Page 16 of Stoker's Serenity

“No, not at all, bathroom is through there, take your time. Are you hungry now?”

He nodded. “Food sounds fabulous, actually.”

“I’ll get it started.”

He moved past me with a smile and a nod and we’d been standing just near enough that the air was just a touch cooler for him moving away. He didn’t stink, not one bit, at least not to me but I could understand not wanting to feel grimy after a hard day’s work.

I moved into the kitchen and filled two glasses with ice and poured from the pitcher of lightly sweetened ginger-and-pear white tea I kept in the fridge. I liked the exotic taste and, though like any southern girl I liked a good sweet tea, this was just healthier than the copious amounts of sugar found in most traditional sweet teas. Besides, honestly, the tea bags weren’t that much more than your regular ol’ Lipton or whatever.

Bonus, white tea contained less caffeine than green or black teas, and as much as I worshipped caffeine in the early mornings or as a pick-me-up throughout the day, I didn’t need it before bed or in the evenings. My nerves and anxiety were more than enough to keep me awake staring at the ceiling long after I should have been asleep.

I set the table and took our food out of the fridge, dropping the liner to my Instant Pot into the housing. It was the best Christmas gift I’d ever bought myself; I’d gotten a major deal on it for Black Friday. It had been marked down to seventy-five percent off the original price, plus more with bonus rewards coupons and an employee discount on top of that. In fact, I’d gotten such a great deal on it, I’d been able to afford the accessories set that went with it. I barely, if ever, used my oven for anything anymore, and that included making breads or cakes, since I’d gotten it.

Sealing the lid, I set it to cook, and added rice to my little five-cup rice cooker along with the requisite amount of water. Everything was so efficient that I was essentially done before he’d even had time to turn on the shower.

Feeling quite pleased with myself, I set his glass of iced tea near his plate and went back over to my little reading nook with mine, setting it on the little side table and taking up my book once more to wait for him.

The food would only take around twenty minutes to cook once the pot came to pressure. Ten minutes to cook, an additional ten minutes to rest, andvoilà, dinner was served.

I tried very hard to immerse myself back into my book, but it was hard, and it was mostly due to the fact I couldn’t stop picturing his hard body all naked, steamy, and wet in my shower just behind my bathroom door. I stared at the door and blushed, jumping slightly when the tap shut off and quickly returning my gaze to the lines of text that blurred together on the page.

God, the last thing I wanted him to do was come out here to me staring at the door like some… pervert or something.Desperation, thy name is Ren,I thought to myself.

The last thing I wanted to do was give any kind of hint about how hard up I was for friends. I had Linny, sure, but she was pretty much my only friend and that was by way of some fucking miracle, I’ll tell you what.

I was lonely, but I knew she couldn’t be my end all of be all’s when it came to friendship, so, as lonely as I was, I usually pretended I was just dandy with my solitude. I knew Linny would feel some kind of guilty if she knew otherwise and I didn’t want that on my conscience. Besides, it wasn’t her fault people didn’t want to have fuck-all to do with me. It wasn’t really mine, either… it just was what it was, I guess.

The door to the bathroom opened up a moment later and Stoker stepped out. A plume of steam and the scent of clean man wafted over to me and I tried not to press my thighs together. He smiled at me and gave me a wink, his long hair pulled back into a ponytail so tight it gave the illusion it was short. His light gray tee hugged his chest and shoulders nicely and was darkened in places by some errant water droplets.

He set his duffel bag by the open bathroom door and came over, his booted footfalls across the hardwood deep and resonant. He dropped onto the ottoman with a satisfied and gusty sigh and he rested his hands on the calf of one leg where I was curled in my seat. I sucked in a tremulous breath at just how good his calloused fingertips felt against my bare skin.

“Now I feel like I can greet you properly,” he said with a crooked grin. “C’mere.”

I set my book aside and put my feet to the floor, standing up straight; his hands went lightly to my hips and he stood too, hugging me to him gently. He immediately leaned back with a wink and asked, “So how was your day?”

“Pretty low-key,” I murmured. “Dinner should be up in about fifteen minutes or so.”

“That fast? Wow.”

“You said you were hungry now.”

He nodded. “I’m ravenous, actually.” His gaze lingered on me a bit long after he said it and I laughed a little, blushing. We broke apart and retook our seats.

“What you reading?” he asked.

“Oh, um…” I grabbed my book back up and handed it to him.

“Nice,” he said and turned it over. “The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill. Horror fan, then?”

“Not really,” I said. “I have an eclectic taste in books and movies. I just decided to read this one because I saw the movie with Daniel Radcliffe and I liked it, so I thought I might like the book better.”

“You a movie-before-the-book kind of a girl, then?” he asked.

“Absolutely. If you read the book before the movie, you’ll almost always be disappointed in the film adaptation, but if you see the film before reading the book... When you liked the movie… well, if you liked it enough give the book a try, it’s almost a guarantee that the book will be a thousand times better, so win/win.”

“You never find it tough to get into the book when you know what’s going to happen?”

“Sometimes, but not always,” I said.

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