When her eyes met mine again, I could see her trying to mask the sadness that threatened to pull her under. I opened my mouth to comfort her, but the words lodged in my throat, so I deflected and offered her my hand as I shifted myself off the floor.
“When you shut the water off, did you do so to the whole house?” she asked.
“Unfortunately, yes, so let’s hope I can get the handle back on tonight. The mechanism inside gave me some trouble when I installed it, so as much as it sucks that it came off, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised.”
Using the flashlight on my phone and the screwdriver I’d grabbed from the toolbox in the utility room, I worked to tighten the screw. It quickly became apparent that I’d need to order a new part as the plastic cartridge appeared cracked. I tightened the screw at the bottom of the cartridge and hoped it was enough.
“I’m going to turn the water back on. Hold this towel over the hole, just in case. Shout if you see any water.”
“Okay.” She nodded with her lips pursed, and less than a minute later, yelled for me to turn the water off. When I re-entered the bathroom, water dripped from the ceiling, Lakelyn’s once-dry hair was soaked, and her robe hung heavy.
“Jesus Christ.”
She was beautiful.
Stunning.
Natural.
“I held the towel over the opening just like you said, but the pressure . . . oh my gosh, it startled me so bad. It was like a cannon fired and hit me right in the face.” A burst of air breezed past her succulent lips before she tilted her head back and broke out in hysterics.
Rivets of water crested over her jaw and streamed down the column of her neck, coursing across the open plain of her exposed, tanned skin around her collarbone. The urge to run my tongue across her skin left me in a daze.
Her laugh was so captivating, and I couldn’t help myself from joining in with her amusement.
“Oh my God, this so isn’t funny”—she covered her mouth with one hand—“but I can’t stop myself,” she finished and reached for me with her other.
The touch of her hand clutching my forearm lit a spark in my core. Fuck, I sounded like a chick in the romance novels my sister loves, but standing in the confined space of the bathroom, surrounded by wet towels and water everywhere, my focus was singular. I was cognizant enough to recognize I really ought to be fixing the problem at hand. But there wasn’t a single iota of me that cared about anything at that moment other than taking in the beautiful woman before me.
However, the moment her eyes took in the chaos around us, her infectious mood turned somber, and before I summoned the strength to resist, I pulled her into my embrace. Recognition blared loudly within that I barely knew the woman and that I shouldn’t be holding her in that manner, so intimately and without permission, and yet the shift in her mood incited my actions.
With the soft scent of raspberries rapidly invading my senses, I knew I needed to distance myself, but as I lifted my chin from her head, I felt her arms wrap around my lower back. I froze, questioning if that had really just happened, but when she turned her head to the side and nuzzled her cheek under my collarbone, her body sagged, causing me to tighten my grip.
I was in trouble.
Time stilled while the usual restlessness that made my skin crawl faded into the background. Her presence was an unexpected balm I craved to soothe my soul and sought that salvation like a moth to a flame.
We stood in silence before one of us found our wits. Lakelyn loosened her hold and steadied herself by moving her hands on my chest. When she looked up at me, I couldn’t help but notice her soft baby blues were glossed over with emotion swirling around, pleading for acceptance, searching for forgiveness, and longing for understanding.
“Thank you.”
The two words ghosted across her sultry lips, and all I could do was nod and offer up a knowing, closed-mouth smile of understanding before I forced myself to take a step back, clearing my throat as I did so. Her effect on me was so profound that I grappled with deciphering the mixture of my emotions. I needed to shut these runaway thoughts off, fix the broken cartridge so I could turn the water back on, and get out of there before I did or said something stupid.
Chapter5
Lakelyn
All day I’d worked overtime to stay busy and keep my mind from spiraling into a dark place, a place that had threatened my stability the moment the ground fell out from under me. Since then, I’d added another mantra to my daily arsenal, one I recited every morning to help get me out of bed:move the body, move the mind. It was second nature when a person felt overwhelmed and burned out to want to relax and unplug; however, it was also when the voice in my head started plaguing me with doubts of self-worth and had me questioning when or if all the online hatred and death threats would ever cease.
To see photos of myself in every tabloid magazine at the grocery store with a tagline painting me in a negative light was an out-of-body experience and beyond humiliating. Having internet trolls hide behind their computers and smartphones, spewing hatred on a situation they knew nothing about, was exhausting and toxic. Then there was the personal element that crippled my trust and was the final nail in the proverbial coffin that sent me officially into hiding—my parents.
Whenever I had that feeling, the one of feeling abandoned and disconnected, I’d learned to shift my focus to move the body, move the mind. It was the sole reason I was twenty-two minutes into my fourth session of the day of an online yoga series I’d found on YouTube. The calming music and the focused breathing techniques while I moved my body from pose to pose proved to be the natural medicine I needed to clear my head. That was the case until Boden texted, and I became socially awkward.
Boden: Hey, Lakelyn, I have the replacement part for the tub. Let me know when a good time is, and I’ll swing by.
Me: I’m home now if that works?
Boden: Okay, see you in a few.
