Page 94 of Muscle Cub

“Is this the new butt stuff? Are you going to keep repeating it until it loses all meaning?”

“I think butt stuff is a little obnoxious. This is the last time I’m gonna say butt stuff. And speaking of time. Here.” He traded places with me under the showerhead. “I gotta run. Literally. I’m gonna have to jog up to the lodge.”

I cut off the water and grabbed him a towel. “I’ll drive you.”

“I’d hate for you to lose your parking space.”

“I’d hate for you to lose your job.”

“Food won’t be ready for another hour,” he warned.

“That’s fine. If you can hook me up with a coffee, I’ll sit outside and read.”

“Karezza!” he said, making jazz hands.

“You’re relentless.”

I sat at a table near the cabana.

After breakfast, I’d gone back to the trailer to change into board shorts, then headed to the pool. I read while watching Austin and Luke set up the bar. Market tents crowded the far side of the pool area, one for the DJ, a few for T-shirt vendors, and another with a simple table and three chairs.

The Bloody Marys arrived and joined me. When Barry spotted Hollywood Pool Boy, he said he’d been friends with Jody Summers. “It’s a shame he couldn’t have written at least one book with a leading male couple. It was a different time.” I accepted one drink and carefully nursed it for over an hour as we chatted, the party growing around us.

Austin had been right. It was like a holiday weekend, only more. Before today, I wouldn’t have believed the pool complex could hold this many people. A beer pong tournament blocked the covered walkway adjoining the bathhouse; forty guys played some kind of unrecognizable keep away/volleyball/dodgeball game in the pool; and everywhere there wasn’t a table or a lounge chair had become a dance floor.

“Speaking of pool boys,” Barry said, looking up and shading his eyes.

“Y’all over here gossiping about me?” Austin said from behind me, placing his hands on my shoulders.

I tipped my head back and smiled up at him.

“Just talking about how cute you two look together,” Barry said, batting his lashes. “Now that’s a video I’d like to stream.”

“I’ll send you a link to our OnlyFans.” Austin winked at me.

I blushed and shook my head while the Marys hooted and cackled.

Austin tapped my shoulder. “Grab your bucks. They’re certifying finalists for the contest. I already turned mine in. Come on.”

Barry pulled a red bill out of his cigarette case and slid it across the table to me. He scowled at his buddies. “Don’t tell me. Y’all already gave yours to Smokey, didn’t you?”

“Bitch, we didn’t know Paul that well yet!”

I put Jody’s book in my backpack—I’d resisted using the fanny pack on principle—and followed Austin to a tent where the score paddle guys were tallying bear bucks and making notes on a clipboard. They counted and recounted my bills, whispered among themselves, and then one of them looked up at me and smiled. “All right. Listen for Jim to call your name.”

Austin dragged me back to the cabana where Gunner, Hank, and Kevin were talking to Luke. “He’s in!” Austin announced.

“I don’t know about all this,” I said, spreading my hands in a helpless gesture.

“Wear the jock from last night,” Gunner said, mistakenly thinking I was talking about my board shorts and flip-flops.

I scowled. “I’m not strutting around in broad daylight in nothing but a jockstrap.”

Austin waggled his eyebrows. “You could.”

“Trade shorts with Kevin,” Gunner said.

Kevin was wearing coach’s shorts with snaps like the kind my ninth grade PE teacher had worn, only Kevin’s were about six inches shorter and his thigh muscles were the size of tree trunks.