Then he just walks away, leaving me standing there in a puddle of my own making.
Okay. Okay. This is happening. You’re in some rich person’s house, dripping everywhere, and the hot butler just told you to strip. Happens every day.
Despite the heat, I just stand there, still shivering uncontrollably.
He returns with towels and what looks like men’s clothing. A Columbia hoodie and sweatpants. “Change.Now.”
That voice... he’s not the kind of man who takes no for an answer.
“Right. Yeah. I can do that.” I decide to listen to him so he doesn’t kill me right away. Gotta buy myself some time to figure out what to do...
My fingers fumble with the zipper on my field jacket. “Sorry about the floor, by the way. And for bothering you. I know you’re probably busy and this is super inconvenient. And--”
I’m babbling. I’m aware I’m babbling. But I can’t seem to stop.
I manage to get my jacket unzipped, but then everything goes wrong. My pockets turn inside out and their entire contents explode across his floor like the world’s most humiliating piñata.
Two expired protein bars. Three soil sample bags. A tampon that rolls halfway across the entryway. Chapstick. Several random rocks I collected last week. A crumpled photo of me and my roommates making drunk faces at somebody’s birthday party.
And, oh God, my romance novel.
The one with the sexy hot shirtless guy on the cover. The custom edition I special-ordered directly from the author’s website, because the one in the bookstores only had the discreet PG cover.
I drop to my knees, scrambling to scoop everything back into my pockets, my face burning despite the hypothermia. But my fingers won’t cooperate. They’re clumsy and numb and useless.
He bends down and picks up the book.
I watch in absolute horror as his eyes flick to the cover. That perfect, infuriating face shows absolutely no expression.
Kill me.
Just kill me now.
He just hands it back to me without comment.
“I can explain,” I start.
He shrugs. “You don’t need to.”
Somehow that’s worse.
Wait. There’s nothing wrong with reading romance novels with hot guys on the cover. What’s the problem? Why doIcare what this random stranger thinks?
Because he’s hotter than the dude on the cover!!
I stuff everything back into my jacket pockets with shaking hands.
Next up: removing the wet outer layers. My chest is soaked with frigid sweat from the panic-hike, my pants are drenched from trudging through knee-deep snow. Basically I’m a walking popsicle wrapped in expensive outdoor gear that has catastrophically failed at its one job.
I focus on my field pants first because they’re the worst offenders, but my fingers are basically nonfunctional at this point. The zipper won’t budge. My hands won’t grip properly.
Come on, come on. You can unzip pants. You’ve been doing this since you were three. This is literally the easiest thing.
Except it feels like I’m wearing thick mitts even though my gloves are off.
He watches this pathetic display for about thirty seconds. I can feel his eyes on me, cataloging exactly how incompetent I am at basic human functions. Then he steps closer.
“Let me help.”
