I pull on the fresh clothes, then reach for the Columbia hoodie again. My own jacket is dry now, hanging in the mudroom, but somehow I can’t bring myself to switch back.
This hoodie is warm and soft and smells like him underneath the woodsmoke, and I’m apparently regressing to some kind of primitive scent-marking behavior that would fascinate my ecology professors.
Great.
You’ve become one of those pathetic girls who steals her crush’s hoodies.
Except he’snotmy crush.
Definitely not.
It’s forced proximity creating artificial attachment.
Classic survival psychology.
Keep telling yourself that.
Besides, my own jacket is too hot to wear next to the fireplace.
Keep telling yourself that, too.
I sigh, then braid my damp hair, avoiding my reflection because I don’t want to see whatever my face might reveal right now.
Then I gather my dirty clothes and head back to the great room. I drop off my clothes on my side of the room, then head to the kitchen.
Gregory is exactly where I left him, melting snow for his own bath. When I enter, he turns.
And the look on his face makes me forget how to breathe.
His eyes track over me slowly. Taking in the damp hair, the clean clothes, the hoodie. He breathes in through his nose, and I know he’s catching the coconut scent that’s clinging to me.
“Better?” I ask, trying for casual and landing somewhere way off.
“Much.” His voice seems rougher than usual.
We stand there for a moment that stretches too long. Outside, wind howls against the windows. Inside, the air feels charged with something I’m afraid to name.
“I should help,” I say. “It took us an hour to heat enough formybath. You’ll be standing here until dinner if you do it alone.”
“You don’t have to--”
“I know.” I’m already reaching for some of the pots we used before. “But I’m not going to sit by the fire while you do all the work.”
We fall into an easy rhythm that shouldn’t feel as natural as it does. He fills pots with fresh snow while I arrange them on all six burners. The kitchen fills with steam again, fogging the windows.
Domestic. That’s the word for this. We’re being domestic together, and it does something strange to my stomach. Can you say, butterfly city?
“How’s the temperature?” he asks, testing one of the pots.
I lean in to check, our shoulders brushing. “Another few minutes. We want it hot but not scalding.”
We work in comfortable silence, switching out pots as water heats, pouring the hot water into the large containers we’ve designated for his bath. Steam rises between us, curling in the air, and I catch myself watching the way it dampens the hair at his temples.
Stop staring.
“Last one,” he says eventually, lifting the final pot off the burner.
“Here, I’ll help.” I reach for the other handle at the same moment he adjusts his grip.
