She blew out a frustrated breath, and it seemed to take all the fight out of her. Nodding, she pulled back the shower curtain. Then her face lightened a bit. “I love this tub. Can I take a bath instead?”
It was an old claw-foot tub from the 1920s, the era in which the cottage had been built. “Sure. Whatever you like. I don’t have any bubble bath or any of that kind of shit, though. I’m purely a soap-and-water kind of guy.”
“Don’t need it.” She turned on the taps and grinned. “This is going to be amazing.”
He reached a hand out, seized with an almost overwhelming desire to stroke her face, but stopped short. “Good. Lie back and think about real estate.”
Thirty minutes later, he was sautéing veggies for omelets, sipping a cup of coffee, and trying very hard not to think about Miss Frostypants stretched out in his bathtub. Her long, lean legs would be longer than the tub, so she’d either have to bend them or let her ankles hang over the edge. Her head would probably loll back on the lip of the tub, exposing an elegant neck made pink from the heat. And there were no bubbles, so the water would be clear.
When Amy Morrison wasn’t sniping at him, she really was something.
His phone buzzed. Jack.
Everything ok?
It was as if Amy’s boss was the angel on Dax’s shoulder, able somehow to read his dirty mind. He sighed and typed a response.
Yep. Having a snack and then going to bed—separately.
How is she?
He stared off into space for a moment, remembering her tears at the beach. But then her geeky excitement when she found out about the ownership structure of the island.
I don’t know.
It was the truth. He jumped a little as he heard the bathroom door open, then fired off one final text before silencing his phone.
I gotta go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.
“Something smells good,” Amy said, strolling out wearing the oversize University of Toronto Rowing Club T-shirt he’d given her—and nothing else. He eyed her legs. Apparently she’d decided just to forgo his sweatpants. The shirt was big on her, coming almost to her knees. It covered more of her than her wedding dress had, in fact. But the effect was the same as with that goddamned dress. Well, nothing for it but to man up. He gestured to the sofa in the small living room adjacent to the open kitchen. “Take a load off while I finish this.”
She obeyed, going so far as to fully stretch out. She heaved a big sigh. “What a weird day.”
Weird. Not awful or terrible or humiliating or the worst day ever. He felt an absurd rush of pride that maybe he had played a part in shifting her day from bad to merely weird.
“I’ll have to go home tomorrow. Ugh.” She let loose a yawn.
He turned away from her to pour the eggs into the pan. “You live with Mason, right?”
“Mason lives with me. It’s my house.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“But yes. Everything”—another huge yawn—“is all intertwined.”
He resisted the urge to try to troubleshoot. Surely she could stay with family members while they sorted everything out, or with Jack. Hell, she could even borrow his condo if she wanted. But he didn’t say any of that. He had learned the hard way that you could never truly solve other people’s problems for them. So he tilted the pan silently, letting the eggs set before he poured in the mushrooms and peppers he’d cooked and sprinkled some cheese on top.
When it was done, he cut the omelet in half and shook each piece onto a plate. Trying to think what to say next, he carried a plate across the living room to Amy.
Who was fast asleep on his couch.
Huffing a quiet laugh, he pulled a quilt from the back of the couch and tucked her in. After staring for a moment at the novel sight of her unmade-up face, he gave in to his previous impulse and let his palm rest on her cheek, but only for a moment, and only because she would never know the difference.
…
Amy woke to a pounding coming from outside. Or was it in her head? Though she had drunk a lot at the bar with Dax, it had been early enough that she’d pretty well sobered up by the time she fell asleep on the sofa. Still, she had a headache and mouth full of cotton.
And a gut full of dread. And weren’t there so many things to dread? Let us count the ways. There was Mason, of course. He’d need to get all his shit out of her house, but even she had to admit that would take some time. The dude had a lot of vintage records. She brightened for a moment thinking of all the space she’d get back when all his records were gone.
And her mother. Oh, God, her mother. She’d probably succumbed to a fit of the vapors after the non-wedding. But she would have woken bright-eyed, sharp-tongued, and with a martyr complex the size of Lake Ontario. She would be doing damage control, of course, trying to spin things so her Forest Hill friends didn’t think—God forbid—that her daughter had made a misstep.