Page 39 of Anything for You
My visit with Nan after work had gone well. For once, I didn’t feel the pinching ache around my heart when sitting with her in one of the parlors. I felt happy, especially as I saw different friends stopping by to say hi and fawn over her and me.
She had friends. She had a whole life, and she seemed brighter. I knew very well isolation was one of several major contributing factors to rapid mental decline and correlated with increased incidence of dementia, injury, and all kinds of other issues in the elderly. It was part of the reason we’d decided the move to Silverton Springs made sense.
I simply hadn’t realized how small and closed-in her life had become. She occasionally visited friends, did the beauty parlor, as she called it, weekly, but she couldn’t simply wander out of her apartment and find a group tochat with. She didn’t have companionship at meals or reinforcements if she needed something when I was away at work.
Breathing in the surprisingly warm evening air, I took a few moments to appreciate how vividly I could see she was thriving. And maybe it meant I was doing a bit better now, too, because I didn’t even feel the urge to cry.
Okay, fine, a little tear had snuck out of one eye—just the one!—as I got in my car to head home. But it was a tear of gratitude. Of relief.
Of knowing the person I loved most in the world was settled and in a place where she could be happy, and of course where I could come see her whenever she and I wanted.
Work had been fine, though the familiar itch to do something else, something more, had shimmied its way under my bra strap and stuck like a stray hair. I couldn’t stop thinking about how restless I was at work, especially since I’d thought once I sold the house and got Nan settled, I’d feel so relieved and happy, and work would improve, too.
So… where was the old satisfaction in my work now that I wasn’t hanging on by my fingernails?
A lowwoofcaught my attention, and I looked up to see Bear bounding toward the path I walked that led to the back yards of both my little cabin and Dorian’s house.
“Hi, Bear!” I bent to pet his head as he swirled around me, but realized he was wet too late. “Gah! You’re soaked!”
He yipped another cheery little bark, eyeing me and then walking toward his house. He stopped, looked back, then started walking again.
“You want me to follow you? Where’s your dad?” I asked, as though this clever boy could actually understand me.
He panted, excitement in his every movement, until his ears perked up as a low whistle reached us.
“That must be him. Should we go see him and figure out how you got all wet?”
I couldn’t help the grin on my face because he was so joyous in the way he galloped back the way he’d come and slipped around the far side of his house. Dorian must’ve been working over there, and I’d never actually seen that side of his place.
Because of this ignorance, I wandered around the corner, heedless of what would befall me in the next few seconds.
When I came to the side of the house, what did mine eyes behold? A tall, muscular man standing half-naked under a shower head. Water sluiced down his dark hair and over the tanned, firm architecture of his back and onto stone pavers at the ground. Bear trotted up to the person, and my stomach sank just in time for him to turn and watch his dog zip back toward me.
He froze, the sight of me clearly unanticipated.
And I stopped in place, the vision of Dorian Forrester naked from the waist up andshowering in the waning golden lightnot something I’d ever possibly be mentally prepared for.
So much skin. So many, many muscles. Biceps, pectorals, abs, obliques, and a frankly aggressive vee of an Adonis belt shoving my gaze downward to notice a pair of low-slung soaking wet pants.
Who showers with pants?
How tragic and also miraculous he did, or I’d be even less capable of words right now.
He reached for the spigot and turned it to the right until the water trickled, then stopped. After grabbing a toweldraped over a metal beam to one side, he scrubbed it over his face, hair, and then around his neck and shoulders.
Ifinallymanaged to pull my eyes from the absolute insanity in front of me and focused my attention on Bear.
“Dude, that was a total ambush,” I told him under my breath.
The dog just panted happily, his smile wide and toothy.
“Hey,” Dorian said, now too close to ignore that yes, he was very much still shirtless and despite his efforts, which were weak at best, he was still glistening with water droplets on his shoulders and chest.
I didn’t dare look lower, but no doubt his pants, etcetera were still dripping wet.
“Do you shower outside often?” I asked, because there was no chance I could pretend this wasn’t happening.
Inscrutable as always, he shrugged. “Not often. Bear got muddy so I gave him a shower out here and by the time we were done, I was covered. Figured I’d do a first pass out here before I go destroy my bathroom with dirt.”
