Page 24 of Triple Play

“You should stop dating most guys.” Blake strokes a hand down my side, pausing at the curve of my hip. “New agenda: Shower. Food. Sleep.”

“Sounds good.” Just add one more thing to that list. I tug playfully at the front of his shirt. “You could shower with me…” I whisper so whoever’s calling doesn’t overhear.

For a second, Blake looks like he might scoop me up again. Instead he kisses the top of my head. “You go on.”

It’s gentlemanly. Part of me—a few very specific parts—wants him to be a lot less fucking gentlemanly. But I set about grabbing my stuff.

When I get into the bathroom, it’s still fogged with steam. A scent lingers: grass, sunshine. With them, the sudden memory of sitting on Felix’s lap in a dark club.

Don’t think about Felix. Easier to do in a room that doesn’t smell like him.

I unpack my toiletries onto the counter between the dual his-and-hers sinks. As a kid, I always thought those were fancy, like refrigerators with built-in icemakers. Like dating a professional athlete.

That’s enough to refocus me: life with Blake could mean doing my makeup at a sink like this while he pats in aftershave or pomades his hair. He said he was practicing carrying me over the threshold. I imagine us living together: not in a house but a penthouse apartment, high above the city. The kind of place that has a dance studio in the basement and maybe even my name on the lease. I’m not with Blake for his money, but there’s a certainty about him that eases some of the humming tension I’ve had since I left home. How life could be easy, for once.

A life I could have if I leave my old one behind. If I leave everyone from it behind.

After I set out various products, I run the tap with the faucet handle turned all the way toward H. Sure enough, steaming water pours out without a rattle or cough from the pipes.

Tomorrow, we’ll stay someplace nicer. When I got my current apartment, I spent a week obsessed with filling my water bottle from the icemaker on the front of the fridge. A reminder of how far I’ve come since I left home.

It’s strange, being proud of something as simple as having made it through a bad situation. Even if I know the truth: no one gives you flowers for just having survived. Still, part of me wants to tell Blake about my past, to have him look at me just as adoringly when he knows who I really am. I guess I’ll have to leave that behind too.

I climb in the shower, groan as water pounds my back. Oh, this feels good, incredible. Dancing never made me sore—I stretch, I hydrate, I do adequate cooldowns—but sitting still? I wasn’t lying when I told Felix I could never do that.

A waterproof radio hangs from the shower caddy. I turn it on, scroll until I hit on a song I used to dance to at the club. Smells might have a way of taking you back, but nothing matches the nostalgia of music you used to strip to.

For while, I dance, I lather and rinse my hair, soap and scrub and shave. I’m done. Or I’m almost done. If we’re sleeping in separate beds…

Water jets from the handheld showerhead. There’s even a slider to adjust the spray pattern.

That’ll work. I grab the showerhead, point it between my legs, toggle through the various flow settings until I hit one that makes me sigh. And I’m so busy with that that I—almost—don’t hear the bathroom door creak open.

“Did you change your mind?” I call, expecting Blake’s answer.

“Oh, fuck, Shira?” comes the reply. Not Blake. Felix.

I drop the showerhead. It clatters against the tub. There’s no way Felix didn’t hear that or my “oh shit” as water starts shooting up at me. I scramble. The showerhead is slippery with water, my hands slippery with nerves. It takes three tries and an eternity to stick it back in its mount.

Which just leaves me huffing and naked and exactly one shower curtain away from Felix. “You need a hand?” he asks.

“Felix, what the fuck are you doing in here?”

For whatever reason, he laughs.

Annoyance stiffens my spine. “What’s funny?” I ask.

“You really do switch it on and off.”

The correct thing to do would be to tell him—nicely—to remove himself from the bathroom until I’m done. The incorrect thing is what I actually do: poke my head out from the shower curtain. “I. Am. Showering.”

“That all?” Like he knows exactly what I was up to.

I will not be embarrassed. He’s the one who shouldn’t be in the bathroom. If I told him to get out, he would. The problem is I’m not telling him—not when he’s standing on the bathmat wearing a pair of low-slung gray sweatpants and not much else.

His hair is still damp from the shower. A few droplets cling to his chest hair. Even that beard doesn’t look…entirely bad. I’m staring. But he’s staring right back, long enough that I start to squirm. “What?” I demand.

“I’ve never seen you look…” He motions to my face, bare of makeup. To my hair, which is wetly plastered to my head. Soap bubbles are probably lingering on my neck. Not just club-naked—in lingerie and heels and a full face of makeup—but naked-naked.

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