Page 13 of If You Like It, I Love It

He’s here? This is perfect!

Don’t knock. Just come in. I’m in my bathroom weighing my options.

I turn down my music in time to hear the front door close behind him. Then his soft footsteps sound in the hallway. They make me smile because I can tell he’s taken off his boots, and for some reason, the thought of him walking down the hall in his socks amuses me a little right now.

A large, soapy bubble pops at my chest, and I close my eyes and make a wish as if it had been a falling star. My body tingles with anticipation. Will he entertain my dreamy kitchen fantasy or be the stern voice of reason I may very well need right now?

Enzo gingerly pushes against the partially open bathroom door. “Let me guess. You’re about to add a bathroom remodel to my schedule.”

He steps all the way into the room. We both seem to realize that I’m in the tub at the same time.

Yes, my body is naked and wet and slippery, and it would stand to reason that I would’ve already been very much aware that I was sitting in a bubble bath, but apparently, two glasses of wine in a tub full of hot water make me forgetful as well as easily influenced by expertly staged marketing photos.

He averts his eyes from my glistening shoulders to his socks. “Oh, I-I-uh-um, I didn’t realize . . .”

“Sorry. I forgot I was in the tub.”

He looks up to meet my flustered gaze. “You what?”

“I guess I kind of forgot about all this.” I gesture at the bubbles that are barely keeping me decent. “But I’m glad you’re here because I want you to look at something for me. And I want your honest opinion.”

His expression morphs from one that indicates he’s slightly worried about my mental state to a look of absolute dismay.

“Calm down. I’m not going to ask you to weigh in on the size of my tits or if I should abandon the Bermuda Triangle and go full Brazilian.”

I laugh into my wine glass before taking a large sip. We’re already here; we may as well laugh about it, right? Reopening the appliance website, I extend my arm, turning my phone toward him. “This is what I want your opinion about.”

He leans forward to see the source of my dilemma. I stretch the phone another inch toward him, and it slips lower in my hand, so I shimmy my thumb and fingers along the sides to scooch it back up into the center of my palm, but it immediately slips again, freeing itself from my grip entirely this time.

My phone disappears into the bubbles, making splashdown right in front of my chest.

Enzo springs into action. “Oh, shit.”

He’s on his knees in a flash—and his hand goes in for the rescue dive without a second thought while I’m still trying to process how I dropped the damn thing in the first place.

His hand descends straight down, frantically roving the area of the crash, which happens to be right between my now widely spread legs. He firmly grasps the first thing his fingers bump up against.

It’s a reflex that evokes a startled gasp from us both.

We freeze. Our eyes lock.

With every muscle south of my sudsy nipples currently on lockdown, I manage to squeak out, “That’s not my phone.”

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t feel like a phone.”

“Yeah, so I’m going to need you to move your hand. I mean remove it. Not move it like I’m asking you to move it around or anything. I-I’m asking for freedom, not friction.”

Oh, fuck. Seriously? Why did I feel the need to elaborate? Where’s the real Bermuda Triangle when you need it?

“Right. Freedom.” His hand opens, and his arm flies from the water like it’s being shot upward by an erupting geyser. He’s back on his feet before I can exhale. Tiny bubbles cascade from his elbow down to the tips of his fingers—his very strong fingers that were just holding my most-definitely-not-a-phone. “Jesus, Joni, I am so sorry. I just, I, um, your phone in the water, and I-I-I just wanted—”

“I know, Enzo. Take a breath. It’s okay.”

Our eyes meet again, and we both succumb to a fit of nervous laughter. It’s over. We’re both adults. We can laugh about this. Who wouldn’t laugh about this? He’s every bit as mortified as I am, if not more, and we still have the second half of a kitchen remodel to get through together. I don’t want things to be weird just because he accidentally groped my pussy in a bubble bath. Stranger things have probably happened during a remodel, right?

I find my phone when my hip shifts and the chipped corner of the hard plastic case bites my ass.

Lifting it from the water, I say, “I was actually going ask your opinion on pale yellow appliances, which I know sounds awful, but I just need you to look at them with me and tell me that it’s entirely too trendy, and I would regret it with my whole stupid heart in no time.”