Page 46 of The Long Way Home
The words echo, and my face flares instantly. I hear footsteps. Then the door cracks open.
“I’ll just finish soaking up most of the water, and then I’ll be out,” he says. His voice is rougher now. Lower. Like he’s dragging the words out of someplace tight inside his chest. “I won’t look.”
The shower is only half a solid wall. The top third is glass. The hot water has fogged most of it, steam clinging to the glass like a thin veil, and I angle my body so my back faces it anyway. Still, I’m painfully aware of how little separates me from the rest of the bathroom.
He steps inside the bathroom, and I can feel him. His presence fills the whole space, and it’ almost overwhelming. I watch his shadow kneel as he picks up the fallen bottles I’d knocked over to make room for the bucket. He grabs more towels and presses them into the puddles of water dripping from where I stood earlier. Practical. Focused. His shoulders move under his shirt.
I shouldn’t be looking.
He is tense, but not because of me. It’s the mess, the inconvenience, the situation. He looks like a man handling a problem, not fighting temptation.
He grips a towel and wipes the floor, his jaw remaining tight. The muscle ticks as he concentrates. He swallows, shifts his weight and exhales through his nose. I force myself to turn away from him, facing the water instead.
“I’m almost done,” he says, voice not quite steady.
I close my eyes under the water and try to breathe. I’ve almost made it. But before I’m in the clear, a ridiculous thought slips in.
I wonder if he has looked. If curiosity has ever gotten the better of him. I mean, I am a woman, and he is a man, and I am standing three feet away, naked and wet. It is not entirely inconceivable.
I wonder if he is standing there right now, deliberately keeping his eyes fixed anywhere but on me, pretending not to notice how exposed I am; he must also be aware of how fragile that restraint is. How easily the steam could shift, how little it would take for him to see more than he should.
The thought lands harder than it has any right to. My pulse stutters, traitorous and sudden, and I resent my own body for responding before my mind can regain control.
Just as I turn to face him, I hear the door shut. I don’t know why disappointment flares anyway, a sharp little ache beneath my ribs. This is what I expected. What I told myself would happen. He is totally and completely unaffected by me.
When I come out, my hair damp but skin warm, the place looks halfway normal again, as if the disaster never happened. I get dressed and make my way to find him. I pass the laundry room, and Rhett is starting a load full of dirty, wet towels.
“You didn’t have to do all that,” I say softly, adjusting my t-shirt.
“Yeah, well.” He shrugs. “I wasn’t going to let you mop all this while you were shaking like a leaf.” His eyes sweep over me briefly, then flick away, though I catch the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing the basket and setting it on the floor. “Let’s eat something. You’ve had enough of a day.”
I should tell him no. I should thank him and send him on his way. But all that cold water has clearly affected my critical thinking skills. Instead, I follow him into the kitchen.
“I also fixed your front door. I noticed the door stuck when I came in. Did you know it was doing that?”
He opens my fridge as if he has done it a hundred times, pulling out leftovers and bread, moving around as if he belongs here.
“Thanks.”
We end up sitting at the little table with our mismatched plates between us. I made us lunch. It seemed like the least I could do, considering he fixed both the shower crisis and the front door without once making me feel incompetent about it. Or without me even asking him.
I slide his sandwich across the table toward him.
He looks down at it, then back up at me. “This is mine?”
“Yes,” I say carefully. “Why do you sound concerned?”
He lifts it, turning it slightly. “I’m just trying to understand your design choices.”
“It’s a sandwich, Rhett, not an art project.”
“Rachel, the bread is uneven. The cheese is doing, whatever this is. And is that mayonnaise or a cry for help?”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t realize I was being judged on presentation. Eat it or don’t.”
He takes a bite anyway, chews thoughtfully. “Okay. Flavor-wise, not tragic. Structurally, deeply concerning.”
