Ty laughed. “Wow, and people callmedramatic.”
Ollie stuck his tongue out, but he could only hold the face for so long before he had to go back to working out the stiffness in his back. “God. Might have to be an early night.”
“Actually… if you’re okay leaving Theo with the baby monitor, I have an idea. We’ll just be right outside.” He paused. “On the deck.”
A second later the pieces fell into place. “The hot tub?”
“Apparently my dad had a standing service call. Guy was here yesterday. Everything good. Water’s at 102.”
“Wow. I am not used to thinking nice things about your dad.”
Ty grinned crookedly. “Guess there really is a first time for everything. Meet you out there in five?”
“Yup.”
Ollie double-checked Theo didn’t want to join them, but as he’d expected, he was too busy plowing through the last three chapters of his book to be bothered with something so trivial as a hot tub. He brought out the baby monitor—he should rename that if he was going to talk about it out loud—his phone, a towel, and a beer from the fridge, right in time for Ty to open the cover.
The sun had gone down, and the tub lights illuminated the steam escaping into the cool night air. The tension in Ollie’s shoulders eased just looking at it.
“The beer’s not gonna help your shoulder,” Ty chided, but he said it wryly, because he had one of his own.
“Yes, Doc,” Ollie agreed. “I promise to drink three glasses of water before bedtime.”
“Well in that case, Dr. Morris prescribes sitting in the hot tub with the jets on for half an hour.” Grinning, he pulled his shirt off and climbed into the hot tub.
Ollie couldn’t follow fast enough.
The hot water stung skin that had pebbled to goose bumps in the chill. The scent of bromine prickled his nose. Ollie took a moment to close his eyes and tilt his head back against the padded side of the tub and let the simple pleasure of it wash through him.
Then Ty turned the jets on, and Ollie about flew across the tub into his lap. He braced his feet on the floor and pushed back into the massage and only barely held back a sound that was not appropriatefor the occasion. “Okay,” he said after a second, when he had better control of his vocal cords, “I have got to get me one of these.”
The soft hiss of escaping carbon dioxide as Ty pried the top off his beer. “Why would you need your own?”
Ollie opened his eyes to find Ty staring at him with furrowed brow, like it didn’t occur to him that Ollie would ever move out.
Which Ollie didn’t know what to do with. Sure, Ty had asked him to move in, but Ollie had figured it was temporary. Ty made no secret of the fact that he needed to go back to Chicago, to his real job and his real life. He was only here out of necessity—and he had the house for the same reason. He was great with kids, but it wasn’t hispurpose, and he knew it.
Something deep inside Ollie sparked with jealousy at that, but he pushed it down.
“Uh.” Ollie pried the cap off his own beer to give himself a few seconds to scramble for an answer. “I kind of thought… I mean, you’re going to sell the house eventually, right?”
Ty’s expression cleared. “Oh. Yeah, I guess. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. It’s probably going to be a while. You’re good housesitting for me for a couple years, right?”
Ollie tried to imagine the place without Ty in it—just him and Theo rattling around in this unnecessarily huge house, waging an eternal war against the dust bunnies. His entire extended family attempting to move in because he “had the space.” No one to make homemade bulgogi and suggest they watch movies on the floor.
Thinking about it made his chest tighten. He cleared his throat and tried to play it off. “I’ll think about it.”
That wide, uncomplicated smile. “That’s all I ask.” Like Ollie was considering doing him a huge favor, living here for free.
This stupid town didn’t deserve Tyler Morris.
Ollie was trying to think of a safer topic of conversation when Ty started rolling his shoulder. “Hey, where’s your back tightest? If it’s lower than your shoulders, you mind trading? Mine’s acting up.”
Ollie ached pretty much everywhere, so he stood up. “Sure.”
As Ty turned around, Ollie’s gaze caught on a slash of smooth pale skin beneath his shoulder blade. A smudge of black ink above his left pec. Another in red on the inside of his right elbow.
Ollie didn’t realize he was staring until Ty said, “I swear none of the scars are from my parents.” He paused and then added, “The tattoos either.”
