Lee smiled. “We saved you a cup.”
Hargrove grunted. His eyes moved to Lee, who had climbed up behind Benny. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t cover up. She just stood there, oiled and beautiful, and said, “You want a beer, Mr. Hargrove? It’s hot as hell.”
He came down. And The Pit, for one afternoon, was just a pool. No sides. No history. Just oil-slick skin and cold drinks and the sound of people who’d finally learned to swim in the same water.
“They’ll talk,” she said one night, dangling her feet over the quarry’s edge. The water below was black as coffee, deep and cold.
The old man squinted. “You’re Joe Morelli’s boy.”
Until Leona “Lee” Cross and Benny Morelli decided to break it.
The “oil it up” part came from Marcus. “You can’t have a pool party without the grease,” he said, pulling out ten bottles of baby oil. “Old-school. Like the mixtape covers.”