She looked flushed and disheveled in a way that he couldn’t totally credit to his one-man wet T-shirt contest. Actually, his first thought was that she looked kind of postcoital, an idea that made him both queasy and horny at the same time. But that was impossible. Her bedroom was on the ground floor—there was no way she’d just fucked someone with all of them two rooms away. And if she had, who was it, and what was so great about them?
She smiled at him, hazy and amused, as she opened the fridge and grabbed a can of seltzer. “Need help?”
He looked down at his shirt, which was plastered to his chest, beet carnage spilling down the front like he’d been shot. “Please. I’m just making it worse.”
She placed the can on the counter and opened one of the drawers, pulling out a clean dish towel. “I think you’re supposed to go from the other side.”
She approached him, then hesitated, seeming to realize at the same time he did that she would have to reach her hand inside his shirt. His stomach muscles contracted involuntarily, as if he could already feel the cool brush of her knuckles against them.
“Do you want to do it?” she asked, offering him the towel. He moved to grab it, then paused.
Maybe this was the opportunity he’d been hoping for.
“Should I take it off?”
If he hadn’t been paying close attention, he would’ve missed the split-second widening of her eyes before she quickly regained her composure, that private-joke half smile returning to her lips.
“Sure. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”
Niko stripped off his shirt in one quick motion and handed it to her, flexing as subtly as he could.
When she barely glanced at him, though, he started to question himself. Maybe she didn’t like chest hair. His exes had preferred him to wax, even though it left a constellation of angry red ingrown hairs across his torso.
Or maybe Simon was totally wrong, and he was making an ass of himself standing half-naked in the kitchen in a house full of people who could walk in at any moment.
Merritt bent her head and stretched the shirt over the counter. He leaned against the sink, watching her. “So what have you been up to tonight?”
He thought he saw her cheeks redden a little more. “Nothing. I was just on the phone with an old friend.”
Boyfriend? Girlfriend?He chickened out before he could ask. “In LA?”
“Mm-hmm. What is this, beet?”
“Yeah. I think there’s some other stuff in it, too.”
She smiled to herself as she pressed the cloth against the stain. “When Olivia and I were kids, we would put on plays for our parents all the time. One time we were supposed to be soldiers dying on the battlefield, and I covered our clothes with beet juice to look like blood. Our mom fucking lost it. It goteverywhere.”
Niko grinned, both at the image and at the fact that this was the most he’d heard Merritt volunteer about herself, ever. “Did she get it out?”
“Not really. But we all learned a lot about the dos and don’ts of beet removal in the process.”
“Like?”
“Don’t get beet on your clothes.”
He huffed out a laugh. She was quiet again, focused on her task, and in return, he tried not to focus too hard on her. He allowed himself to linger on one detail at a time before glancing away: The loose curl that had escaped her messy bun, brushing her collarbone. The oversized freckle at the crest of her cheekbone. Her slight pout of concentration. The way her sweatshirt slouched over her bare shoulder and clung to the curve of her waist.
He wanted to touch her, obviously, but just as much, he wanted to grab a pencil and capture her exactly how she looked in that moment.
“So,” he said, his thoughts so loud he was worried she could hear them, “have you gotten all your donations yet?”
They had all been assigned to secure at least five donations apiece for the silent auction before the next board meeting.
She scrunched her nose. “Not even close.”
“How many do you have?”
“Well, Dev said he’d let someone name a character in his next book. I’ll donate something, too, but I’m not sure what yet. And I didn’t want to stress Olivia out by making her come up with an idea. So…two.” She glanced up at him, the corner of her mouth twitching. “I’m sure I don’t even have to ask if you have all of yours.”
