When I arriveat Savannah’s—the house might be Brayden’s, but I’m not going to think of it that way—the front door is ajar. She didn’t provide any more details after telling me to come over, just dropped a pin with her location as if I wouldn’t remember.
Of course she wouldn’t expect a man to remember something. Look at who she’s married to.
I drove over rather than taking an Uber, so I double-back to my car and grab one of my baseball bats, not the heavy wooden ones we use during games, but a lighter aluminum one that’s easier to swing. If she’s in trouble…
I’m going to make sure she’s not. That’s all there is to it. No matter what else happens.
I go back to the front door and nudge it open with my sneaker. “Hey Sav!” My voice echoes off the weirdly blank walls. Is Brayden here? Given how he likes to roll into the clubhouse pretending we don’t all notice his hangover, I assumed he’d be out somewhere.
But it’s possible he’s around and I’ll need to deal with him. I tighten my grip on the bat. This isn’t the first time that I’ve been in this kind of situation, but it’s the first time in a long time. Still, some things you don’t forget.
Then a noise rings from up the hall, a sound like clanging and Savannah shouting something. I run to the kitchen, bat snug in my hands, heart beating in my chest as I get ready to swing.
But when I get there, Savannah is on the floor, half in-half out of the cabinet under the sink, surrounded by a bank of wet towels.
She’s alone, as far as I can tell, and okay enough to be letting out a stream ofc’mon c’mon c’monat something. She’s in sweatpants that stretch around the generous curve of her ass. Her shirt has risen up her back, revealing a few tempting inches of pale skin.
One of her arms shifts—there’s aclick—and then she emerges from the sink cabinet, hands raised in victory, cheering. A yell that turns to a faint shriek when she sees me standing there. “Asher, what the fuck are you doing?”
“You called, so I came.” I place the bat on the counter. It looks incongruous against the granite of the countertop, next to several canisters of Forsyth’s protein powder. A cabinet above them is open, bottles of whiskey stacked five deep. A reminder that we’re in his house.
Savannah’s hair is up in a messy bun. A lock of it has come loose, hanging over her eyes; she blows it aside. Her arms are wet up to the elbows. More water is dampening her shirt, sticking it to the soft outline of her stomach. My hands feel suddenly empty without something to distract myself with.
“Seems like the situation is under control,” I say.
“The sink broke and it was flooding everywhere, and I called two plumbers, but no one was answering and—” She takes anaudible breath. “I figured you might, uh, know what to do about it.”
I step closer to her, focused on the triumphant shine to her eyes, the determined set of her jaw. “But you fixed it.”
“YouTube fixed it. And the wrench—I think it’s a wrench—I found out in the garage.” She holds up something that is definitely a wrench, laughing at herself gleefully. “Sorry for making you rush over here. I just sort of panicked and?—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence, mostly because I take another step toward her. Her shirt is damp, her eyes green and laughing, and I can’t stop watching the lower curve of her lip. “Where’s Brayden?” I ask.
“He’s out.”
“Oh.” I consider. “Good.”
“I don’t know when he’ll be back.” But she inches back from me and this time, I don’t follow.
Instead, I survey the kitchen floor—a bucket half-full of water, the mass of wet towels.He should be here for you.Probably goes without saying. “Where’s your washing machine?”
“You don’t have to help.” I wait until she relents and says, “It’s up the hall. Here, I’ll get half if you get the other.”
I scoop up an armful of towels, my shirt instantly soaking, and wait as Savannah does the same. She leads me down an undecorated hallway into an equally bare laundry room that contains only a washer-dryer unit, a utility sink, a few bottles of detergent and bleach, and a basket of clean towels waiting to be transported upstairs.
The washing machine is a front-loader, so Savannah drops to her knees and shoves the first armload of towels in. The laundry room is lit by a single recessed bulb. Savannah looks up at me from where she’s kneeling, face still pink with excitement, hair a tangle I want to comb my fingers through. Her shirt is saturated, fabric clinging to every curve. Her nipples are?—
Something I shouldn’t be thinking about.
She needs a friend, not another guy trying to fuck her.
“Did you want to hand me those?” she asks.
I realize I’ve been staring, holding a wet pile of towels. I give them to her one at a time, watching the shift of her shoulder blades under her shirt as she shoves them in the washer.
She rises when she’s done, uncaps the detergent and pours some in the dispenser of the top of the machine, enough that it starts to overflow the little well. “Whoops.” She laughs. “You want to hear something funny? When I went to college, I didn’t know how to do laundry. Victoria—my best friend in San Diego—had to teach me.”
Given the amount of detergent she just used, I’m not sure she knows how to do laundry now. “You didn’t just use a laundry service?” I ask.
