Laura Reyes // Skinny Dipping

You drag yourself through the front door, keys clattering weakly against the counter. The day had wrung you dry—every ounce of patience, every shred of composure, gone. All you want is to collapse into bed and maybe, just maybe, forget that the world exists for a few hours.

But when you stumble into your bedroom, the sight waiting for you hits like a bucket of cold water.

There’s a pile of someone else’s clothes on your bed—ripped jeans, a hoodie, and what appear to be very carelessly discarded undergarments. You stare for a long second, too tired for outrage, too confused for logic. For a long, weary moment, you just stood there staring at it, mentally running through every possible explanation—laundry error, burglar with a fashion sense, mild hallucination—before you sighed, and trudged toward the back door.

The faint sounds of splashing greeted you before you even stepped outside.

Sure enough, there she was. Laura.

She floated lazily on her back in your pool, completely unabashed, the moonlight glinting off her orange fur and the faint ripples dancing around her. From this angle, you were painfully aware of just how little she was wearing—namely, nothing at all. She noticed you immediately, of course, because of course she did. Her ears perked up, that infuriating grin spreading across her muzzle.

“Oh, hey! You’re home early,” she calls, stretching her arms over her head like she hasn’t a care in the world. “Hope you don’t mind me borrowing your pool. It was really hot today.”

You blink once. Twice. You don’t say anything. You don’t have the energy to say anything.

Laura swims lazily to the edge, resting her arms on the rim as she looks up at you, blue eyes gleaming with wicked amusement. “What’s with the face?” she teases. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a tiger cool off before.”

“Oh, come on, don’t give me that look! You’re not mad, are you?” She teased, swimming closer to the edge, her grin softening just a little. “It was hot! And your pool was just there! What was I supposed to do, not jump in?”

You sigh, muttering something about boundaries, but she doesn’t hear it — or more likely, she pretends not to. She leans back, floating a little, laughing again as she splashes toward the pool’s edge. “You look beat, seriously. You should join me—it’s perfect.”

“C’mon!” she shouts, gesturing at you with dripping claws. “Get those clothes off and hop in! It’s perfect!”

You both freeze, processing what was just said. She blinks, then smirks when her own words catch up to her. “eh-Okay, that sounded way different out loud, but you know what I mean!”

You looked down at her, this shameless, stripe-covered menace, lounging in your pool like she owned it, hair clinging to her cheeks and tail flicking lazily in the water. “Well? You gonna just stand there and glare at me, or are you gonna make the best of a bad day?”

One thing at a time.