The door swung open.Fucking broken lock.
“Are you okay, what happened last night?” Aaron started to draw the curtain back; Emmett’s hand flew to it, holding it in place.
“Huh? Oh yeah.” Tone casual to dispel any suspicion that something was wrong. “Sorry, had to come home. Couldn’t sleep without my CPAP.”
“Your what?”
“My machine. For my sleep apnea.”
Aaron paused. “You should’ve said you were leaving.”
Emmett’s foot depressed the sodden shirt, squeezing out the last few wisps of blood. “D-didn’t want to wake you. Sorry, meant to text you when I got back, but I passed out cold.”
There was a silence behind the shower curtain. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay.”
Emmett breathed out silently, relieved. Then he said, “I have to head to the store pretty soon. It was sweet of you to come by.”
“Sure. You going to give your notice today?”
“My—?” Emmett started to say, then remembered the museum job. “Of course. Yeah, I’ll tell them today.”
“You don’t need any company in the meantime, do you?” Aaron’s tone twisted up with a smirk, and again he tugged at the shower curtain. Emmett stopped him.
“Sorry. I’m late as it is. I’ll text you when I’m off.”
“Can I at least get a kiss?”
Emmett suppressed a groan. He rubbed his face clear of any remaining residue, then, moving to the end of the shower, stuck his head through the gap between the curtain and wall. The air was cool against his face. Aaron, handsome and hazy in the steamy bathroom, smiled and came toward him. Emmett closed his eyes.
The curtain flew from his grasp with aswish.
Emmett’s eyes blinked open. Aaron’s smile faded as he stared down, his hilarity replaced by a stark, dawning horror.
“No,” Emmett exclaimed. “I can explain. It’s not what it—”
He broke off, realizing it wasn’t the state of the shower Aaron was staring at. His eyes were fixed on Emmett’s stomach, the wrinkled bag of excess skin he’d been so careful to hide.
“Jesus Christ!” Aaron said.
Before Emmett could form a response, the curtain swished back over him like a censure. A banishment.
The water was still running as Aaron rushed out of the room.
A moment later, the front door slammed shut.
CHAPTER 33
Emmett sat limply at the edge of his mattress, a wrapped towel shrouding the indignity of his midsection. Aaron’s expression stained his retinas like a glimpse of the sun. He couldn’t stop seeing it, couldn’t stop reliving that horrible moment of change: from laughter to horror, from attraction to repulsion, fromI might want to marry this manto the sudden apprehension of an aberrant and inhuman nature. A monster hiding in plain sight.
He was shocked, having assumed that Aaron had already guessed what lay hidden beneath his shapewear. He ached with hurt and disappointment, no longer able to fool himself that this one was different. Still, he couldn’t blame Aaron for wanting to run. He only wished he could escape his body as easily—his greatest disappointment being that, for a brief few weeks, he’d thought he had.
He knuckled the snot off his upper lip, opening his eyes to the more urgent horror before him.Now what the fuck do I do?he thought, taking in the crime scene of his bedroom.
There wasn’t much he could do, not with Lizette here. She’d accosted him as soon as he came out of the bathroom. Like Aaron, she seemed to buy his story, but he mustn’t push his luck.
He waited until she went out, then worked quickly to stuff his soiled clothes and bed linens into a trash bag, fetch cleaning supplies from under the kitchen sink, and expunge the blood from the walls, fixtures, and fittings. He’d figure out what to do with the evidence later.
That word,evidence, turned his stomach.
