I turn my focus back to Florence, who snaps her gaze back and forth, hunting for something, it seems. “Let me get you a towel. There must be a towel somewhere,” she says, then furrows her brow, turning to her boyfriend, who looks like he’s waiting for instructions. “Actually, I don’t have a towel. Can you see if anyone does, hon?”
Before her guy can even say yes, a throat clears. A voice—deep, strong, sexy—says, “I’ve got one in my car. In my gym bag. It’s clean. I’ll go get it.”
That’s nice of him, and so’s the sight of him turning around and striding across the lawn purposefully—a man determined to help in the way that he can. A man who simply takes control of the chaos, from the hands he set on my waist to tug me out, to the towel he’s fetching.
But even with a towel—and I do want one—I’ll still be wet from the tips of my hair down to my toes. Which are squishing around in my soaked socks inside my soaked sneakers. Today is really a day.
Florence is chewing on her lip. Great. Now I’ve worried a client. I make my smile bigger, like I’m so unbothered by all the shenanigans. “It’s all good. But I should go ho?—”
Only, the sentence dies as reality hits. I’ll have to drive an hour or two in this soaking-wet dress.
Florence slices a hand through the air. “Nope,” she says, shaking her head firmly. “You’re not going home. I’m getting you a nice, fancy hotel room.”
“Good idea, babe,” her guy says, and he’s really nailing the supportive boyfriend brief.
“I have an account at The Resort,” Florence adds. “You can take a nice, hot shower, slide into a fluffy robe as your clothes dry, and order some outrageous room service. On me.”
That does sound nice.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say reflexively. But then—screw it. Women are always turning down nice things, and before she can take it back—I snatch up the generous offer. “But thank you. That sounds amazing.”
There’s only one issue. I parked far, far away. But I’ll just walk the half mile in my see-through clothes. Surely my pointy nips will stop pointing any second now.
Yup. Any second.Tick tock, tits.
“Let me just call the hotel manager,” Florence adds, stepping away with Bagel and her boyfriend accessory, right as my tall, dark, and still wet-shirted Mr. Darcy returns with a clean towel.
Florence stops, spins back around and says, “Yes, thank you, Sawyer. You’re a doll. So glad Juliet convinced you to come.”
“Me too,” Sawyer says, and once Florence heads off for real this time, Sawyer wraps the towel around me like a blanket, and for a second, it feels like more than just a towel. It feels like…comfort. Like someone else handling my problems for even one night. Something I haven’t had in a while. I relax into it, turn my face to sniff the soft fabric.
He scoffs. “You thought it was dirty?”
“No! It smells nice. Like laundry detergent,” I say, a little defensively.
“I told you it was clean,” he says, shaking his head, but he’s clearly amused, judging from the shadow of a smile on his lips.
“Maybe I just needed the proof,” I add.
He holds my gaze for a beat. “And did you get it? The proof?” It’s asked with a bit of smoke in his voice, with a dirty edge.
I lick my lips, but I’m not sure anything I’m doing in my current state is sexy, so I do a one-eighty and make a show of sniffing the towel again. A long, deep inhale. It’s clean. Spring-fresh. “I guess I proved you’re not just the brooding guy at the bar.”
“You think so?”
After I wrap the material tighter around my shoulders, I hold up a thumb and forefinger. “You’re a little gallant.”
“A little? That’s all?”
I shrug. “Like I said. You didn’t jump in.”
He rolls his eyes, then nods toward the outskirts of the park as the sun sinks down in the sky. “You want gallant? Here you go,” he says, then whirls around and grabs my pink clutch from the dock. Oh, thank god. I’d forgotten that, too, in the melee. “You need a ride somewhere?”
“My car’s about a half mile away in a garage. But Florence got me a room at a hotel nearby.”
“Perfect. I’ll be your Lyft,” he says as he hands me the clutch.
I’m impulsive, yes. Stupid, no. So before I accept, I replay Florence’s comment to Sawyer a moment ago. She must know him through his sister. So, yes, it’ll be safe to get a ride with him. It’s been a long damn day, and I don’t need to parade down the twilit street like a drowned rat. Besides, this man just offered me a clean towel and a ride in his car like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He’s the opposite of my day. And he’s looking at me like there’s no place else he wants to be right now.
