Page 57 of Like A Daydream
“Let me try,” Andy says, once Jet has the trailer pulled almost completely out of the water. “I bet I get it in one.”
Jet throws the truck in park and jumps out. “Go ahead. I’ll be the one laughing when you do just as bad of a job.”
Andy takes Jet’s place in the truck. “You have a warm ass, JT.”
“Shut up,” Jet says, “my wife likes my ass.”
“Most days,” Ainsley quips from the dock, she looks up at Danielle and half smiles. “Want to help me grab life jackets from my car?”
Danielle nods, “Maybe a miracle will happen and they’ll finish before we get back.”
“Title of their sex tape,” Ainsley laughs.
“I thought I was the only one around here who uses that joke,” Danielle says.
“Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a staple in the Thompson house,” Ainsley says, leading Danielle to her car.
“It’s one of the best shows ever written,” Danielle says, “Andy likes it, too.”
“The four of us will have to have a marathon,” Ainsley says, popping her trunk open. She grabs two large life jackets and two medium ones.
“Really?” Danielle asks, holding her hands out to take two of them.
“You’re not that bad, I guess,” Ainsley says, shrugging. She turns to Danielle and smiles, “and you make Andy happy, which makes Jamie happy, so I can’t really ask for much else. He’s been through a lot. You both have.”
Danielle swallows, surprised that her eyes are starting to burn and her throat has a lump in it. She’d never thought that Ainsley would ever extend any sort of kindness to her, and yet in the last three weeks she’s been overwhelmed by it.
She’s not sure if it’s because Emerson is gone and Ainsley feels bad, or if it’s a genuine invitation to start their entire relationship over but she’ll take it.
“Then is this definitely a truce?” she asks, hesitantly.
“Truce, with potential to be a friendship. In the future,” Ainsley says. “For now, we better check and make sure those two haven’t killed themselves.”
When they get back to the boat launch, the truck is back in the parking lot and Andy is on a jet ski waiting for Danielle. She and Ainsley pull their shorts and t-shirts off, putting their own life jackets on over their swimsuits before they head back in their direction. They only stop for a second to throw their clothes in Jet’s truck.
“I was kind of hoping that they would have had to call the coast guard to come help,” Ainsley says, disappointed.
“I’m surprised they figured it out,” Danielle agrees as they walk to the dock.
Andy is staring at her, slack jawed, and she feels such a rush of confidence that she stands a little bit taller as she throws his life jacket directly at his face.
He’s taken his shirt off.
“Cover yourself, no one wants to see that,” Ainsley teases, throwing a life jacket to Jet.
“Yeah, Andy,” Jet says as Ainsley climbs on behind him. “Put your muscles away.”
Danielle thinks she might be drooling.
The muscles she had only ever felt through clothes are on full display, toned and tanned, and she’s trying to fight the way her stomach explodes in nerves.
He also has a script tattoo along his left collar bone, and she’s never been one to really appreciate tattoos one way or the other, but this man makes her think it’s the hottest thing she’s ever seen.
She watches the muscles in his arms and shoulders flex as he pulls his life jacket on and clips it closed, and he looks up at her with a devilish glint in his blue eyes.
“Are you just going to stare, or are you going to get on?”
“As if you weren’t staring at her the same way,” Jet calls from his own jet ski. Ainsley hits him on the shoulder, and Danielle climbs onto the jet-ski behind Andy, hugging around his middle and leaning her head on his back.
