Her eyes climbed higher. One side of Javi’s face was covered in shaving cream, the ends of his ink-black hair dripping onto the towel around his neck. She was afraid to look down to see if he was wearing another one. And then she did. And then she closed her eyes because naked Javi was every bit as spectacular as she’d remembered.
“You couldn’t have locked the door?” she sputtered, trying and failing to look anywhere else.
She could have sworn she saw him grin in the circle of fog he’d wiped from the mirror as he leaned toward it and dragged a razor over his neck. “If it bothers you, you’re welcome to wait outside.”
She lowered the broom, suddenly aware of how tightly she was gripping it. “What are you doing here?”
“No shower at the garage,” he said, tapping his razor against the edge of the sink and rinsing the blade.
“So you had to come here?” Seeing Javi again was painful enough. Seeing him in a state of undress was a unique form of torture she might never recover from. He splashed water over his face. She sucked in a breath as he turned toward her, groping for the towel on the rod behind her. He mopped his face with it before wrapping it loosely around his waist.
“Your cousin said I could come as long as your car wasn’t here. It wasn’t. Neither was his.” His eyes made a slow pass over her. Her skin warmed as that last observation sank in. She was wearing his sweatshirt. He was naked and wet. They were alone in a very small bathroom, and he smelled like body wash and shaving gel and every fantasy she’d had for the last ten years.
She glanced at the door. It was open, right there, her exit unobstructed. If she wanted out, she knew he wouldn’t stop her.
They moved in a slow, awkward dance around each other. She felt her backside brush the vanity. His dark eyes twinkled as he took a step toward it, backing her against it as he reached around her to open the mirrored cabinet. He took out his aftershave, and her mouth went dry as she watched him apply it.
“These are new,” she said, shamelessly staring at the tattoos on his biceps. Javi had had a handful of tattoos the last time she saw him, but now he was a canvas. He was covered in bright, bold sleeves of ink that started just above his wrists. Candy-colored skulls and crosses and thorny red flowers wound over his arms like ivy, and flames licked the sides of his neck.
But there was only one tattoo on his chest. Only one close to his heart. She didn’t want to think too deeply about the reason for that.
He braced a hand on the vanity beside her and leaned in again, his face inches from hers as he returned his aftershave to its shelf. She was eighteen all over again, standing close to him in a tiny bathroom, her mouth sweet with cake frosting, her body aching.
His thumb grazed the strip of bare skin above her waistband, lifting the hem of his sweatshirt a slow, torturous inch. His gaze slid to her lower back in the mirror.
“What about you? Is this still the only one?” She shivered as his thumb made another pass just below the dimple there, tracing the top of theJ.She’d been eighteen the night they’d gotten their matching tattoos. He had tried to talk her out of it, but she’d been determined, and when she’d hopped rebelliously into the tattoo artist’s chair, Javi had insisted on getting one, too. It had been the summer before she’d left for college, the night after they’d consummated their relationship on a blanket in the woods down the street from her house, under the same tree they used to sit under after school when they were kids. Of course theJwas still there, that small piece of him etched permanently into her. But that didn’t mean she’d never regretted it.
She ducked out from under his arm, feeling the color rise in her cheeks. “I’m not stupid enough to repeat my mistakes.”
“Is that what we were to you? A mistake?”
“Iwasn’t the one who walked away,” she reminded him. She waited for him to say his leaving had nothing to do with her. But Javi had never lied to her, and it seemed he wasn’t about to start now.
She grabbed the broom and stormed around him out of the bathroom, down the hall to the kitchen. A dirty frying pan had been left on the stove, and she tossed it in the sink, turning the water on high, feeling a need to scrub the shit out of something. Or hit him in the head with it.
She was just warming up, getting ready to tackle the stubborn coffee stains on the counters, when Javi came down the hall in a pair of low-riding jeans, dragging a snug black T-shirt over his head. It took every ounce of strength she possessed not to stare at him. If she scrubbed any harder, she’d strip the Formica off the counter.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he took a cruller from the bag.
“Eating my breakfast.”
“That’s Ramón’s.”
“Ramón isn’t here.”
“The fact that youarehere doesn’t entitle you to his food.”
“And the fact thatyou’rehere doesn’t entitle you to my bed, but as long as you’re sleeping in it, the least you can do is let me eat a damn donut and have a hot shower in peace.”
She didn’t have an answer to that. She turned her back on him as he poured himself a cup of coffee as black as her mood.
“How long are you planning to stay anyway?” he asked around a mouthful of donut.
“Why do you care?”
“Because I’d like to know how long I’ll be stuck sleeping in your cousin’s office.”
“I’ll be gone as soon as I get my first paycheck.”
