Page 64 of Dissonance

Her smile is radiant when she turns back to me, holding a small thermometer between her fingers. “Really? You tested the temperature?”

“The books recommend ninety-eight degrees.” I take it from her and drop it back in with a small splash. Her lips form a tiny ‘O,’ and I can’t help running my thumb along her lower one. “Relax. I’ll be right back.”

She stands still until I close the door and head for the kitchen. Turning down the oven, I pocket her keys and take her things across the hall to her apartment. Dropping them by the sofa, I beeline for the bedroom, the scent of her shampoo flooding the immaculate space. The bed’s made, a dusky green throw along the bottom in perfect symmetry, two matching pillows angled at the top. I grab the soft, oversized joggers and sweatshirt folded on the dresser and bring them to my nose.

Washing powder and the faint trace of her perfume, warm, familiar.

Like home.

I’m back in less than five minutes, returning to the bathroom with her change of clothes. Knocking, I let myself in. Her shoulders sink below the water as she turns toward me, hair curling around her face, damp from the steam.

“You broke into my apartment?” she asks, watching me place the items by the sink.

“I borrowed your key,” I say, popping back out and returning with a chair from the dining table, setting it to the side of the bath and sitting.

“Planning to watch?” She looks at me, then at the chair. “You do know I’m naked, right?”

“Aye.” Rolling up my sleeves, I reach for the body wash, pouring a generous amount into my hand. “I’ve seen you naked before, sweetheart.”

“That’s different.”

“No, it’s not. Now lean forward.”

She huffs, but does it anyway, spine rising above the waterline. I work the soap between my hands, pressing the lather to her shoulders. Christ, she’s not just stiff, she’s wound so tight, I can feel how close to breaking she is. I start off slow, fingers digging into the base of her neck, down across the ridge of her shoulders and back up again. She exhales, head dropping forward, chin nearly touching her chest.

“Mhmm,” she murmurs. “That’s nice.”

I keep going, thumbs working in circles at the base of her skull, moving down the length of her spine, feeling the tension release piece by piece. The water shifts quietly, rippling around her each time she breathes. Jazz drifts in from the kitchen, the candles flickering off the tiles, the steam curling toward the ceiling.

Minutes pass, and her muscles start to soften.

“Tell me something,” she says eventually, so quietly I almost miss it.

“About what?”

“I don’t know. Anything. Something important to you.”

I pause. There are a hundred things I could say. Most of them, I won’t. She doesn’t need to know about what I’ve done in my past, the things that don’t come out in a normal conversation and wouldn’t serve either of us if they did. But my dad surfaces first. He’s the reason for everything—why I moved to the States, why I enlisted, why Calum existed in life. He’s the root of it all.

“My dad was a SEAL.”

She doesn’t say anything for a beat, her fingers curling around her calf in the water. “Is that why you joined?”

“Aye.”

“Were you close?”

I shake my head, not that she can see me. “Not when I was young. My parents met when he was overseas, a whirlwind sort of thing. Mum moved to the States to be with him, but he was always deployed, so she was alone most of the time. Eventually, she wanted to go back to Scotland, to be with family, so she took us—Archie and me when I was wee—and that was the first place I really remember.”

“Then what changed?” she asks, head lolling to one side.

“I moved back for high school. Wanted to get to know my dad properly.”

She turns around to look at me. “At fourteen?”

“Aye.”

She straightens, my fingers finding the knot she’s been carrying below her left shoulder blade.