Page 28 of The Producer: Aaron

She bursts out laughing, amused, and I see her relieved for the first time since I set foot in this house tonight.

The phone vibrates in my pocket, and when I pull it out, I don’t have time to see the preview of the message. Dakota has already taken it and placed it on the deck chair next to ours.

I raise an eyebrow in a silent scolding.

“Tonight, you are here to relax, remember?”

“What if it’s something important?”

She raises an eyebrow as if to say,don’t bullshit me.

“It took you an hour to get home when you thought the house was on fire. What’s more important than that?”

“You know, sooner or later, that tongue of yours will get you into trouble, right?” I can’t hide the fun in my voice.

“Do you want to play the boss card now? You’re in sweatpants and a T-shirt!” she teases.

“You’re incredible,” I whisper in front of her frankness.

“When was the last time you enjoyed this pool to relax?” she asks.

I wrinkle my forehead and think about it for a few moments.

“Never. This is the first time I’ve used this pool for the sheer pleasure of doing it and not for some party for the big shots,” I admit, a little ashamed.

I find her staring at me with her mouth and eyes wide open.

“Are you serious?”

“I’m always too busy,” I try to justify myself as she gets up and reaches out her hand.

I hesitate for a moment before grabbing it and getting up to follow her without understanding what she wants to do until a moment before she pushes me into the water, fully dressed, and follows me with a bomb dive. I re-emerge and spit out a puff of water.

“You’ve gone completely crazy,” I complain, passing my hands through my hair, trying to get it out of my eyes.

She rolls her eyes. “It’s a pool, Aaron, not a pot of hot oil.”

“I’m fully dressed,” I point out.

“I repeat, it’s a swimming pool. It’s full of water. Your clothes will dry.”

“Do you always have an answer ready for everything?”

“I would like that! Do you know how much easier my life would be?”

I turn toward her and find her staring at my chest, more specifically the muscles she can glimpse under the white fabric of the shirt glued to my skin. I knew the hours spent in the gym sweating like a twenty-year-old would not be wasted. She bites her lip, and when she looks up at me and realizes that I caught her staring, she looks down and blushes. It is that mixture of sexy and sweet that my body seems to appreciate so much that awakens the erection in my pants. I’m happy to be immersed in the water so she can’t see it.

When she looks up at me again, the embarrassment has disappeared, and the moment she swims toward me, I feel vulnerable. When she is one step away from me, she grabs my arm and makes me turn, giving her my back.

“You have a tattoo,” she whispers as her fingers slide down the dark lines under my shirt, sending a shiver down my spine.

“It’s a phoenix,” I whisper. Not many people know that I have it, even though it is as big as my whole back.

“Why a phoenix?” she asks, clinging to my shoulders and swimming around me to see my face. Her hands rest on my shoulders, and mine slide to her hips.

“To remind me that you can be reborn from your ashes, again and again.” Every time my father crushes me until some of my dreams die, I am reborn, stronger than before.

She looks at me for a long moment, her thin fingers lightly caressing the skin on my neck. I’m not even sure she’s aware she’s doing that. I think she wants to ask me more about the ink under my skin but decides not to. I thank her silently for this because I don’t know if I would be able to explain and make myself vulnerable in front of her.

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