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Grabbing the dress, I walked to the hand dryer and placed it underneath the hot air. The task served as a distraction from my wildly inappropriate thoughts.
“Is it working?” Rosie asked a few minutes later.
It wasn’t. Not fast enough. The fabric was heavy, and only mildly less damp in my hands. “Still a little wet.”
“I think I’m going to put it back on. We’ve been in here long enough, and I don’t think it’s going to get any better than this.”
I walked back to her stall and held the dress in front of me. And, of course, that was the exact moment someone decided to enter therestroom. Yet one more superhero I didn’t recognize. Were those… horns on her forehead?
“Hi,” I greeted her with a nod. “Please, don’t mind me. I’m—”
And, before I knew what was happening, I was being pulled backward into Rosie’s stall and the door was being closed behind us. I shut my eyes.
“Why were you striking up a conversation with her?” she whispered.
“I was being polite, Ro,” I said, facing the door and giving Rosie my back to be extra safe. “Abuela taught me that good manners and a smile can get you a long way. No need to be jealous.”
“I’m not jealous,” she scoffed. “Dress?”
Still with my back turned—because I hadn’t forgotten about the fact that she was standing in barely any clothing right behind me—I held it up over my shoulder. “Right here. But I’m not gonna lie. I’m not sure you’re going to want to put it on.”
I heard her groan when she retrieved it. “Dammit.”
My impulse was to turn around and tell her that everything would be okay, comfort her in some way, but I couldn’t, shouldn’t, when she was basically naked, and I was trying to keep it together. “You can wear my shirt, Rosie. And my jacket. I think they’re long enough.”
“Just… that?”
Do not visualize it, do not visualize it, I recited silently.
But the provocative image—Rosie, in my clothes, bare legs, wet—took shape in my head so fast and so clearly that my next word barely made it out of my mouth. “Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Sure. I have no problem walking around shirtless, you know that. Plus, I’ll still have the vest.”
Silence.
“Wear them,” I insisted. “I can get you out of here. Take you home.”
She sighed. And she must have been standing very close to me because I felt her breath on my back. Then her forehead falling somewhere between my shoulder blades.
“Home.” Another burst of air left her lips. “The night is over. Ruined, isn’t it?”
The clear disappointment in her voice made something in my chest twist.
Without thinking about it—about every reason why I shouldn’t—I turned around and wrapped her barely clothed body into my arms so I could bring her against my chest.
Her skin was warm and sticky with the dried spilled drink, and I couldn’t not breathe her in when I closed my eyes even more tightly for good measure.
“I’m sorry, Ro,” I told her, resting my chin on the top of her head. “I’ll make you popcorn. The caramel and salt one that you like. And we’ll watch a scary movie. The night isn’t over.”
Her arms had been somehow trapped between our chests, and I felt how her palms shifted, coming to rest against my pecs, making me want to grab her wrists and pull her arms around my neck.
A strangled sound came out of her, muffled by my clothes, so I started to release her. But she clamped the fabric of my vest, pulling at it and keeping me in place. “You are…” She exhaled shakily, making me frown and wish I was able to open my eyes so I could see her face. “You are incredible, Lucas. And I think you have no idea.”
Eyes still closed, I let my right hand wander down—only a few safe inches—so it rested in the middle of her back. My thumb grazed her warm, sticky skin. “Why do you say that?”
“Because you are here, helping me, instead of out there having fun and… and… I don’t know, living your best life without having to worry about me.”
My brows knitted further.
Having to worry about her?
