Page 30 of Man Flu

“Okay, the water temperature is good, and you’re all set. Are you going to be okay in there?” Logan asks. I lift my head, looking up at him and the concerned gaze in his caring eyes. The sunlight pouring into the room reflects off his face, making the blue in his eyes almost transparent. There isn’t a flaw on his face, not even a chicken pox scar. How is that possible if he’s older than I am? Shouldn’t he have more than just two little crow’s feet on either side of his eyes? And those only end up making him look sexier. God knows I have enough lines and age spots for the both of us, but still.

“I think so,” I tell him. I push myself up and sluggishly drag my feet into the bathroom, closing the door behind me.

“I’ll wait here for you,” he says.

I should probably tell him to go back to the office or something, but I do want to get back to work, assuming this shower is like the magic healing solution I hope it is.

The hot water does seem to settle my stomach a bit, so I soap up and move through my routine quickly.

Crap.

There’s a man waiting in my bedroom, and I have no clean clothes in here. Could this day get any worse? Why, yes, yes it can.

I step out onto my plush bath mat and reach for the linen closet to grab a towel—a towel that isn’t where it should be. Shit!

I know I had at least one clean towel left. I don’t even have a hand towel to dab myself up with, or clothes.

My hamper—I don’t care if it’s dirty. I need a towel.

I open the door a crack, peeking into my bedroom for Logan, but I don’t see him.

“Logan?” I call out. After a second without hearing a response, I open the door a little wider. “Logan, are you still there?” If he’s anywhere in the house, he would have heard that shout. Maybe he left. The house is so quiet, I’d be hard-pressed to think he’s still here. For all I can imagine, Rick came in to find him.

I open the door and tiptoe out and over to where my hamper should be, but either I’m losing my mind, or there’s a laundry fairy, which I’m certain there isn’t. I circle around my room, looking for where the hell my laundry could be. You must be kidding me. I’m freezing, soaking wet, and there is no towel in this room.

I scurry over to my bed, ready to grab the comforter for warmth, but because this is the worst day of all worst days in the history of worst days, Logan has appeared at my doorway in what looks to be a state of shock—he’s staring at my dripping, wet body with his mouth ajar.

Chapter Eight

Wednesday just keeps f***ing humping me like a horny dog

HE’S AS CAUGHT OFF guard as I am. Both of us gasp and turn around, but me turning around means I’m just showing off my backside. At least he’s not looking—I don’t think.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Looking for a towel. What are you doing?” I return the question.

“I threw your laundry in the washing machine. I was—” My room is clean. My panties are no longer on the ground. My bras are not on top of the hamper because the hamper is gone. My sheets and comforter are in place nicely, but I grab the heather gray feathery clump and wrap it around myself.

“I am mortified,” I tell him, facing his back.

“I was trying to help,” he says.

“This is not what it looks like,” I tell him. I’m not sure why I said it, but it seems like the only thing to say in explanation of this sight.

“What?” he questions.

“Me, my body, my bedroom, and my cleanliness.” It’s right at this exact moment that I realize I’ve let myself go. I have stopped caring about myself. I look down, assessing how bad the view was, something I desperately try to avoid.

My stomach is flat thanks to the stages of grief from being cheated on, but I’m whiter than the ceiling, and then there’s the whole jungle issue going on that I haven’t tended to in quite a while. It’s like a scene from the Kama Sutra book, circa nineteen-seventy-something. It’s not pretty, nor is the dark hair lining my legs. What the hell have I done to myself?

“I don’t think I can ever let you look at me again,” I add in.

“Are you decent yet?” he asks.

“I’ve made a comforter burrito around myself, if that’s what you’re asking?”

Logan slowly turns around, peeking out of one eye first, as if he’s scared to see what he just saw again. We’ve crossed so many lines in the last hour, I don’t even know where the original line was.