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Normal Tahoes came with heated seats.
Why the hell didn’t the police department splurge on that?
“Hush, or I’ll make you walk,” Sammy teased.
The drive home took a total of a minute and a half.
Sammy pulled into my driveway and I began to get out but realized something was missing.
“I don’t have my keys,” I said as I felt my pockets. “Ashe, did you see them?”
“No,” she admitted. “But I had other things on my mind, obviously.”
I snorted and pointed to Ashe’s place. “Take me over there. We’ll have to go back to look for the keys, but I’m in need of a hot shower.”
Sammy drove us to Ashe’s place, but instead of getting out. he said, “I’ll go back and look. Bring you the keys if I find them.”
I nodded once. “Thanks, man.”
After getting out, I tossed the rain jacket back at him with a nod of thanks.
By the time I got the door of the cruiser shut, Ashe already had her front door open.
She made a hurry-up gesture with her hand that had me smiling.
“Go into the bathroom and get showered,” Ashe ordered. “I’ll get you some warm clothes.”
I didn’t argue with her even a little bit this time.
Couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to.
I was just that cold.
After a dip into a practically frozen pond to save the girl, arguing with her was the last thing on my mind.
I’d taken long dips in water before.
Hell, there’d been a time that Ashe and I had taken a dip quite a few times on a dare—Ashe and I really were hell on wheels—but this felt different.
That girl was haunting me for sure.
I heard Ashe come into the bathroom and start to gather my dirty clothes.
“Do you remember that one time that we dared each other to jump into the pool?” My teeth chattered viciously.
There was a long pause and then Ashe said, “I remember you pushing me. I don’t remember there being any dare.”
I snorted.
“Not that time,” I said. “The time when it was super freezing cold. When we were both bound and determined to see who could stay in the longest.”
She started to laugh.
“The time when our parents came outside to find us both in a stare off?” she asked. “We were sixteen at the time.”
Some of our stupidest stunts had been when we both damn well knew better.
“Yeah, that time,” I said. “I remember thinking that you weren’t going to win. Today, when I was swimming out to the middle of that pond, I pretended that you were daring me.”
She snickered and finished gathering up the clothes. “I’m gonna go throw these in the wash. Do you need anything?”
I shook my head, my mind now firmly on the way it burned to have the water sluicing over my skin.
At one point, I heard the door open and then close again, but I hadn’t felt like turning around to see what she’d put in there.
The shower felt amazing, and the only reason I got out at all was due to the fact that I knew Ashe had to be cold, too.
Reluctantly turning the water off with two easy flicks of my hand, I grabbed the towel off of the rack and moaned.
It was warm, too.
She must’ve just gotten it out of the dryer.
Warmth and love bubbled to the surface, and I realized that I’d been fooling myself.
I couldn’t stop myself from loving her.
It was just impossible.
We may fight constantly like cats and dogs, but these feelings were something we’d been fighting since we were children.
Wrapping the hot towel around my waist, I stepped out into her bedroom and blinked at the sight before me.
“Shower is yours,” I teased, seeing her shivering underneath the comforter.
She was wearing a hoodie pulled up high over her head, and it was only as she threw the covers back that I realized it was my hoodie.
“Hey!” I said, staring. “That’s my hoodie!”
My hoodie from back in high school, actually.
She rolled her eyes and shrugged out of her clothes, and it was only as she was pushing her sweats down her legs that I realized those had once been mine, too.
Ashe most certainly hadn’t played ‘Benton High Baseball,’ that was for sure.
“Where did you get this?” I asked as I tugged the hoodie off of the bed and shook it at her.
She didn’t say a word, only laughed, as she headed for the shower.
“I have some sweats in the middle drawer.” She tossed over her shoulder, pausing when my brows rose. “They’ll fit… mostly because they are yours.” She tilted her head. “Just don’t get any ideas. Once you can get into your place, you’re changing into something of your own.”
With that, she turned on the shower and stepped inside, a shiver overtaking her body once the hot water hit her skin.
Ashe hadn’t gotten into the water with me but up to her thighs, but even that was enough to zap a person’s strength and drop their body temperature.
