Page 35 of Lake
I shot him a smile and I could tell he was frozen in place right there just over the threshold.
His jaw snapped shut and he looked away embarrassed. It was kind of adorable. I knew he’d seen a woman naked before, probably many, so I didn’t know why he would be all red-faced about it.
“I just… shower.”
“You just shower?” I asked dumb-like.
“Shower,” he said unmoving. “I need to do the shower thing and all. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Yeah, no biggie. It’s part of our deal.”
I watched him for a beat and he refused to look at me.
“You can come in, you know,” I stated humorously.
“Yeah, I know. It’s just such a lovely night and all…”
“Lake,” I said doing my best to catch his attention. “This is your place, please don’t make me feel weird by youactingall weird.”
“This is strange for me,” he said with a half-smile as he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. I got it. Like it wasn’t strange for me too? Come on. This was just one weird, fucked-up situation. “I’m not used to having people in my space and I want to respect your privacy. Maybe we should make a schedule or something.”
“Just go take a damn shower,” I said shoving him in the direction of the bathroom.
“Hey,” he said suddenly, turning towards me making me pause and give him my full attention. “There’s dinner down in the kitchen. I was going to head that way after I was done.”
“Cool,” I said smoothly. Was he offering me food? Did he want me to wait for him?
“If you want to wait for me, I’ll walk down with you and we could… maybe eat together.”
I laughed and shook my head. Honestly, I wasn’t normallythisawkward and I blamed it on Lake. He seemed to throw me off kilter and I just couldn’t figure out what he wanted or where he was coming from.
“As long as you promise to keep your naked bits in that bathroom, then I have no problem waiting for you. I am kinda hungry.”
He nodded then walked over to the tall dresser against the wall. I flopped down on the bed as he dug out some clothes.
“So, tell me what you need,” he said like ten minutes later as he emerged from the steamy bathroom fully dressed but his hair was still wet.
“I have a place to stakeout tonight, so if I could borrow a car or whatever, that would be great. I’ll fill it up when I’m done, I promise.”
He chuckled and shook his head.
“Not a big deal but nice of you to offer.”
We started walking out of the room and I made sure I had the key before the door closed behind us.
I walked right beside him to the main part of this place not even thinking how strange itdidn’tfeel walking beside him like we knew each other well.
