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Turning away from Tate.
“Me neither. Now shut up and wash up. You reek worse than a high school locker room,” Tate snarked. “I mean it, Ree, or I’ll scrub you down myself.”
I turned back to him at that comment and snatched the offered bottle of vanilla bodywash out of his hand.
“I’m going to ask one more time, Tate. What the fuck are you doing here in my home?”
Tate shook his head and stepped closer to me, his wet clothes rubbing against my bare skin. I full on shivered despite the hot water.
“I’m trying to be your friend.”
“We’re not?—”
“The fuck we aren’t! We might like and hate each other in equal measure at times, but nothing will change this.” He pointed between us. “No matter what, we end up here.”
He said it with such conviction that I, despite my hazy mind, believed him.
Tate was right.
Somehow, despite everything, we always found our way back to each other.
Was it healthy? Probably not.
But I didn’t give a shit about healthy. I just wanted the pain to stop.
I forgot about the bottle until he gently took it from me and squeezed a small amount in his hands. He lathered it up and began to wash me. And I leaned back against the tiles and let him.
With each passing minute, my mind began to clear a bit more.
Then I remembered Mom was gone, and I wanted to crawl back down another bottle.
“I need a drink,” I murmured when he finally turned me around and washed my back. “I can’t sleep, Tate. I can’t eat. I just… think about her final moments in that car and I imagine her screaming for help and there’s nothing I can do?—”
Fat tears rolled down my face and mixed with the spray of the shower. I was shaking so hard, my teeth rattled.
“I know, baby. I know.”
Tate slid his arms around my waist and pulled me into his bigger body, my back to his chest. I don’t know if I was shocked by his words, his gesture, or if it was my gin-soaked brain, but I grabbed hold of him and I didn’t let go.
He was the only real thing.
My center of gravity while I spun out of control.
And that was a total mindfuck. Tate was the steady one? How the fuck had that happened?
How long did he hold me?
It might have been five minutes or thirty. I don’t know.
But he didn’t let go while I sobbed and sobbed until I ran out of tears. And water.
Then I was ushered out of the glass enclosure and bundled up in a bath towel. I turned to find Tate doing the same, his wet clothes now a pile on the floor.
“Come on, we’ll get some clean clothes, and have coffee.”
I didn’t say anything but I let him lead me out of the bathroom.
All the empty bottles had been cleared away and there were clean sheets on my bed.
