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Diving In | BRU BAKER

Diving In

M AX had never felt more invisible in his life, which was a

nice change of pace, actually. He’d built up a thick skin

growing up as the gawky teenage boy who tagged along with

his father cleaning pools and then graduating to be the (still

gawky) pool boy himself, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed

being leered at and teased.

Over the years he’d had to deal with overly amorous

housewives (he blamed Hollywood’s clichéd portrayal of pool

boys as sexy for that) and bullying, macho-type men who

liked to belittle his job, his character, and his overall hygiene

while he went about his business cleaning things like broken

beer bottles and, in one very memorable instance, used

condoms out of their pool filters.

He was much more than a pool boy now, of course.

Since he’d taken the helm of Jansen & Sons after his father’s

sudden death three years earlier, he’d expanded the

company’s scope. Now he oversaw a growing business that

specialized in all sorts of water treatment and cleaning,

putting his chemistry degree to good use by consulting with

contractors and builders about water management and

drainage. When his brother, Ryan, had graduated with a

degree in civil engineering and architecture, Max had

expanded the business again, adding design and

construction to Jansen & Sons’ scope. He would never

abandon the company’s original mission, though pool

maintenance was admittedly just a small portion of the

services the company offered. Most of his best childhood

memories involved working with his father after school and

Diving In | BRU BAKER

over the summers, and Max felt he was honoring his father’s

memory by continuing that branch of the business, even if it

was no longer the company’s main focus.

But this assignment had been too cherry to give to his

summer pool maintenance staff, which was made up

primarily of college students on their summer vacations.

He’d taken quite a bit of teasing for scooping it up, especially

from his sister-in-law, Brenna, who handled the company’s

scheduling and bookkeeping. She and Ryan never seemed to

tire of the jokes and innuendo, which Max grudgingly

endured because he deserved it. All of the company’s pool

maintenance techs had a good knowledge base in water care,

but Max had to admit that with his master’s degrees in

chemistry and geology, he was just a tad overqualified to be

chlorinating water and checking filters.

Max crouched low, dipping a clear vial into the

sparkling water and filling it halfway, leaving room for the

chemicals he’d add later to test its pH. He’d just capped it

and tucked it into the pack he wore on his belt when a low

wolf whistle caught his attention. He looked up, lips set in

the customary rigid pucker that served to discourage both

come-ons and put-downs, but a quick assessment of the

scene before him had Max rolling his eyes and concentrating

his focus on his chemicals again.

The whistle hadn’t been meant for him. True to form,

the pool deck full of gorgeous women in barely there bikinis

hadn’t given him a second look. They were sunning

themselves on a staggering array of luxurious chaise lounges

that were spread around the concrete deck, studiously

ignoring him in favor of their gossip magazines and dance

music that pumped continuously from speakers disguised as

Diving In | BRU BAKER

coconuts on the palm trees that towered above the glittering,

enormous pool.

The pool itself was a gem. Olympic-sized and pristine,

kept at the perfect temperature and condition at all times. It

was empty at the moment, but the array of women crowding

around it made it obvious that it wouldn’t remain so for long.

Max timed his visits carefully, making sure that he avoided

the times that the women had the run of the pool. He

glanced at his watch, his lips quirking in a ghost of a smile.

Almost time.

The pool belonged to Hal Caldwell, whose claim to fame

was owning Flesh, the most successful soft-core porn

magazine on the market. It was a favorite spot for the women

who posed for the magazine to attain their infamously line-

free tans. Max’s company maintained the pool year-round,

but it only received Max’s personal attention from April to

October, when the Forest Glen Men’s Water Polo Team used

the pool for its practices.

The team received plenty of ribbing for its practice site,

but Max had heard the players’ gossip enough over the last

two seasons to know that the benefits of their situation far

outweighed the good-natured teasing the other teams gave

them for it. The women loved to lavish attention on the

players, and he couldn’t fault them for it. For a recreational

club team, the athletes were surprisingly fit. They were

extremely competitive and traveled all over the United States

for matches, and a few of the players had been members of

Olympic teams at one point or another.

It definitely wasn’t a hardship to watch them bob

around in their Speedos as they practiced, though Max

hoped he was less obvious about it than the ever-present

gaggle of scantily clad models. By the end of practice, Max

Diving In | BRU BAKER

knew that more than half of the women would be topless,

and as soon as the coach dismissed them for the day, a good

number of the players would make their way to the smaller

private pools and grottoes that dotted the landscaped area

instead of to the small locker room that had been

incorporated into the pool house.

Caldwell’s son Everett was the team’s center and the

reason the Forest Glen team practiced here. The team had

several corporate sponsors, but Flesh couldn’t be one of

them because the league had strict rules about what types of

companies could participate. So instead of donating money

to pay for coaches, travel, uniforms, and the other things the

team needed like a normal sponsor would, Caldwell had the

existing pool in the backyard of his palatial mansion

renovated to bring it up to regulation standards. Since he

wasn’t seeking public acknowledgement, the league had

agreed to let the team practice there.

Max bent over the side of the pool and filled another

vial, letting his gaze slide over to the large building that

Caldwell quaintly referred to as the pool house. It was larger

than most two-story homes, with the small but well-

appointed locker rooms—men’s and women’s—on the ground

floor and Everett Caldwell’s private residence on top.

He usually timed his visits to coincide with the end of

practice, since as a rule he didn’t like to put chemicals in the

pool when it was in use. The fact that it also gave him a

prime excuse to shamelessly watch the men play as he

waited for them to exit the pool didn’t hurt, either. Max tried

to never be more than ten or fifteen minutes early, which

gave him ample opportunity to test the water and watch with

what he hoped was polite disinterest until the team cleared

the pool and he could treat it.

Bru Baker - Diving In.pdf

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