“Ew, gross, no.”
She was inside my apartment before I could clock the disgust on her face, and already halfway to my bathroom when my brain finally caught up with what was happening.
“Hey.” I dropped my gym bag and hurried after her. “I didn’t say—”
The bathroom door slammed in my face and within seconds, the shower burst to life. Pipes protested the way they usually did, then settled. But my heartbeat didn’t do the same. I stood there with my mouth half open, staring at the closed door as if it would offer some kind of explanation that made sense.
What the hell just happened?
My plans for the morning were limited to getting up early and getting to the arena gym for a workout before any of the other guys showed up. I hadn’t made provision for my neighbor barging in half-naked.
I backed up to increase the distance between myself and the hot water coasting over her bare skin, and paced the narrow stretch between the couch and the kitchen counter. My apartment felt different somehow, every sound magnified. The steady stream of water running, splashing, humming—
“Humming? Are you kidding me?”
I walked back over and banged on the door. “This isn’t a spa. And I thought you said you were late. You don’t sound like someone who’s in any kind of rush.”
The humming had stopped, but she didn’t offer any sign she’d heard me.
“Great. Ignore me,” I said, my mouth right up against the bathroom door. “Use my shower without permission, and then ignore me. That’s just great.”
My pacing carried me back to the living room where I tried focusing on anything other than a naked, wet Nicole in my shower. Phone, check. Wallet. Had I remembered my K-tape? I crouched by my bag and patted down the side pockets. Everything in its place.
But nothing stuck.
Because she was naked in my shower.
I stopped outside the bathroom again and again, banged hard on the door. “Sixty seconds and I’m leaving. Locking you in here, and going on my merry way. Don’t think I won’t. In fact, I dare you to—”
“I’m rinsing.”
I swallowed a groan. That mental image did more damage than the first. Now I had to contend with soapy suds sliding over her bare skin, all the way down…
“Well, rinse faster.”
This was fine. Normal, even. We were just neighbors helping each other out the way neighbors did. No big deal. My eyes tracked a crack in the paint along the doorframe, and I found myself inhaling slowly, deeply, as her fresh, clean scent wafted on the steam that billowed through the little gap under the door.
Then it went quiet. Sudden enough to make me startle and backtrack until I was right up against the wall. Warm air spilled into the hallway as she opened the door, and smiled at me. The towel was back, but this time her skin had a rosy, flushed glow to it and her hair was twisted up in another towel.
“Is that mine?”
Not quite what I’d planned to say, but it was where my mind went first.
Nicole patted the small tower balanced on top of her head. “I’ll have it laundered and returned before you miss it. Also, you should switch your shampoo. That stuff’s horrible.”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, short and surprised. “You break into my apartment and then criticize my things.”
“I’m saving you,” she said, moving toward the front door again. Her warm, damp feet left heat prints on the hardwood as she walked. “You just don’t know it yet.”
“Forgive me for being a little skeptical,” I called after her.
But she’d already gone.
My apartment settled back into the empty quiet it had before she’d breezed in, the smell of my body wash hanging thick in the air. The effect was novel though, because it was a smell that clung to her, not me.
I stood there longer than necessary, staring at the empty doorway. The thought of gym and the game tonight crept up on me, and my stomach did a weird thing I wasn’t all that familiar with. Disappointment, maybe? Because if Nicole were heading off to work, that meant she wouldn’t be at the game later.
I grabbed my bag and headed out, pulling the door shut with more force than required.
