Chapter2
“What are you doing here?”I asked, my hand clutching a bit tighter. Not so much to hang on to the towel, but as if I could cover how my body was reacting to seeing him here after I’d just been thinking about him. And about touching myself. And about how much better it would be if he were the one doing the touching.
“I’m gathering up the towels,” he said. He pointed in the general vicinity of my boobs. “And I needthatone.” The smirk was gone from his face now, but it was still in his eyes.
“Are you supposed to even be in here?” I thought about the situation, about my options. I was in a locker room—in atowel—by myself with a strange man. I should be thinking about exit strategies, where was the nearest door, could anybody hear me scream, that sort of stuff.
But I wasn’t. Somehow I knew on some gut level that I wasn’t in any danger from Lucas. At least notthatkind of danger. Because—let’s be real—Lucas was dangerous, all right.
“What’s your last name?” I asked, because it seemed important to know that right now. Not that standing wrapped in a towel in front of someone I’d just met (and barely, at that!) wasn’t important stuff too. But…yeah… “What’s your last name?” I repeated. “Is it Bell?”
There was a flash in his eyes that I couldn’t read…something that made him pissed off. He grunted and broke eye contact. Broke the spell I’d been under, and I was able to move toward my locker, a row over from where we stood.
He didn’t follow me, and as I turned the corner around the aisle I looked back to see him, indeed gathering up the dirty towels that hadn’t quite made it in the large laundry cart.
“No. Not Bell,” he said. “Bad enough that that asshole’s name is something Andy has to live with.”
I opened my locker and gathered my clothes, setting them on the bench, not really knowing how this was going to work. Should I just quickly throw them on and hope Lucas stayed in the next aisle over? Keep the towel on until he left? What if he had a bunch of work to do in here and I’d be sitting in my towel for an hour?
What the hell, why wasIthe one working aroundhim?
“Shouldn’t you have to wait until everyone’s out before you clean in here? Isn’t this…I don’t know…against the law, or the rules, or something?” I hitched my towel up higher around my chest, even though he was still on the other side of the lockers.
“I yelled in. There was no answer. When I saw the light on in the steam room, I was about to leave. That’s when you walked out.”
“Oh.”
“Are you near your clothes?”
“Yes.”
“Go ahead, I won’t bother you. I need to do some measurements in the steam room, but I wanted it to cool down a little bit first. Thought I’d help out with the towels while I waited.”
“Ummm…”
There was quiet, then he said, “I’ll step out. Just yell when it’s okay to come back in.”
This was stupid. The man was just doing his job.
Ah, now I got why he was wearing a Bribury polo. Not so much out of collegiate pride as, well, a uniform.
And suddenly I didn’t want him to think of me as a stuck-up Bribury Basic. (Which I knew was what the townies called us co-eds. I learned that, like, my second day here, though I wasn’t sure what it meant.)
“You can stay. Do your work. Just stay over there.”
“Will do,” he said. I started to change, quickly at first, then more slowly, as if daring—willing?—him to impatiently see what was taking me so long.
Yeah, pretty passive-aggressive, but I wasn’t above a little p/a behavior. Sometimes it felt like my whole life was passive, with minimal aggressive.
“You about done?” he said loudly. “I’ve got what I needed.”
I pulled my dry hoodie over my tee, shoving the wet-ish hoodie and yoga pants in my backpack. I wished there was a full-length mirror on this side of the room, but I knew what I looked like—typical college girl in jeans, tee, and sweatshirt. I put my long black hair up into a messy bun, fastening the wet mass with a band.
Typically I would have taken a long shower, but I wasn’t feeling like my typical self.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said, and walked around the aisle.
He was writing something onto a small tablet, and he was holding a tape measure, which he slid into his back pocket. The door to the steam room stood open. “Me too,” he said. “I got what I need.” He looked me up and down. I swear to God I almost felt as naked before him as when I’d been wearing nothing but a towel.
