Page 26 of Lost in You

He’s flustered. Mr. I’m In Charge Here is flustered by my question. It makes me smile.

“Just making conversation,” I say lightly. “What else is there to do around here?”

“No, I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“When’s the last time you did have one?”

He exhales heavily. “I don’t know, like a year and a half ago.”

“Wow, that’s a long time.”

“Being on the road doesn’t make for good relationships.”

“It must be lonely.”

“It’s too busy to get lonely. I’m surrounded by my team every minute of the day.”

I unwrap a bar of soap and put it in the water, then lather it between my hands. “You probably don’t snuggle with them, though.”

He responds with a single note of laughter. “Nope, no snuggling with the team.”

I wash my face first, then sit up, my eyes locked on his back as I rub soapy lather over my neck, chest and breasts.

“What about you? Do you have a boyfriend back home?”

“No. I hadn’t even been on a date in more than a year when I went out with Ronan. I regret saying yes to him, obviously.”

“How long did you guys date?”

“We went out twice.”

“No shit? That’s it?”

I continue washing my body, realizing I haven’t thought about the Ronan situation at all since the plane crash. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“How’d you guys meet?”

“In line at a coffee shop.”

He grunts in response, and I can’t read the meaning of it. I submerge my head in the water to wet it and then grab the shampoo from the shelf next to the tub. When I see the label—Philip B Amber Imperial Shampoo—I blurt out, “Holy shit.”

“What?” Lincoln turns his head to the side and I cry out, plunging myself back into the water.

“Don’t look! That was just my reaction to this shampoo. It’s a crazy expensive brand.”

“Oh.”

“I feel bad even using this.”

“Don’t. I’ll pay the cabin owner back for everything we use.”

I smile as I open the shampoo. Again, he’s making me feel like we’re an us. I’ve never truly been part of an us. My first boyfriend, who I met in college, went to a different school than I did, so we didn’t spend a lot of time together. My second boyfriend was an attorney who worked crazy hours and we only saw each other once or twice a week.

“Maybe I can write a guest blog for a beauty magazine after this,” I say as I lather my hair. “Best beauty products to use when you’re stranded in the wilderness.”

He hums his amusement. “Probably not many people in that situation.”

“True. This shampoo smells like heaven.”

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