Page 60 of Veiled in Brick

I exhaled softly in relief. “Noon.”

“Okay,” he said the word so quietly that I had to read his lips, and he brushed his mouth against mine once more. “You should get ready.”

Chapter 11

The tense, intimate moment that Liam and I shared was long over. Nearly an hour later, he had seemed to fully decompress, and the knowledge that his upbeat personality was back in place where it belonged brought a smile to my face. Hot water was raining down my spine. The scent of Liam’s shower gel—something called Juniper Ice—filled the air.

I yelled, “Are you sure you don’t want to join me in here?!”

I heard him laugh, his voice becoming louder as his steps echoed into his bathroom.

“You’re fuckin’ killing me, Zoey. You have to leave in fifteen minutes. If I get in the shower, you’ll be late—and I don’t have any Gatorade to rehydrate for what I would do to you in there—”

“Come on, don’t leave me guessing,” I mocked him as I tipped my head back and allowed the water to run over my hair.

“Zoey,” he admonished me in a gravelly tone that insinuated sexual frustration.

I conceded, “Fine, fine. And you don’t have any conditioner?”

Liam’s shower was very much a boy’s shower. There was one bottle for body wash. One bottle for whatever the hell two-in-one shampoo is. A black loofah. And…that was it.

“Why would I have conditioner?” he replied with a snort. “The shampoo’s got it in there already! Two-in-one.”

“Mmkay, we can talk about that later—I’ll get my own stuff from my place.”

“Ya wouldn’t have had to worry about it if you didn’t get so dirty.”

He said it offhandedly with a deepening voice, and I couldn’t help but peek around the navy shower curtain. Liam was waiting patiently for me to finish showering—sitting on the toilet seat, fully dressed in his usual Converse, faded jeans, and a t-shirt. I found his gaze and he bobbled his eyebrows at me, stretching his arms and resting his hands behind his head. The motion stretched the white fabric of his shirt across his chest, and my eyes traced over him slowly. Liam leaned back with purpose, the hem of his shirt riding up just enough to display a touch of the hair that smattered his lower abdomen, and I knew for a fact that he was positioning himself in such a way on purpose.

Though I thoroughly enjoyed the view, I rolled my eyes at his behavior and reached to turn off the shower. I pushed the curtain to the side in one swift motion, splattering the floor with water droplets, and stood before him naked with my hands on my hips. His jaw went slack. His eyelids fell halfway over his gaze, and he sighed as he looked me up and down.

“Yeah, you win that game.”

I smirked, looked to my left and right, and upon not seeing a single bath towel, I requested, “Towel?”

“Are ya sure you need one?”

“I’m cold, Lee—”

He glimpsed quickly at my breasts. “I can tell.”

“Towel,” I demanded with an outstretched hand.

Liam chuckled, reached behind himself to grab a blue towel that he had most definitely hidden on top of the back of the toilet, and handed it to me. When I began to wrap myself in it and step out of the tub, he told me:

“Your phone’s going crazy, by the way.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t checked my phone since the night prior. “Where is it?”

“Couch,” he answered.

I nodded and made my way back to my makeshift sleeping quarters to find the blanket I so adored folded neatly next to my pillow. My phone sat atop it, buzzing briefly to signify missed calls and messages. The texts were displayed on the screen, all from Claire:

Claire 9:30 A.M.: How was your night?

Claire 10:00 A.M.: Our door still isn’t fixed, we should probably call maintenance again.

Claire 10:30 A.M.: Good morning?

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