Page 76 of The Bright Side of Brooding
Chapter Thirty-Two
Summer
Nick didn’t come to feast night.
I couldn’t be upset. And I did understand. Disappointed? Yes. But I genuinely did understand—or, I could empathize. We’d talked in the late afternoon, and I’d mentioned a few people who were coming. He’d asked who else, and then we realized he didn’t know any of them.
First, this boggled my mind. The Kugelfels community was so small, I didn’t understand how he could live here and not know these people. They were from all different agencies and offices on post. Granted, none of them were military. But I could tell the minute he realized it, when the space between us, even the cellular, metaphysical space or whatever, filled with dread.
So I’d given him the out. And he’d taken it.
I triedsohard not to feel anything more than missing him. But that disappointment crept in. I wanted him with me. If we were going to be together, I needed him to participate. And I knew he would show up if I pushed him or even asked him to.
I hadn’t. I’d heard his tone and told him he didn’t have to come, and though a small part of me had hoped he’d insist on it, I tried to accept that his staying home was right.
The evening went well. The new recipes I’d tried were a hit, though I’d made notes to tweak the goat cheese tartlet, and I didn’t love the clove in the chicken dish. I never really liked clove, so that shouldn’t have been a surprise.
Everyone had filtered out quickly, the threat of a thunderstorm fueling their exit. I insisted all the more they just get going and avoid driving on slick Bavarian roads in the pitch black since so few of the country roads had streetlights. But moments after the last person had gone, before I’d even emptied the table, someone knocked.
And who should it be but Nick, his T-shirt soaked through and plastered to that glorious chest. My toes curled in my shoes. He was generally stunning, but showing up on my doorstep, rain-soaked, his tattoos shadows under the sopping fabric? This might’ve topped the shirtless snowstorm moment.
“Hello,” he said, his eyes sparkling.
“Hello. Would you like to come in?”
His lips twitched. “Only if you’ll let me help you clean up.”
A warm, sweet feeling bloomed in my chest.
“If you insist,” I said, turning aside and gesturing for him to enter. I closed the door behind him, my breathing fast. Like, stupid fast. But the sight of him like this darn near knocked me out.
He didn’t go far, once inside. In fact, he sort of crowded me but didn’t touch me. Rain drops tracked from his hair down his face.
“Would you like a towel?” I asked, tucking my hands behind my back so I couldn’t maul him.
“Yes, please.”
Ooh. Wow. He had a little grit in his voice tonight, something that told me he had come to clean up, and then some. I scuttled down the hall to the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and returned to him. He took it from me and wiped his face, ran it over his hair and neck, and then pressed it into his arms and chest.
“Shirt’s pretty soaked,” I said, my voice sounding weird. Like I’d eaten a raw
Scotch bonnet pepper and singed my throat.
“It is.”
“Maybe you should take it off.”
Eyes on me, he handed me the towel. My stomach dropped down, down, through the floor, straight through to the other side of the world. His fingers gripped the hem, and slowly, he peeled up the thin, sodden material to reveal what I now considered my favorite piece of art. Truly. Stick him in the Tate Modern, folks. Wow.
Every breath accentuated the curves of his muscles, all cinched together and stacked, the picture of discipline. Maybe that was why the sight affected me the way it did—a kind of total body experience. Because I knew the life he lived to maintain this. He would never pretend it came about easily or without effort. He’d spent years honing this body, both for his profession and his future plans.
That shook me from the all too real grip of his physical beauty. The future. One we’d said we’d walk toward together, and yet we hadn’t actually talked about what it could look like. Last check, we had entirely different trajectories.
“We should probably wring that out.”
He nodded and followed me into the kitchen. I focused on this small task—wring out his shirt. I walked to the sink and reached out a hand, palm up, without looking at him. If I kept allowing myself to, I’d end up touching him. And if I did that… well, the kitchen wouldn’t be likely to get clean.
“I’ll do it,” he said, his voice gruff and surprisingly close.
