain now on her face.
    “I was there, Marls. In fact, I have photographic evidence.” I pulled out my phone and opened my gallery. Trying, although not very hard, to squelch the triumphant tone in my voice, I thrust the device at her. “See?”
    She scrolled through the photos, leisurely swipes, turning the phone sideways several times to get a better look. Her eyes widened on one and I knew which photo she’d found. Jimmy. On the bed. Naked. The photo I’d snapped while he slept, all mumbly and restless. My grand reminder of a magnificent fling. A magnificent man.
    I pretended to ignore the rising chagrin at presenting her with proof—proof that I’d had him. But good.
    Marlee’s features rumpled. She handed back my phone. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Paige,” she said. “But that’s not my house.”
    I gaped at her. “But…Jimmy…”
    She shook her head. Her curls bobbled. A wicked glint danced in her eyes. “That’s not my house, that’s not my pool, and that…” She gestured to the picture of long, lean limbs tangled in satin sheets. “That’s not Jimmy.”
    I wasn’t sure which emotion to grapple with first. The gushing relief that he was not hers , that they’d never made wild, passionate love in that bed…
    Or the fact that I had waltzed into some random house, stripped down to the buff and demanded sex from a complete stranger.
    And, holy crud. The worst thought of all hit me like a wrecking ball.
    He wasn’t Jimmy.
    I didn’t even know his name.
    I didn’t have a clue who he was.
    He was gone. Utterly gone.
    Lost to me forever.

Part Two: Danny
     
    Chapter Seven
     
    She’d had me from the very start. The instant she’d sashayed into my foyer and stripped down to her birthday suit, I’d been lost.
    It had shocked me, looking down the long hallway and seeing this woman with her rampant curls, her pixyish face and all that bare skin.
    In my foyer.
    Buck naked.
    I had no idea what she was doing there, but she seemed so sure of herself and she looked so goddamned sexy in that bikini, I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
    So I made her a