Page 33 of Whiskey Shivers

“I don’t think it’s perfect, but it’s better than nothing,” he said as I lowered it carefully back down. The other side was a breeze and I honestly felt so much better.

“Thank you for thinking of that. I wasn’t going to ask you,” I said and he chuckled.

“You feel done or you want to hang out a little more while I take care of myself?” he asked.

“I can wait,” I said and he double-checked.

“You’re sure? I can get you out and dried off and come back in.”

“I’d like to wait,” I said blushing. “I wish I could return the favor so completely.”

He winked at me and said, “I don’t shave my legs, darlin’.” I laughed and smacked him lightly on the chest with my good hand.

He laughed and we carefully traded spaces so he could take advantage of the spray.

He washed quickly and efficiently, a tactically precise shower, whereas mine had been a leisurely exploration of my body that’d left me totally hot and bothered. Still, watching the soap run down his chiseled body didn’t help me in the slightest in that department.

He turned off the water and told me, “Hang tight. Don’t try to get out yet,” before whisking back the curtain. We’d been in long enough without the fan running in here that the mirror was water streaked and steam hung in the air. Also, it didn’t feel cold.

“Shit, I always forget the damn fan,” he said, switching it on. I expected it to be loud. Most bathroom fans were, but it wasn’t. It was noticeable, and there, but as far as bathroom fans went, it was quiet.

He whipped a towel over his hair and body quickly, securing it around his waist, the absorbent material slouching on his hips before he pulled another off the shelf that held them and went carefully to work, drying me some before helping me to step out of the deep tub to do my legs.

“There we go,” he said, coming up from his crouch, his knees popping and I think his feet maybe crackling.

I made a face and said, “Ouch.”

“Sounds worse than it is,” he said chuckling. “Just part of getting old.”

“You can’t be that old,” I said, smiling at him.

“Well thank you,” he said. “I’m thirty-eight.”

“That’s barely ten years older than me and not old!” I protested and he laughed.

“Well, it feels old.”

I frowned and said, “You need to take better care of yourself then. If your body is protesting like that now, what will it be in ten years?”

“Dunno,” he said with a reckless little shrug. “Guess we’ll find out when I get there.”

He winked at me and I smiled but I still rolled my eyes. He wrapped the towel around my shoulders, and I clutched it together with my hand and said, “I guess we forgot clothes.”

“Nah, I didn’t forget anything,” he said and he led me out into the air-conditioned hush of his bedroom. He went to his dresser and opened one of the drawers, extracting a faded and cracked Voodoo Bastards t-shirt.

“Okay, how did she do this again? Bad arm first?” I nodded and he gathered the sleeve for my left arm into a ring and carefully slipped it over my hand, working everything carefully.

“Reminds me of that old board game,” he said.

“Which one?” I asked, nervous and already bracing for pain if anything got jarred.

“The one with the tweezers and your pulling body parts out of the dude but if you touched the side, his nose lit up and the thing would make a god-awful noise and you lost or whatever.”

“Operation?” I asked.

“Yeah! That’s the one.” He winked at me and said, “I thought you might be too young to remember it.”

“They had one at one of the foster care centers I had to stay at. Missing most of its pieces so we only really had the one that we kept playing with over and over, or whatever. But when you’re that bored, you’ll make anything work.”

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