"Wow," Natalie said one balmy afternoon, lifting her sunglasses from where she lounged by the pool. Her pale skin gleamed with sunblock. "Who's that hot older guy coming toward us?"
"Shut up," Lily laughed, and waved to her father. "Hi, Dad."
Robert smiled as he approached, wearing a tee shirt, shorts, embarrassing sandals, a bottle of microbrew in one hand. "Hello, girls. Enjoying the pool?"
It was soon after the end of the school year: the last hot, carefree summer before Lily and Natalie started college and their adult lives. They were headed for separate schools. It would be a long time before either of them saw each other again. In keeping with a lifetime of pacts and vows, they chose to spend their time the way they'd spent so many summers before: sunning themselves by the pool at Lily's house.
"Yes, Mister Weston," Natalie said sweetly. The two of them occupied the reclining chairs next to the pool, in matching two-piece swimsuits of cherry red. "Come hang out with us?"
Lily's dad smiled a mouthful of perfect teeth. "Please, Natalie, you can call me Robert."
"Okay, Robert," Natalie purred. "Do you want to come sit with us?"
Lily rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses.
"I'd love to. Unfortunately, I have to take off. I have work."
"On a Saturday?" Natalie's lips curled into a sympathetic pout. "That's unfair."
Lily's dad worked as a marketing exec who had retired at forty and spent the last eight years traveling or kicking around his sprawling two-story house. Lily's mother was long-gone, having divorced Robert when Lily was only ten. Now Lily was eighteen and Natalie just nineteen, and the two of them had spent many springs and summers livening up the mostly-empty house.
Robert nodded and finished his beer. "Tell me about it. You two have the house to yourselves. Stay out of trouble while I'm gone, all right?"
"Hurry back," Natalie called after him in a silky voice. Robert saluted with his beer and padded back into the house to change clothes.
Lily doffed her sunglasses. "Holy shit, Natalie. Hit on my dad some more, why don't you?"
Natalie giggled. "What? Your dad is hot. Like young-dad hot."
"Are you kidding? He's like fifty."
"Forty-six," Natalie corrected. "Do you not know how old your own dad is?"
"Wait," Lily said. "How do YOU know that?"
Natalie judiciously re-applied sunblock. "We talk sometimes, when you're in the bathroom. And I friended him on Facebook."
"Oh god. Whatever, just stop flirting with my dad, please."
Natalie laughed. "Nope. I do what I want."
Lily sighed. Sometimes, she wondered how they'd stayed friends this long. They were opposites in so many ways. Lily was short, dark-haired, tan and slim, with horn-rimmed glasses that gave her a bookish demeanor — which was accurate, considering she would much rather stay in and read most nights. Natalie, on the other hand, was tall, athletic, honey-blonde, and pale, with flawless skin and a fearless, extroverted personality that seemed to draw men to her like a magnet.
Even in high school, Natalie had fielded a dozen or more boys asking for dates and dances, while Lily watched from the sidelines. Which was fine with Lily. Most boys her age were idiots.
Still, she often wished she had Natalie's mischievous and impulsive nature. Natalie was a girl who did what she want, when she wanted, and while she never did anything outrageously stupid, she never seemed to get in any real trouble either. Lily wasn't sure she was capable of that level of daring.
"Okay," Lily said. "Can you not do it in front of me, then?"
"What if I did him in front of you?" Natalie asked, tucking her hair behind her ears.
Lily gasped. "Nat!"
"What? I'd totally do your dad."
"You're disgusting."
Lily's shock only seemed to egg Natalie onward. "Can you imagine if we got married? I'd be your mom. I'd totally ground you. Take away your car keys."
Lily grabbed her smartphone, blushing. She began thumbing through apps to distract herself from her discomfort. "I am begging you, Natalie, shut the fuck up."
Natalie giggled — a sound that had driven men to distraction many times in Lily's presence. "Okay, fine. You are such a prude."
"I am not. That's my dad you're talking about, that's all."
"I'm sorry," Natalie said. But her mischievous grin said otherwise.
# # #
The afternoon cooled to a warm evening, and Robert had still not returned. Lily and Natalie went for a swim, lounged until it got too cold, then went inside. Natalie dressed in a tank top and shorts, while Lily threw on a long tee shirt and pajama bottoms. They got hungry and ordered pizza delivery, and Lily filched a twenty from the "emergency" cash jar.
"Damn," Natalie said after paying the driver and shutting the door.
"What?" Lily sprawled on the couch in the spacious living room, flipping through movies on the fifty-inch wide-screen.
"The driver wasn't cute."
Lily laughed. "Natalie, does your brain constantly occupy some sort of weird porn-o-verse?"
Natalie dropped the pizza box unceremoniously to the floor and flopped down beside it. She flipped it open, releasing a puff of steam. "What? I can't long for a hot pizza delivery guy to seduce?"
"I think maybe my dad might object to seducing the pizza guy."
"What if I took him in the bathroom? Would that be okay?"
Lily tied her hair into a messy bun. "Please stop talking. I'm going to get us drinks."
She wandered to the kitchen — spotless, roomy, and abandoned, like most of the rest of the oversized house — and opened the fridge. She stared at the racks of diet soda, sparkling water, and other beverages for a few moments before plucking a pair of hard ciders from the bottom shelf. She popped them open and returned to the living room.
Natalie perked up as soon as she saw the frosty bottles in Lily's hand. "Ooh! Booze!"
Lily handed her one. Robert had made it clear that he didn't mind if the girls drank in the house, as long as they didn't get carried away. Lily's mom would have lost her mind if she'd known — she'd always considered Robert overly permissive. But Mom wasn't in the picture anymore.
"Your dad is the coolest," Natalie said as she polished off half her bottle in one go.
"Yeah, the way he contributes to our moral degradation."
"That's exactly what I meant," Natalie said, picking idly at her slice of pizza.
"Just don't get any of that on the carpet," Lily warned. "Cool or not, he'll lose his shit."
They polished off two slices of pizza each, along with their bottles of cider — then went back for more cider. Within the hour, they'd each had three, and Lily's head was pleasantly buzzing. They lay on the couch together, watching some stupid sci-fi movie that neither of them paid much attention to.
"I have to tell you something," Natalie said at last, her voice carrying the lazy, roundabout tone of the mildly intoxicated. She held her phone inches from her face, as she lounged on the couch, scrolling idly with one thumb.
"What's that?"
"I really do think your dad is hot."
"Oh, not this again," Lily said.
"I do!" Natalie gave Lily a wide-eyed, sincere look that seemed so serious that Lily laughed out loud.
"You're making fun of me," Natalie complained.
