Page 49 of Pocketful of Shame

"Not today, Ro." Switching off the water, I grabbed a towel off the rack and tossed it at a drenched Presley.

"I'll just, uh…" He pointed to the door before jumping out of the tub and hurrying away. "Be right back."

"Hook your arms around my neck and I'll lift you out," I instructed, ignoring the pounding in my chest when I reached into the tub and hooked my hands under her arms. Freeing her leg, I pulled her up. Damn, Presley needed to work on his upper body strength. This girl was as light as a bag of flour. "Come on, Ro, hold onto me."

"I'd rather not, Sketch," she groaned, face still firmly buried in her hands as she leaned heavily against my chest, balancing on one foot. "Jesus."

"Oh, you wanna stay in there for the day?" I arched a brow, keeping an arm around her. "Is that it?"

"Ugh." She blew out a breath. "No, no, you're right. I'm being dumb." Keeping her face buried against my chest, she gingerly wrapped her arms around my neck. "Just, uh, please don’t look."

"Yeah, Ro." Sliding a hand between our bodies, I tossed the curtain into the tub before lifting her into my arms. "Whatever you say." Snagging a towel off the rack, I tossed it down on the closed lid of the toilet before carefully lowering her down. "You good?" I asked, keeping my eyes on her face the entire time.

"Yep," came her high-pitched response as she hunched forward in a bid to protect her modesty – modesty I'd seen about as many times as I'd seen my own damn modesty.

"Here –" Giving her my back, I reached for another towel and held it out for her.

"Thanks." She took the towel from me and I gave her a minute to cover up, while I took a moment to compose myself.

"No problem." Clenching and then unclenching my fists, I tried to shake out the tremor in my hands while I fought against the hard-on in my jeans.

Wrong time.

Wrong place.

Wrong fucking girl…

"It's okay now," Romi said quietly. "I'm decent."

Blowing out a breath, I masked my emotions and turned to see her wrapped up in a fluffy, white towel. "That was dangerous," I said. "You have a sprained ankle and a banged-up knee. You're bruised. You're barely patched up. You could've broken your damn neck in here and a great help that douchebag would have been to help you out."

She sighed. "Yeah."

"Don’t do that again, okay? Not when I'm not around. It's not safe." Shoving my hands into my pockets, I leaned against the opposite wall and studied her flushed complexion and the droplets of water that fell from her hair to her bare shoulders.Jesus.Jaw ticking, I quickly dragged my gaze back to hers.

Whiskey colored eyes greeted me. "Where were you last night?"

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Last night," she repeated, cheeks turning pink. "Where'd you go?"

"To a bar."

"And afterwards?"

"I slept in my truck."

"Why?"

I debated lying before deciding against it. I wasn’t much of a liar anyway. "I didn’t want to be in here."

"Because of our fight? Because of what was said? Or because I'm in here?"

"Because of a lot of things, Romi."

"And you got drunk?"

"I did."

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