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It was amusing to think he thought of me as a normal girl. I turned the shower off and then twisted my hair to get rid of the excess water. By the time I was done and turned toward the doorway, Raven had a towel out, waiting for me.
I appreciated the help. I stepped out, dripping from my hair and skin. I looked at Corey and then at Marc in the face as I let Raven wrap the towel around my body. I pulled it together so it wrapped around my breasts. It was showing off my butt since it was so short, not the big sheets like the ones in the spa. If I turned, the flap opened up and exposed my bare hip and the knot at my breasts felt like it was about to unravel any second.
The boys reshuffled. Raven was in the bathroom doorway and Marc stepped back into the stateroom. They kept watching me as I went to the sink. I found a toothbrush and paste. “Whose brush is this?”
“Mine,” Corey said. He moved back to sit on the toilet, but looked at me in the mirror. “Use it if you need to.”
“Okay.” I talked as I squeezed some paste on the brush. “Does someone have nail clippers?”
Raven left to get his kit and came back with nail clippers. He put them on the counter.
“My toenails are looking long,” I said, starting to brush my teeth, and then stopped to finish what I was saying. “I noticed earlier. Need to clip those back if I’m going to wear sandals.”
The guys looked down at my toes at the same time. I held back a laugh. Cute.
“What the fuck?” Brandon boomed. This time, I froze. He stared in at us, his lips moving, his eyes nearly glowing, the blue a stark contrast to the red of his face.
Good thing he hadn’t walked in when I was in the shower. Could I get him on the same page as the others, and get him used to just being around while I got ready? For a moment, I was unsure of my plan to just be one of the guys.
Raven turned with his hand up, stopping him. “She’s fine.”
“I can see she’s fine,” he said. He was dressed up in black slacks and a light blue shirt that was untucked. He held onto a pair of black sandals. His eyes were wide in disbelief. He scanned the room and then at the guys. Marc and Corey looked guilty. “What I want to know is why you’re all lurking around.”
“She’s the boss,” Marc said. “She wanted us in here.”
“What?” Brandon asked, and then looked over at me, his gaze scanning over the short towel, the skin I flashed at my hip as I moved the brush in my mouth. He stared and then looked up at me in the mirror. “Why?”
I removed the toothbrush to speak, but my mouth was full of paste and I was going to drip. Instead, I bent over the sink to spit out the foam, giving them all a flash of butt. I used a paper cup to rinse before I could really talk. But by that time all my snappy retorts had vanished. Maybe arguing wasn’t the answer with him. I looked at the sandals in his hands, black and strappy. “Those for me?” I asked, thinking ignoring his question and pretending like everything was fine and normal might be better.
He pushed his way past Marc. Marc backed up, getting shuffled into the room more. Raven squeezed into the room, too, but looked over Brandon’s shoulder as he came into the bathroom to show me the shoes. He tilted his head, obviously thrown off by me not answering his questions. “They aren’t for me,” he said, and plunked them down on the counter. “I saw the dress on the bed. Not your style.”
“It’ll have to do for tonight. We don’t have time to shop for another one.” I picked up the clippers and then I tried lifting my foot to the counter, putting my foot back down on the floor hard. Then my towel got loose, and slipped off. It fell to the floor before I caught it. My cool and confident spark fizzled in my klutz moment.
Well, now Brandon got a full view, his eyes widening as he gawked at me for a second. “Sweetie,” he said, bending over and scooping up the towel at my feet. “What the hell are you doing?” He flicked the towel until it was straight and shoved it toward my body.
“Trying to clip my nails,” I said, and let him wrap the towel back around my body. I took another one from the clean towels to wrap around my hair, still wet and dripping and I wasn’t sure if there was a blow dryer in here.
“Kayli,” he said with a sigh. His face moved down, and at first, he was trying to look away, or just look at my feet. Eventually, though, his head picked up and his eyes instantly went to everything, breasts, butt, crotch, and waist. “What the fuck? You can’t just walk around naked.”
“I’m not naked now. I am trying to get ready,” I said, frustration bubbling up. I flared my eyes at him. “We don’t have the space and the time to be modest around here. Either fill me in on what you’re doing tonight, or just stay out of the way.”
