Page 10 of Not That Impossible

“You know what? That’s a non-apology and I do not accept.” I shoved him out from under the porch. “Enjoy the rain.”

Adam gasped and ducked his head against a brisk gust of wind. He crammed his helmet on with deft, practiced movements and flipped the visor up. “We’re cool, though, right?”

“Of course.”

He strode off to his bike and I sprinted for my car.

I drove home through the rain, my wipers going at full speed. I, on the other hand, went ten miles below the speed limit the whole way. I parked, grabbed my gym bag from the passenger seat, took a deep breath to brace myself, and dashed up the drive to the front door.

Unlike The Lion, my little terraced house didn’t have a dinky and picturesque porch to shelter under. By the time I’d fumbled the wet keys with my cold fingers and got the door open, I was all but soaked through.

“Brrrrrrr,” I said dramatically as I burst in and slammed the door behind me. I dropped my bag, stripped off the hoodie and kicked off my trainers. I decided I may as well get rid of my sweatpants while I was at it, and ran upstairs in just a t-shirt.

I jumped into the shower and sighed happily as the hot, hot water pounded down. My house was tiny, my mortgage was crippling me and giving me way too many sleepless nights, but my water pressure was to die for. I’d stay in my shower for an hour, given the chance.

Unfortunately, I worried about things like climate change as well as mortgages and Adam sliding under a bus on his stupid bike, so I kept it to a respectable ten minutes.

I wrapped a towel around my waist and scrubbed another over my hair, drying it roughly. I got out my large pump bottle of Aveeno lotion and slapped a handful on my chest and arms.

As a personal trainer and gym instructor, I was in and out of the shower multiple times a day. It was terrible for your skin. If I didn’t moisturise, I’d be an itchy, flaky mess.

I finished rubbing in the lotion and headed for the bedroom, detouring when the doorbell rang. And really, I should have known who was standing on the other side of the door, simply by how irritable he managed to make it sound.

But I didn’t.

I went downstairs with my bath towel around my hips and my hair towel still slung around my neck, and opened the door.

Liam Nash stood on my doorstep.

We stared at each other.

“Hi?” I said after a ridiculously long silence.

Liam was bundled up in a puffy yet manly North Face jacket. It was the kind of jacket that would keep you alive at the top of Ben Nevis in a blizzard just as well as it would keep you dry and toasty on a rainy Tuesday afternoon in the Cotswolds.

Also, it was an eye-watering highlighter orange. So if hewasin a blizzard at the top of Ben Nevis, Search and Rescue wouldn’t have any trouble spotting him from a helicopter.

Or space.

His hand, still raised from ringing the bell, was hanging in the air. Rain streamed down his arm and off the point of his elbow.

“Do you want to come in?” I said, when he didn’t respond.

Liam’s hand dropped. He opened his mouth. No sound came out.

All the lovely warmth from my shower and the brisk lotion massage was rapidly being sucked away by the cold dark day beyond my cosy hall. I was getting goosebumps here. My nipples were hard.

And Liam would notice that, since they were right in front of his face.

His eyes were slightly wider than usual, locked on mine with fierce determination. As I watched, they slowly, slowly drifted down. He looked like he was fighting it, but he lost. The moment he did, he gave me a full body scan.

It was quick, laser sharp, and over in a second.

It gave me more goosebumps than the cold air. I shifted awkwardly.

I wasn’t shy about my body. I didn’t give being half naked in front of other people a second thought. I couldn’t, given my job. But unfamiliar self-consciousness began to rise, along with my pulse rate, as he went back for a second scan.

I couldn’t quite put my finger on this one. Along with all the usual impatience and irritation I was used to seeing from him, there was something else that I really, really wasn’t used to seeing from him.

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