"Not really. I just don't want to eat food that was made on the counter where you two got it on."
He smirked and winked.
I carried Mara upstairs to our room, where a nice, big shower stall waited for us.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Mara
After our shower, Ollie and I headed back outside. Ollie had started to put his clothes back on, but I assured him he didn't need to do that for my sake. I'd gotten used to spending my days surrounded by naked people, and seeing Ollie in the nude was hardly a terrifying experience. I didn't blame him for thinking he shouldn't go naked in front of me, considering how things had gone when we first met, but I didn't want him to change his ways to suit me.
So now, we were participating in a game of miniten---Ollie in the buff, and me wearing shorts and a tank top. I wore sneakers, but Ollie chose to go barefoot. The game pitted the two of us against Ruth and Sylvester Norris. That sounded like an easy win for us. Two fit twenty-somethings against a pair of senior citizens? Piece of cake.
Not so much, as it turned out.
Today I learned never to underestimate anyone because they're over seventy. Ruth and Sly---Sylvester asked me to call him by his nickname---beat me and Ollie, barely letting us score two points in the whole game. Miniten might be a more laid-back version of tennis, but the Norrises decided to turn it into an acrobatic performance. They leaped up to smack the ball with their thugs.
I wondered why Ruth had bothered with a bra when we were playing an easygoing sport, but she did more than leap to hit the ball. She also spun around, dodged right and left, and even dived for the ground to hit the ball when I got my angle wrong and sent it barreling straight for the grass. Sly did the same and more, leaping sideways with his feet off the ground to whack Ollie's shot before it flew out of bounds. The Norrises won and celebrated by cheering and giving each other high fives.
Ollie had chastised the young guys yesterday who had played rough. But then, one of them had slammed into me. Ruth and Sly didn't do anything like that, and they never went overboard in their enthusiasm to hit the ball and win the game.
After the game broke up, I needed a trip to the bathroom. When I returned to the lawn, I glanced around to search for Ollie.
He and Damian were relaxing on the grass, talking. Ollie lay on his side with his head propped up with one arm, his cheek resting on his palm. Damian lay on his back, hands linked over his belly. Both men wore sunglasses. The sight of Ollie naked still made me tingle, which was highly inappropriate when other people were around. I couldn't stop it, though. He was hot.
And so was Damian. But his sexy bod didn't affect me the way Ollie's did.
I caught sight of Heidi on the other side of the lawn, hanging out with her girlfriends. She kept glancing at Ollie. Staring at him, actually. How much history did they have? She sure seemed hung up on him. Ever since Heidi had arrived here, I'd wondered if Ollie still had feelings for her. I'd also wondered if I still had feelings for Nico.
No, I didn't. But the thought made me a little queasy.
Did that mean I had no feelings for him? I supposed I would always care about him in some way, in spite of all his wheedling comments that had made me feel small and useless. But we'd had good times too, and I'd known Nico a lot longer than I'd known Ollie.
Why, then, did I feel closer to Ollie than to anyone else? Why did being with him give me a sense of relaxation and freedom I'd never experienced before? He came from a normal family and worked at a nudist resort. I came from an uptight family of rich snobs who were horrified I was staying at a nudist resort. That wasn't quite accurate. Dad didn't seem to care, and though he'd always gone along with whatever Mom wanted, he had never been uptight. He didn't tell me to act like a proper lady.
And yesterday, he'd told me he was proud of me.
No, I did not want Nico back.
But I wasn't sure I belonged with Ollie either. Could people from two different planets make it work? I wasn't even sure how this thing between us could work. He lived here. I lived in Philly. He had a job here, one that he loved. I owned an apartment building, which I'd built into a profitable business. Would I give that up to be with Ollie?
He might get sick of me. I mean, I was an uptight city girl.
But he made me feel free.
I sat down next to Ollie, still wondering about all of those things.
"Hey, Mara," he said, smiling at me. He patted the grass. "Come closer, baby."
Damian lifted his sunglasses to peek at us. "Isn't that against the rules? Getting friendly with your girl while you're naked?"
Ollie kneed Damian in the side. "We aren't going to make out. Mara can sit right next to me without it getting inappropriate."
Yes, we needed to be appropriate, didn't we? I understood the need for rules at a nudist resort, but I hated that word. Appropriate. And its synonym, proper. Both words made me cringe inside.
But I scooted closer to Ollie.
We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out, first on the lawn, and later in the entertainment room in the guest house. Damian and Ollie taught me how to play poker, but when Damian offered to show me how to cheat at it, Ollie intervened.
"Oh no," he said, laying a hand on Damian's chest to push him away from me. "You are not corrupting my girl. She's perfect the way she is."
I got a glowy feeling in my