He clamped his mouth shut and took a step back. He checked in with Corey, who shrugged, grinning. Corey might have been trying to get his brother to relax, but Brandon still looked uncomfortable.
Marc pushed his way through when Brandon didn’t answer. Brandon backed up to the door. Marc took the clippers from my hand. He bent down and put a knee out for me. “Hop up on the counter and put your foot here. I’ll do this for you.”
Again, I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but if they could get over me being naked and worked with me, then maybe they’d get over that jealousy a bit. Kayli Winchester exposes all and finally gets them to cooperate. Was that all it took?
I slid my butt onto the counter beside the sink and lifted my foot up onto his knee so he could cut my toenails. I adjusted the towel around me, although my butt was pretty exposed since I was sitting. Raven still had his kit in his hands. I waved at him to hand it over, wanting to search it. He came over with it, holding it open for me. I plucked out a men’s moisturizer and applied some to my face. I pulled off the towel from my hair and started briskly rubbing it against my scalp to try and dry it.
The boys watched, seeming fascinated by my prep to get ready.
I got a little dizzy with my head bent, trying to dry my hair. I pulled the towel away from my head and blinked, holding to the side of my face, waiting for the colors to disappear and my head to stop spinning.
“Give me that,” Brandon said. He nudged Raven away again. He flicked the towel open and then planted it over my head, and started rubbing.
I held my hands up to try to stop him. He was a being too rough. Marc was doing my other foot. I used my other arm to hold on to the towel around my body so it would stay put.
There was another uproar of voices: someone grumbling. Raven spoke up, although I couldn’t hear what he was saying. I waved my hands at Brandon, and then caught his wrists, getting him to stop so I could figure out what was going on.
Blake and Axel were standing in the doorway, looking in. Neither one made any effort to divert their eyes, just gazed a good long while at me in the towel and then at the others in the area and then at me.
“I’m assuming there’s a reason for this,” Axel said, his voice low, the storm building behind his eyes.
I needed to catch this before it spilled over into something bad. “Okay guys,” I said, waving off Brandon. Marc kept at my toes, he only had two left but they were the tiny ones and he seemed to really be concentrating. I did my best to stay still while giving a full, angry glare at all of them, a warning. I wasn’t really mad, I just wanted to get this out in the open. “Get over it.” I waved my hand over my body, as best as I coul
d with Marc messing with my foot. “Get it out of your system. You’ve seen girls naked before.” I stared at all of their faces. “See anything different? A third appendage? A dick? No? Then get over it. Like I said, we’re working in close quarters. I realize we don’t have the time for a lot of modesty. Can I trust you all to behave as we do this job? Can we get on with things? Are we good?”
Raven smirked. “If I say no, will you stay naked?”
Corey elbowed him in the gut. Raven kept his grin, and covered his belly with his hand.
No one argued. Blake had been right. I needed to be more direct with them all. No more helpless Kayli. They either got with the groove or they needed to back up and get out of my way. That meant they’d have to know if the others showed any interest. No more secrets from them; secrets are what had created the fiasco earlier. I’d have to explain it to them later about the relationship part, though. That was a discussion that would take a while and I didn’t have time for it; I needed to get ready for this dinner.
Marc finished and then patted my calf. “Okay,” he said. “You’re good.”
Axel held his lips tightly together, but remained in the room. He could yell at them for gawking, but he was looking at me, too. Everyone was. He couldn’t call the others out now for staying in the room and ogling if he was doing it. And the others couldn’t get upset by it if they were all doing the same thing.
I waved to get his attention. “Hey, did you get the makeup?” I asked.
He nodded and brought a bag into the bathroom, holding it open for me. There was a collection of different foundations, eye shadow palettes, mascara and more, a lot of common colors. The lady had given him the basics.
I wiped at the mirror, clearing the fog. I spilled the makeup in the sink, picking out the best colors.
I took my time at this and staying in the towel. It was tempting to let the towel go, but I didn’t want to go too far too soon with all of them in the same space. I wanted the message to sink in. The longer they went, looking at me as I got ready, the more evident it became that I was serious. This would change the dynamic between us. I wasn’t sure how, but it had to be better than the secrets we’d kept from each other. “Axel,” I said, “we were trying to figure out if Corey should sit next to Colt.”
