For long minutes, they sat there. Her, feeling like a pincushion belonging to some sadistic seamstress. Him, shaking so hard little streams of water sloshed over the side of the tub to splash onto the tile floor.
If she concentrated on the misery of her body, she was afraid she might go insane. So instead she concentrated on the fresh scent of his fabric softener as it wafted up from his wet long johns. It mixed with the smell of his cologne—some wonderful infusion of salted caramel and blackberry musk—to create a bouquet of aromas that might have lulled her to sleep if her body hadn’t decided at that moment to turn into a human cocktail shaker.
Her eyes became pinballs. Her teeth sounded like an entire brick of Black Cat Fireworks going off. And her body quaked so hard she worried she might be having a seizure.
“Thatta girl,” he murmured, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “This is good.”
How can this possibly be good?she wanted to demand. But there was no way to form words with her teeth making all that racket.
She had no idea how long she quivered and quaked. It felt like an eternity. But eventually the tremors eased, leaving her feeling as wrung out as an old dishrag.
“Almost there,” Sam said. “We just need to get some more hot water in this tub.”
She barely registered when he used his big toe to flip the little handle that opened the drain. Her eyelids were weighed down with anchors. Her limbs, which moments earlier had been jerking around like they’d been attached to marionette strings, were dead weights hanging from their sockets. Her reheated blood rushed through her veins and pulsed rhythmically,soothinglyin her ears.
Warm, dark oblivion beckoned.
She thought maybe she dozed off because the next thing she knew Sam was reclosing the drain and half the water was gone from the tub. Again he used his foot on the knob until hot water surged from the faucet and sent fresh steam billowing into the air.
She felt drugged. Like the time she’d gone in to have her wisdom teeth removed and the oral surgeon had added the anesthesia to the IV in her arm. A warm rush of contentment turned all her muscles to pudding. And somewhere in the distance came the soft, melancholy sound of…Is that a harmonica playing “Heart of Gold”?
Cesar sometimes spun Neil Young on the turntable, and she was of the opinion that vinyl was really the only way to appreciate The Godfather of Grunge.
“Cesar!” She bolted upright. The water fell off her shoulders in sheets. “What happened to him? Where is he?”
“Shh.” Sam pulled her back against him. “He’s fine. I sent him home. Figured you didn’t want him any more mixed up in this than he already is.”
“But the feds will go looking for me back at the apartment and—”
“I’m sure the others”—he made a vague gesture toward the open door—“gave him strict instructions to have an attorney present before answering any questions.”
The sudden tension that’d gripped her body released. “He’ll call Marco. And Marco is as good at twisting officials into knots as he is at impersonating Katy Perry.”
Sam’s soft laugh was comforting. “You live an interesting life, Hannah Blue. Has anyone ever told you that?”
“Mmm,” she hummed noncommittally and let her head fall back against his shoulder. Thoughts drifted in and out of her mind like cirrus clouds through a summer sky, wispy and ephemeral.
Then he started to hum. Lowly. Softly. Not much more than a rumble of sound that originated in his big chest and echoed up through his tanned throat.
She’d always loved his voice. So deep and sonorous. If he hadn’t gone into the Marines, he could’ve made a living in radio. Or as a book narrator.
Oh! How she would love to hear him read aloud from one of her alien romance novels.
Especially the spicy parts, she thought drowsily.
With her body no longer wracked by spasms, her skin no longer besieged by invisible needles, and her teeth no longer trying to pound themselves to dust, she could concentrate on the heavenly embrace of the water. On the soothing wetness of the steam. On…Sam.
Sam who was so broad and hard behind her. Sam whose callused palms felt wonderfully delicious on her skin as he chafed her arms. Sam who hummed a tune that drowned out the distant notes of the harmonica.
“And I would’ve stayed up with you all night,” she sang along softly.
She’d been in love with The Fray the entirety of her eighth-grade year. “How to Save a Life”had been her theme song.
“You remembered,” she murmured sleepily.
“How could I forget? You played that song for me…what? A hundred times? Two hundred?”
The raspy feel of his beard atop her head was soothing. And thesafetyof being in his arms had her giving in to the oblivion that’d been whispering her name all along.
