Pool Party

<b>She rejected three bikinis before choosing the one that made her look incredible — and told herself it was for her husband.</b><br><br>Jacquelyn hasn't seen Traci in six months. Not since the breakup with Megan. Not since Traci bought a house alone in the hills — all glass and sharp angles and a saltwater pool that glows blue after dark. Not since that dinner party where Traci's fingers brushed her knuckles and stayed one beat too long, and Jacquelyn felt it in her spine like a key turning.<br><br>Now Traci's throwing a pool party, and Jacquelyn's husband Scott is already in the water with Kari — the twenty-four-year-old lifeguard with sun-streaked hair and a red one-piece cut high on her hips, whose hands find Scott's shoulders a little too easily, whose chin rests a little too close to his lap at the pool's edge.<br><br>Jacquelyn watches. Can't stop watching. And Traci materializes beside her in the dark, smelling like coconut sunscreen and tequila, with a hand on her lower back and an expression that's too knowing, too pleased.<br><br>What starts as a housewarming becomes something Traci has been building for years. A confession in a bedroom that smells like sage. An agreement made on a kitchen floor. A second Saturday with only four people and no crowd to hide behind. Traci's fingers inside her while she watches Scott's hands on someone else through the window. A hot tub where husband and wife hold hands while other mouths work between their thighs. And then the living room — where Traci holds Jacquelyn open, spreads her wide, and makes her watch her husband finish inside Kari while whispering <i>say you like it</i> against her ear.<br><br>The jealousy and the arousal are the same sensation. Jacquelyn can't separate them. Traci doesn't want her to.<br><br>This is a book about wanting something that should hurt and finding out it does hurt — and that the hurt is the point. It will leave you aching, slick, and unsure whether you want to be Jacquelyn or Traci. You'll read it with one hand.