There were –admittedly- several nice things about living in a community with an HOA. One, these communities accepted a certain socio-economic class that kept the area relatively safe and crime free. Two, the HOA gathered and supervised funding of community amenities like a playground, clubhouse, pool, and tennis court. And now, with a relatively free Sunday, Sanji decided to finally take advantages of these amenities.

The gates to the pool opened at 10 am Sunday morning, and Sanji greeted the first lifeguard –a young lady with light blonde hair in twin braids- with a smile and basic pleasantries. The lifeguard –Connis- replied in kind, though her coworker –an older man with a Mohawk and tribal tattoos- didn't seem so happy to see him. Or rather, he wasn't happy to see anybody, so early in the morning.

Sanji selected a lounge chair in the far corner of the pool, out of the way of any other early morning visitors, and gave his back a good stretch before plunging into the chilly pool water. Before the chill could seize up his muscles, Sanji went right to work, starting with an easy 100 meters of breaststroke. After a light breather, he started his laps of freestyle and forced himself to keep going until 250 meters. He stood in the 5 foot end, heaving gasps of air and mentally berating himself. Not that he'd ever been a fantastic swimmer, Sanji still considered himself a healthy person and felt like 10 laps shouldn't wear him out as much as it did.

Once his lungs no longer felt constricted, Sanji launched into another set and rest after an additional 10 laps. After that, it only took 100 meters of butterfly for him to hang on the pool edge in defeat. He always forgot how exhausting that stroke was until he was halfway through one lap, but refused to stop after only one lap. Especially since that cute blonde, Connis, was on watch. Despite his already sore muscles and erratic heart, Sanji forced himself to complete two more 250 meter sets of freestyle and 100 meters of breaststroke as a cool down.

His arms feeling like rubber, Sanji pulled himself out of the pool and trudged to his nearby lounge chair. He yanked the towel off the furniture and proceeded to dry his hair as best as he could manage. Once it was no longer dripping, he examined his blonde locks, frowning at the slight green tinge the chlorine had caused. Barely an hour in the pool and it was already being affected. Just great. At least it wasn't enough to completely stain his hair. He stood, laid the towel on the lounge chair, and lied down with a content sigh. Using his crossed arms as a pillow, he practically melted underneath the powerful rays from the bright sun. Now this was how he was meant to spend a day off.

"Hey there blondie~"

Sanji couldn't fully repress the shudder than ran down his spine. That nickname had never sat well with him, but hearing it without the barest sliver of sarcasm, in a tone that oozed pleasure and want was overwhelming in the worst of ways. Especially considering that he recognized the voice's owner.

Fixed on a deep mental battle of whether or not to ignore the woman he could hear approaching, Sanji failed to come up with a decision by the time thick, yet delicate, fingers grazed across his triceps.

"Mhm, don't know why you hide such a nice body under all those suits of yours." Bethany hummed as she sat down on the lounge chair beside Sanji while he attempted to figure out how exactly to respond to her words, actions, and overall presence.

"Something wrong, Sanji?" He could practically see the pout on her lips with the tone of voice she was using.

With a grimace towards his own polite tendencies, Sanji sat up and turned towards Bethany but his reply was temporarily halted when he saw the woman's bikini, which was much too small considering someone of her age and not the right cut for someone of her body type. Bethany smirked and Sanji balked at what he thought she was assuming he was staring at.

"Hello Mrs. Spandam," Sanji greeted, keeping his eyes fixed on the lounge chairs over her shoulder so she wouldn't get the wrong idea.

"Oh, what's with the Mrs? You're making me feel old, calling me that." She smiled.

"Forgive me, it's just how I show respect to women." Sanji replied, foregoing the fact that he typically used such a title for older, off-limits women.

"Well, please, call me Bethany."

"Right," Sanji nodded, wishing desperately that he could smoke on the pool deck. Anything to give his suddenly dry mouth something to be busy with.

"It's nice I ran into you. I was worried there wouldn't be anyone here so early in the day." Bethany continued as she slipped off her sandals.

"Yeah well, I didn't have much to do so…thought I could swim some laps…" Sanji mournfully realized that now he'd have to pick a different time of the day to swim if these early hours were a habit of Bethany's.

"Mhm," Bethany nodded. "Do you think you could help me with my sunscreen?" Bethany asked with a coy grin.

The moral dilemma, while present, didn't last long. It was a reasonable request, since they were at a pool, and it would be incredibly rude to say no. How would he even approach such an answer? No. Why not? Well I don't want to touch you. What kind of piece of shit would say that to a woman?

"Sure," Sanji acquiesced and accepted the bottle of sunscreen. He squeezed some onto his hands while Bethany rolled onto her stomach, propping her head up by crossing her arms underneath her chin.

She flinched at the touch of the cold lotion, but relaxed half a second later. She nearly purred with pleasure as Sanji spread the lotion and smoothed it into her skin. "Mhm, you're just the sweetest thing. I wouldn't even need a spoonful of sugar to swallow you."

Sanji bit his tongue and quickly finished the task. He sat back on his own chair as Bethany rolled back over and finished coating her arms, upper chest, stomach, and legs in what Sanji noticed to be a slower than necessary pace.

"Do you need me to get you?" Bethany asked, holding up the sunscreen.

"Uh, no thank you. I'll be leaving soon anyway." Sanji replied, though it had been his original plan to stay another hour at least to get some color on his pale skin.

"Oh, what a shame. Where you running off to?" Bethany set down the sunscreen and winked. "Hot date?"

"No, nothing like that." Sanji couldn't find it in him to lie. "I just have some work to do around the house. I'm so busy during the week that everything just sort of piles up."

"Well let me know if you ever need a maid. My days are wide open." The way she emphasized wide open made Sanji's innards squirm. He already had a notoriously imaginative mind (as his friends and coworker were so kind as to remind him) and he didn't need any help from his married neighbor.

"Thanks, but I'm afraid I couldn't put you out like that." Too late he realized the poor wording of his reply.

"Oh, I don't mind putting out." Bethany replied, gently biting on her lower lip with suggestion.

Yeah, I gift wrapped her that one. Sanji huffed to himself. "Well, it was nice seeing you. I have to be going now." Sanji said as he stood up. He gathered his few items and made for the exit at the fastest pace he could manage without physically running. After all, however repulsed, a gentleman was always a gentlemen…that and it'd be awfully embarrassing if that tattooed lifeguard yelled at him for running.

A/N: This was posted much later than I had intended, but I was just not in the mood to write this week. You see, I have this horribly unfortunate habit of starting projects and being really into them, but then quickly losing interest and shifting focus to a new, shiny project. I really didn't want that to happen to this, especially since I just started it. So, put on some Aerosmith and cranked this out in an hour (so there may be a few hiccups in spelling. Please let me know if you see anything).

Full disclosure, I got Bethany's "don't need spoonful of sugar to swallow you" line from online. I'm afraid I ain't that creative. I DID, however, come up with the "putting out" pun much like how it came up in the story, in that I only realized the potential until after I wrote Sanji saying it.

True fact: blonde hair does in fact turn green from chlorine. The lighter the hair, the more noticeable the green. I have many summers of first hand experience to support this.