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She can even smell the minty-cool richness from just the carpet alone. And back in her house, they don’t even have any. It would have gotten quite sticky and stinky anyway, especially in the hot summers, trampled over by her momma’s boyfriends’ dirty feet whenever the Air-con is not Air-con-ing and the electricity is not electricity-ing properly.

And that happens quite often over there.

But here at Every’s place, the air conditioner, half-concealed under the ceiling, blasts such cool air and does not show any sign of quitting or worse, dying permanently anytime soon.

So she gives him a thumbs up.

“Why?” he asks. Lily sure is confusing with her random gestures.

“Because your place is just so nice, my man.” She sits down on the sofa, the supple leather seat so soft under her ass right now that she might just die. And even if she really does, she would die happy, feeling as if she had died on the clouds. These thoughts sure do not make any sense at all, but Lily’s whole monologue is just this way.

“You should stay here, ya know?”

“Really?”

“Actually, since I’m supposed to be the asshole hero, I’m forcing you to stay at my place from now on.”

Lily gives him another one of her constantly-mentioned blinks. “You know I’d stay even without you forcing me to.”

They sit silently together, absorbing the wholesome vibe of the moment.

Then Every gets bored with just sitting after a few minutes. That man sure can’t stay still. “Come on, Barbie, let’s go party. I’m gonna show you the pool.”

“You’ve got a pool? That’s so dope, bae-bae. We should invite some buddies over, yeah?”

“Nah, it’s kinda small.”

“But pool tables only come in one size.”

“Girly, I meant the pool that’s a body of water. Like a river, a lake, a swarm, a sea, a bay, a bight, a trench, or a cape.”

That’s weird.

Every-boy seems to have such in-depth knowledge of marine geography. Perhaps he should have become a geologist or a geographer, if not for his whole portfolio of multimillion-dollar companies.

“Oh,” Lily nods.

“Yeah.”

Small is the last thing the one hundred twenty square feet infinity pool that overlooks the whole Darkindeep Ebonyngrey Wolfmane Ridge-Cliff small-town is. Lily blinks her bright green eyes, impressed with the whole thing. Honestly, it’s bigger than even the town’s unmaintained public pool that she never swam in because her mama couldn’t afford the entry fees. But she knows from four years ago, when she waited tables at the restaurant beside it at just the young age of sixteen, that it isn’t clean at all.

Not one bit.

Not unlike this ocean of a pool.

Now, why the fuck are we comparing the state of this guy’s home with the town’s average condition?

Anyway, Lily turns to her man, a finger touching her thick lips lightly, still not over their interactions back on the stairs. “You wanna swim? It might technically be winter in some far away places of the world, but damn, it seems to be eternally warm here.”

“’Kay, I’ll get out some swimsuits.”

“We could just go skinny dipping right away, you know. We might risk flashing the others looking up here, but a little bit of voyeurism can’t hurt.”

Every gasps, a horrified expression crossing his face. “Lily, you kinky-assed bitch.”

Shockingly, that describes her quite well.

Lily shakes her head. “Dude, it ain’t even that extreme.”