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“I don’t like baths, okay?”
Why did I keep telling him all the stuff I usually kept to myself? It felt like investing my life savings in a snow-cone shop at a ski lodge. Pointless and dumb.
“Why not?” he asked then started brushing those perfect teeth of his as he watched me.
Figuring I might as well tell him at this point, I pointed to the tub and swirled my finger. “Because it’s like soaking in…human soup. I don’t want to stew in a pot of dirt and…” I trailed off, distracted by the way he was listening while he brushed without even a hint of amusement in his eyes. Man, this guy was good. “Okay, I’ll shut up.”
Now, he chuckled and turned to spit. “You’re not wrong, though. And that’s funny. I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“Are you a bath person then?”
“No. They don’t have bathtubs in the barracks. But I guess I liked the idea of it. Seemed relaxing.Until now,of course.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” I said with a quiet laugh. Then I shuddered. “Dirty water is the opposite of relaxing for me.”
“Fair. Whatisrelaxing for you?”
I thought about it as he returned to his oral care, looking at the ceiling. “Reading. Ice cream after a long day. Oh, and watching endless book recs on TikTok, which only make my TBR list longer and longer.”
“Book recsyoushould be making.”
I snorted, wondering if I should tell him I’d been considering it. “Ha.”
“You’re already a photographer. I bet you’d be great at it.”
Waving a hand, I blew it off, just like I had the last time he’d brought this up. Just because I’d been thinking about it, didn’t mean I’d ever have the guts to put myself out there like that. “Yeah, yeah. Hurry up and finish so I can shower.”
He smirked. “Yes, ma’am.”
I started to head back to my room, then stopped and turned back around. “Wait, you’re not gonna take a bath, are you?”
He pulled his toothbrush out of his mouth as a full-blown grin appeared, complete with a mouthful of foamy white bubbles. “Why, you thinking of joining me?”
I stepped toward him ever so slowly, deciding that if he was going to say things to get a rise out of me, he deserved to get the same treatment in return. “Beau, the only thing more disgusting than soaking in my own dirty water, is soaking in somebody else’s.”
His smile dropped and he spit out the toothpaste, then he wagged his toothbrush at me. “You sure know how to make a guy feel gross, you know that?”
“Sorry,” I said with a shrug.
“Don’t be. Now quit distracting me. I’m supposed to be finishing up so you can shower.”
* * *
Iwoke up around two in the morning feeling restless. The bed was comfortable, but there was something nagging at me and no matter how hard I tried, I kept waking up every thirty minutes or so.
I knew exactly what it was, too, but I tried to ignore it.
Him.
And since I probably wouldn’t look very good tomorrow unless I got at least a few hours of sleep, I finally decided to go out and check to make sure he was okay. That couch had to be a nightmare to sleep on, and I kept picturing him sleeping while sitting up. Or not sleeping at all, like me.
When I opened the door and stepped into the living room, I almost groaned out loud. Not because he was shirtless, which okay, yeah, was worthy of such a reaction. No, it was because his head was tipped over the arm of the love seat with his pillow resting on the end table, bent back at what had to be a painful angle.
His carved-from-marble torso was crooked so he could rest his long legs on the ground instead of on the couch itself, likely because they didn’t fit all the way across.
And because of the strange position he was in, his arms were slung off to one side, the sheer weight of them hanging toward the floor making me think he was seconds away from slumping right off the couch.
Sighing, I tiptoed over and sat on the coffee table, pushing his shoulder to see if I could straighten him up a bit without waking him.
