I got to Johnny's house around three and as I hit the doorbell, I couldn't help thinking about all the hours I'd spent here over the past ten years or so. Even after my family moved two towns over and we no longer went to the same school. And now, with us both eighteen and leaving for college in two weeks, who knows how often we'd be seeing one another.
We didn't have anything special planned for this afternoon: he was getting off work around two, so I was picking him up, we were going to cruise the town for a while, grab a bit to eat, then hit a party some of our old high school friends were throwing.
Nobody answered, so I walked around back. Johnny wasn't there, but Jen, just home from her own junior year at college, was in the pool. "Hey," I called out, and she responded with a shriek. "Sorry if I scared you."
As I walked toward the pool, she quickly swam up against the side closest to me, pressing her body against the wall. "Didn't you get Johnny's message?"
"Hello to you too."
"Hey, Tims."
"No, I didn't get any message." I took out my phone and checked. "Needed @ work emergency. home in time for party. come @6 not 2," I read out loud. "Yeah," I said, "message. Duh. You mind if I just hang out back here? You won't know I'm here."
"Well..." she said, clearly embarrassed.
"What?"
"When nobody's here, I'm sort of topless. So I can tan evenly."
It took me a moment, then I realized why she was pressed up against the side of the pool. "Duh again," I said. I saw a bikini top lying on a deck chair.
"Don't mind me," I said, opening my phone's camera app.
"Tims!" she screamed.
"Just kidding, sheesh," I said.
"I knew that," she said, which might or might not have been true. "Tell you what," she said with a sudden grin, still pressed against the wall of the pool (and possibly not realizing how much sideboob was still visible), "you can take as many photos of me as you want just like this, and then you hand me my top and turn around while I put it on."
"It's a deal," I said, leaning over the pool as far as I could without falling in and taking a dozen photos, hoping to catch a bit of said sideboob. "You sure you can't back up a few steps?"
"No! But after I'm decent, why don't you come in here with me?"
"How about before you're decent?"
She glared at me, but there was the hint of a smile.
I put my phone down, picked up her bikini top, and held it just past her reach. "Tims, I'm not jumping up to grab it."
I continued to tease her by waving it around. She must have lifted herself out of the water for a moment but I didn't see anything, because she grabbed my ankle and yanked me into the pool. Good thing I'd put down the phone I guess.
The surprise of being pulled into the water made me let go of the bikini top and by the time I made it back to the surface, Jen had the top back on.
I climbed out of the pool soaking wet, and checked my pockets. "It doesn't look like you permanently ruined my wallet," I grumbled.
"Serves you right," she said, suppressing a giggle. Then she got serious. "And trying to get me out of the pool without my top, Tims... not cool."
"That doesn't mean you had to..." I started, then said "Okay, yeah, I guess that's fair. Though I was going to give you the top in another second anyway."
"I'm sure," she said. "Truce?"
"Absolutely."
"Still want to hang around?"