Castle in the City

3

I walked into the room where the indoor pool was and noticed that Damien was chilling by the poolside with his legs dangling in the water. He turned around and raised his eyebrows when he saw me.

"Hey," I greeted as I placed my towel on one of the chairs near the pool.

"Hey," he replied as he stared at the water.

His voice was a bit drier than usual, causing a frown to form on my face.

I asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Oh, nah....nah, I'm just...thinking," he shook his head before going down into the pool.

"Wanna talk about it?" I offered as I got in the pool as well, and he shook his head.

He then smiled, "Marco Polo?" Eagerly, I smiled and nodded. "Alright, I'll try to find you." He closed his eyes, and I dipped under the water and swam to a corner of the pool. It was a good thing that the pool was large because we'd have a good amount of space to swim. "Marco?"

"Polo," I said, and he began swimming like a shark towards me, so I quickly swam to the opposite side of the pool.

"Marco?" he called out.

"Polo," I called out and swam away. When I turned around, however, he was pinning me to the pool wall. I giggled like a maniac, and he opened his eyes while chuckling.

With a wide smile on his face, he replied, "Got ya."

Yes you do.

"Alright, my turn," I said while closing my eyes. I waited a while before calling out, "Marco?"

From across the pool, I heard Damien reply, "Polo."

I swam to what I assumed was the middle of the pool and called out, "Marco?"

"Polo," he replied in the far right corner, so I swam over there and called out Marco once more. "Polo," he answered nearby, so I swam as fast as I could and reached for him to see if I could grab a hold of him. I was too late, however, and had to call out for him.

"Marco?" I called out again.

He chuckled from across the pool, "Polo." Wasting no time, I quickly swam to his direction and grabbed on to his ankle before swimming to the top of the pool. I then opened my eyes and he chuckled, "Not bad, sea kelp."

He brushed my hair backwards, as it was covering majority of my face, and I chuckled, "Shut up."

Damien slightly grazed his thumb over my cheek while staring intently into my eyes, and the door to the room opened. Damien immediately removed his hand from my face and turned to see my brother entering the room.

"Thought I'd find you two here," Nico smiled lightly.

I questioned, "How was your date last night?"

"Good," Nico answered. Judging by the fact that he was still in the clothes he wore last night, I figured he had now come home and had spent the night with Natalie. "Tomorrow's movie night. Nat, Aria, and JJ will be here too. I'm about to shower and then go get groceries. You two wanna tag along?"

We sometimes referred to Justin as JJ, and Junior, his father, as Uncle J.

"Sure," I shrugged, since I didn't have anything better to do.

Damien nodded, "Yeah."

"Alright, I'll hit the showers, and we can leave at 5," Nico finalized before leaving.

"Race you to the bathroom?" I smiled, and Damien smirked before splashing water in my face and swimming away. "Not fair!" I swam as quickly as I could, and when I caught up to him, I jumped on his back, and we both sank down to the bottom of the pool.

Somehow, as we sank, Damien was able to flip our bodies so that I wasn't on his back anymore. Instead, my face was buried in his chest as he tightened his hold on my waist. He then brought our bodies to the top of the pool, and we both let out a low gasp for air.

"That's wasn't very smart," he teased, his arms still wrapped around my waist.

"Yeah?" I chuckled, and for a moment, I could've sworn that his eyes had flickered to my lips as he licked his.

Damien quickly released my waist while clearing his throat. "Let's have this race the proper way. On a count of 3. 1. 2. 3!"

We both began swimming towards the wall of the pool, and once we were out, we grabbed our towels, quickly dried off, and began racing towards the bathroom on the first floor, but it was locked, so we assumed that Nico was in there. We then dashed up the stairs, and I was about to grab the handle of the bathroom door when Damien grabbed me by the waist and lifted me up, facing me away from the door before he pulled the door open and stepped inside.

I chuckled, "The fair way, huh?"

He smiled, "I lied." I stuck up my finger at him and he chuckled while closing the door, so I went to my room and started looking for clothes.

A/N: Since I'm already on Chapter 26, I decided that I'll be posting twice a week 😊🥰 The new post days will be Tuesday and Sunday!