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“Anyways, when I was old enough to drive there was no way in hell my parents could afford to buy me a car. Not a single fucking chance.” He accentuated the story with wild hand gestures. “But I got home one day after school and there was my grandfather with the Corvette parked in the driveway, holding out the keys.”
Clara warmed at the animation in Josh’s face.
“I couldn’t believe it. I told him I couldn’t accept it. Even though it was a total babe magnet, I knew how much he loved that car. But he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Take it. Please. Giving her to you, making you happy, feels better than the day I got her.’”
Josh took her empty water cup and returned it to the table. “For me, that car has always represented the idea that people are more important than things. Even things you love. Watching you driving this summer, conquering your fear, hell, even imagining you gathering your courage to start that engine by yourself this morning . . .” He looked up, catching her eye. “Somehow, i
t feels better than the day I got her.”
“That’s a really good story.”
Josh shifted so he could lean back against her pillows and gingerly put his arm around her shoulders. “Thanks, I thought so.”
“Josh, how am I ever going to make this up to you?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Wheaton,” he whispered, pressing his lips against her temple. “You look extremely goofy in that hospital gown and it’s going a long way.”
chapter twenty-four
OW . . . OWWW . . . OW . . . OW!”
Josh could hear Clara alternately yelping and whimpering through the bathroom door where she’d locked herself after insisting she could manage to shower alone despite her whiplash. The doctor had agreed to discharge her with the recommendation that she rest and take ibuprofen twice a day until the pain subsided.
Clara refused to acknowledge that maintaining her stringent daily routine now included unexpected challenges.
He leaned his face against the cheap plywood separating them. He’d been standing outside the bathroom for fifteen minutes since she’d gone in, in case she fell or something and he needed to break down the door. “For Christ’s sake, Clara, let me help you.”
So far she had spent the morning waddling around like a lost duckling. From his perch at the kitchen counter, he watched her putter into the living room, sigh dramatically, and turn around. A few minutes later she wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge before seeming to decide it was all too much effort and settling for handfuls of dry cereal out of the box. His dry cereal.
He offered to make her scrambled eggs or grilled cheese, his two specialties, but she told him she didn’t deserve warm food after the mechanic said the ’Vette would be out of commission for at least a week.
She was acting like doing one bad thing could never be absolved, and it was getting on his nerves. Only someone who had never done anything wrong before would think borrowing a car deserved this level of self-flagellation.
He broke down and used the stupid three-knock system to request entry, browbeaten enough to employ her ridiculous household rule.
“Absolutely not,” she shouted over the noise of the shower.
“Clara, this is next-level crazy, even for you. The doctor said you shouldn’t raise your arms above your waist until the whiplash subsides. That’s half your body. I’m the one who has to be around you all the time. If you stink, it’s my nose that suffers.”
The sound of the water abruptly cut out. “But you’ll see me naked. Again. It breaks the guidelines for harmonious cohabitation.”
“I saw at least twenty naked bodies this week alone shooting for the website and nothing happened.” It was an occupational hazard. Years of on- and off-camera escapades had dulled his sexual senses. Even though they had worked with gorgeous women every day over the last few weeks it was like he was wearing earmuffs or dirty glasses during filming; nothing penetrated.
“I cannot express enough how your bruised and battered form is not going to send me into a sexual tailspin. This is all very simple. You’re hurt. You smell. Let me in there. It’ll be so impersonal you’ll think you ran through a car wash.”
A moment later, Clara opened the door, holding a towel around herself with one hand.
The tiny bathroom was easily ten degrees hotter than the hallway and full of steam. He blinked a few times to clear his vision. The combined effect of the environment and the sight of Clara with damp hair, her skin beaded with water was . . . arresting.
“Holy shit.” Her cleavage made him see stars.
Clara pulled the towel tighter around her breasts. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the harder she pulled the material, the more he wanted to drown in the valley between her luscious tits.
Okay. So he might have miscalculated. Turned out he wasn’t totally immune. He’d forgotten that being on set meant lots of people, working and talking and eating. It meant cameras and lights and costumes and makeup and other signals of artifice.
The intimacy of seeing Clara in such a small, heated space made him want to peel off that towel and lick every inch of her.
Fuck.
