Homewrecker

51 - 𝓰𝓲𝓻𝓵𝓼

The patrol officer that had been driving past the pool business when he noticed changing multicolored pool lights and teenagers lounging around inside made us all call our parents, especially when Izzie tried to convince him that her dad actually owned Dive Right in!, and although that might have been true, he still looked less than pleased when he pulled into the parking lot about ten minutes later.

It looked as if he was still wearing a pajama shirt, a faded t-shirt with the logo peeling off the emblem of a football team, with jeans and sandals over his socks, pillow creases still against his cheek. He was glaring at Izzie, muttering to himself as he pulled out paperwork to prove to the officer that he owed the store, unlocking the front doors with the set of keys his daughter hadn't taken from his wife's purse, then confirmed that he didn't want to press charges while making a few frustrated jokes about some definite grounding to the officer.

Meanwhile, Andi was on the phone with Amy explaining what was going on, and Ethan was trying to get a hold of his dad without success. Ryan had already called his parents, engaging in what seemed like a rather brief conversation that ended with a sigh, and Cass was still talking to her mom, on the verge of crying.

I was standing beside her, my clothes weighted and thoroughly soaked through with chlorinated water, plastered against my skin with awkward air bubbles between me and the wet fabric.

Taylor-Elise was beside her too, whispering that we weren't going to be arrested, that Izzie's dad wasn't even pressing charges, but Cass still looked freaked.

"I knew this was breaking and entering," she told her, moving the phone away from her lips.

It wasn't long after the patrol officer left a few minutes later that Izzie's father confiscated the remote for the pool lights from her and the water that was still changing from dark blue to green became the teal we first discovered and locked the chain link fence.

The creases from his sheets had faded but wrinkles were still deep set into his skin when he turned to look at us. His hair was salt and peppered, tousled and uncombed, and there were indentations on his nose from a pair of glasses he wasn't wearing.

"I think it's time you all go home," he finally announced after a minute. He looked over at Cass, no longer on the phone but still tearful, and sighed. "We have our own pool. Next time you guys want to do some late-night swimming, do it there, alright?"

I resisted a glance at Izzie, wondering why we even came here if she had pool at home.

"Okay?" he repeated, turning his head as if we had all mumbled our answer, and we each nodded in response, which seemed to satisfy him. "Alright. No harm, no foul. Now get on home to your parents."

Andi kept the air conditioning on a lower setting as she drove back to the lake house, my clothes still completely saturated in water and dripping down my legs, but Ethan had thrown his towel at me in the parking lot while on the way to his own, swiftly ducking into the driver's seat before I could toss it back.

He even made the pointed gesture of locking the doors, before realizing that Taylor-Elise hadn't gotten in yet when she gave the handle a hard yank. The lights were on again at the lake house when Andi pulled into the driveway like they had been when we came back from Shiloh, except now the kitchen lights were on too.

I was wrapped in Ethan's towel when we went in, my shorts making awkward suctioning noises as I walked, and found Amy and David in the kitchen, adorned in robes, waiting. Even Miles was in front of the sink on the mat, chin between his paws with his tail thwacking against the cupboards.

I stood there, unsure of what to do as I took in the steaming mugs in front of them on the island counter with the strings of teabags curled over the ceramic rim. I hadn't really done anything worth getting in trouble, or maybe I had and my mom was so out of it she didn't recognize it. I wasn't even sure of what they could do if they wanted to punish me. It wasn't like I had much leftover to take away.