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“You’re going to the shower and you can’t shower in a sheet. I was only trying to help.”
Sighing and shaking her head, Clover turned around again and once more headed to the bathroom on the second floor.
“You’re lucky I’m in love with you,” she said as she started climbing the steps, naked as the day she was born. “Or I’d be offended by this boorish behavior.”
Erick rolled onto his back, smiling up at the ceiling. Knotty pine, beautifully finished, probably original. Wait.
What?
Erick sat straight up just as Clover disappeared through the bathroom door. He walked up the steps and tapped on the door.
“Clo?”
“What?” she yelled over the sound of the shower water coming on.
“Did you say you were in love with me?”
“Yes!”
“Okay, just checking.”
“Is that a problem?” she asked. He heard the sliding shower door open and close.
He shrugged. “No. No problem. But you have to stop telling me stuff like this, you know, like this.”
“Like what?”
“First, you told me you’d never had sex before while my penis was literally already inside your vagina.”
“You brought it up.”
“And then you tell me you love me on the way to the bathroom to get ready to go grocery shopping? You’re kind of burying the lede here.”
He heard more movement from inside the bathroom. The door opened and he stood back as Clover stood not only naked but soaking wet in front of him.
“I’m in love with you,” she said. “I know we’ve only been together for four days but by my calculations we’ve spent over seventy-two hours in each other’s company since Sunday evening. If your average date is four hours long—dinner and a movie, for example—then seventy-two hours is the equivalent of eighteen dates. And eighteen dates is more than enough time to decide if you’re in
love with the person you’re dating. Most people know by the third date, I hear.”
“I like that you did the math.”
“I did. I’m a businesswoman. Businesswomen do the math. I realized it this morning while I was watching the sun come up and I felt so happy you were there. As beautiful as the lake is and the mountain and the trees and the sky, it was you being there that made me so happy. I thought you should know that so I told you first chance I got. Did I need to wait for a full moon or something?”
He peeked over her shoulder at her naked backside.
“Looks like a full moon to me.”
“Can I get back in the shower now?” she asked. “I’m cold.”
“I can tell. And yes, you can get back in the shower.”
“Thank you.” She turned around and started to close the door on him but he stopped it with his hand. She spun around again, hitting him with water from her hair. “Now what?”
“I—”
Clover slapped her wet hand over his mouth and, all of a sudden, he thought of another type of sex they should try.
“I don’t know what you’re going to say but I don’t want you to tell me that you love me, too,” she said. “I mean, I do, but if you said it now, I wouldn’t believe you meant it. I’d be afraid you said it because I said it. I want you to say it when you’re ready, not just because I said it. Got it?”
