Page 71 of The Relationship Clause

“Actually, I think you’re the one who’s lost.”

I gasp, nearly choking on my own tongue, and crane my head around to see Owen standing in my room. My gaze lands smack-dab on his navel region and his glorious set of abdominal muscles. He’s wearing nothing but a fluffy, white towel around his waist, and it’s doing terrible things to my imagination.

Forget everything I said about adulting. Adulting is good. Great. Yep, I love being an adult. And all that it entails.

I squeeze my eyes closed. “What are you doing here?” I demand, pulling my thin sheet higher over my body.

“I was about to ask you the same thing. Why are you in my room?”

“No, why are you in my room?”

It’s not that we haven’t seen each other all day. We were in the same room for several of the other treatments, and it was fine, but we were also both wearing luxurious robes, basically covered from wrist to knee. There was nothing to be self conscious of then. Now, there is everything to be self conscious of.

“Hey, I went where the nice Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonator told me to go,” Owen says.

“Me too. Except minus the impersonator part. My masseuse told me to go to the Aspen room.”

All of the various rooms at this place are named after plants and trees native to Vail. It’s cute, but it’s also a little confusing if you’re not up on your horticulture, which I am not.

“Um, actually, this is the Juniper room, the room I was told to go in.”

“Yeah, right. I think I’d know if I went into a room with my own name on it.”

“You’d think so, but you’d be wrong.”

“Nope. You’re wrong. This is Aspen.” Isn’t it? Then again, I have been waiting for my masseuse for a suspiciously long amount of time…

Owen chuckles and leans against the wall opposite me. He’s keeping his gaze trained on my face, a fact I’m both appreciative of and amazed at simply because I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes above his collar bones.

“Hate to say it, Junie, but I think you may be lost.”

I’m halfway considering hobbling off this table and checking the name myself when the door swings open, revealing a buff man in a tiny, white shirt. His eyes go big, darting from me to Owen then back to me. He calls over his shoulder.

“Ingrid! She’s in here.”

A bear of a woman holding a handful of fragrant, leaf-filled branches pushes Arnold aside. She zeros in on me, and suddenly, I feel like the naughty girl in the one-room schoolhouse who’s about to have her knuckles hit with a ruler.

“Agh.” She bustles in, waving the branches at me, motioning for me to get up, speaking in a language I don’t understand.

“W-wait,” I squeak, trying to get her attention. “I don’t have any clothes on.”

But she pays no mind. Instead, she keeps talking in Swedish or Danish or, heck, maybe Elvish, shoving the branches in my face. Laughing, Owen comes after us, and it looks like he might try to come to my rescue. I’m equal parts thrilled and mortified about this—because, hello! Still naked—but Arnold turns on him with his own fistful of branches.

Leaves fly everywhere as they bat us away from each other. Arnold and Ingrid could defend Vail from a foreign invasion single-handedly. Washington, D.C. should be notified.

“I think I’ve had enough pampering,” I yell as I’m being unceremoniously shoved out of the room.

“Me too,” he calls back, sounding a little strangled. “Let’s meet up at—”

“No.” Ingrid’s face is red and splotchy, but there’s determination in those pale-blue eyes of hers. “Not done yet. Massage. Then steam. Then done. Now out. No more hanky-panky between you two. Out!”

I am one thousand shades of red beneath my sheet. “H-hanky-panky? No. No hanky-panky. It was a mistake.”

A MISTAKE I tell you!

“Right. You two ending up in same room. Mistake.” Ingrid rolls her eyes. I turn back, hoping to catch sight of Owen one more time to somehow convey that this was, in fact, an accident and I in no way did this on purpose so hanky-freaking-panky could occur.

And I do catch sight of him.

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