“Shh!”
That man saved your life back there. I think it’s okay to thank him with a neighborly hug. A special, naked neighborly hug with your vagina around his oh-my-goodness—
“Shh!”Oh, crap, her hushing Harry had gotten so loud that Peter’d heard her even over the sound of the water, and he now turned to see her standing there, practically ogling him.
Practically?Harry drawled.
“How can I help?” she asked the SEAL a tad too briskly, in a voice that was somehow supposed to signify that she hadn’t been enjoying the view. “I have your keys. Should I get towels from inside? Soap? Shampoo?” She felt herself slip into the vortex of full-babble. “A scouring brush? Do you have a nail brush? You should really use a nail brush, and we’re absolutely going to want to scrub that elbow with some kind of antiseptic, so—”
“A towel would be great,” Peter interrupted her. “And maybe you could get me a pair of shorts. Running shorts, please. They’re in the top basket in my closet. You can’t miss ’em.”
“Absolutely,” Shayla said, briskly crossing to the back door that led into the laundry room just off his kitchen. She fumbled the keys and dropped them—oh dear God—as Harry continued to just laugh and laugh and laugh.
She finally made it inside. The house was warm—he’d clearly turned off the air-conditioning before leaving this morning.Thatwas the kind of thing that made a man more attractive to real-life, nonfictional women like her—the fact that he was both environmentally conscious and economical—not his physical attributes, as nice as they might be.
Shayla set his keys on the kitchen counter with his phone and his wallet, and headed for the hallway that led to the bedrooms. She’d given one bedroom a peek last night—it was the first door on the left, right across from the bathroom. It was small, with a utilitarian, narrow twin-size bed against one wall, and a single chest of drawers. She’d assumed it was the guest bedroom—it certainly didn’t belong to any teenaged girlshe’dever met—but as she now went farther down the hall, she realized that there was only one other doorway at the very end.
It led to the master, with its own attached bath, and…“Holy crap.”
Harry said the obvious.Peter gave the master bedroom to Maddie.
Teen girls weren’t at all different from teen boys when it came to both laundry and life’s clutter. The room was a mess, with about a dozen cardboard moving boxes scattered about. Most weren’t even close to unpacked but all were definitely rummaged through. Peter had bought his daughter some lovely furniture, including a big, wooden bookshelf that held maybe ten books total on a single shelf, and a dresser that had still-empty drawers.
It was textbook passive-aggressiveness, and Maddie’s subtext was clear:I’ll live here, but I’ll hate both itandyou, so I won’t unpack.
Damn,Harry said as Shayla went back to the smaller bedroom where Peter’s running shorts—the lightweight kind with the mesh underwear sewn in—were right where he’d described them. In a white wire slide-out basket that was part of a tiny but carefully organized closet.
She loved her boys like crazy, but no way would she ever, not in a million years, give them the master bedroom inanyhouse.
You’re not a near-total stranger to them,Harry pointed out as she went into the hall bathroom and found a stack of clean towels in the linen closet.You’re also not amalenear-total stranger and your kids aren’t female.
Shay started to take from the bottom, assuming those would be the oldest, but they were all clearly brand-new. She grabbed a washcloth, too, then headed back into the kitchen as Harry continued,Father-on-daughter sexual abuse is common enough to be a thing. Your SEAL was thoughtful enough to try to make Maddie feel as safe as possible by giving her the privacy that comes with having her own bathroom.
Harry had a point.
This guy is pretty freaking amazing,he said as he followed her out into the yard, where Peter was still working on his hair.
“Here,” Shay said, holding out the shorts. “Put these on, and then I’ll work on your hair, make sure you got it all.”
“Thanks,” he said. He let go of the pressure handle, and the water shut off as he effortlessly caught the shorts that she tossed him.
Shay politely turned her back and pretended to be fascinated by the roofline of the house as he pulled them on.
“But I think I got it all,” Peter said. “You don’t need to—”
“I’m pretty sure you still have a little in your ear,” she said.
“Fuck. Really?”
“It’s not like you could see it,” she said, turning back. “I mean, even with a mirror, it would’ve been easy to miss.” He was clearly feeling discouraged, so she pointed to one of two sling-style lounge chairs that were artfully arranged on the pavers that made up the patio, a little table between them. “Let’s move that onto the lawn—well, whatever this is that you Californians think makes a lawn, and may I just say that you are so,sowrong—and adjust it so it’s more flat. So you can lie back, dangle your head off the edge, and let me get the last of it.”
He was not happy. “There’s no way you can do that without getting wet.”
“That’s okay.” Shay put the towels down on the second chair as she started to move the first herself.
As expected, Peter came to assist. “No, it’s not.”
She told him, “If you think for one second that after I help you, I’m not rushing home to bleach the hell out of these clothes and take an extra-exfoliating shower myself…? You are greatly deluded, my friend.”
