Page 51 of Faker
“Mask is on,” he says.
We’re maybe four inches apart, sitting side by side, only an opaque sheet of plastic separating my naked body from Tate’s clothed one. A deep breath centers me, and I let out a soft moan. Tate clears his throat.
I splash some more until my entire body is soaked, then lather soap into my hands. Soon I’m covered in pineapple-scented body wash. I breathe in, eyes closed, and for a minute I’m back on the beach. My wet skin pebbles, and I open my eyes. No. This is even better. I’m bathing next to my coworker. My coworker who I used to loathe. My coworker who I most definitely don’t loathe anymore. Nerves are certainly present, but so is anticipation and joy. A strange, yet wonderful cocktail of emotions.
“Doing okay?” he says.
“Yep.” I slide back on my bottom and lie down in the tub so I can wet my hair. Slowly, I prop myself back up into a kneeling position and lather shampoo through it. “I feel so naughty.”
The second the last words leave my lips, I bury my face in my hands and groan.
Tate’s soft chuckle floats past the curtain. “How so?”
“Sorry, I mean that it feels naughty to take a bath. They’re pretty indulgent, using all this water for one person. Growing up on an island, showers were the rule. My mom would get pissed if she caught my sister or me taking a bath. Said they wasted so much fresh water, and we needed to be less wasteful.”
“I see.”
The world’s most awkward laugh falls from my lips. “This is weird.”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“A good weird, though. Don’t you think?” I bite my lip. Thank goodness for the security this shower-curtain barrier gives me.
“‘Good weird’ is the perfect way to describe it.” It sounds like he’s smiling.
“Tell me something about yourself,” I blurt out.
“What do you mean?”
“Something that shows me you’re vulnerable too.” It’s an odd request, but I want it. Ineedit. “I’m sitting next to you, naked. I’d say that’s a pretty vulnerable position. Tit for tat, right?”
My face burns at my phrasing.Tit.Excellent word choice.
“Okay,” he says. “I’m deathly afraid of spiders. Whenever I see one, I freeze.”
I smile. “I would have never pegged you for an arachnophobe.”
“It’s not a phobia,” he says sternly. “I just don’t like them.”
“I get it. I’m the same way with snakes. Though I’d say that’s a definite phobia for me.” Lying back in the water, I run my fingers through my hair to rinse out the shampoo. The scent of fruit hangs in the humid air. “What else?”
There’s the soft tapping of his sneaker against the tile. “When I was eight, my parents planned a birthday party for me and invited all my classmates. My birthday is February twenty-fourth. There was a blizzard and none of the kids could come because the roads were iced over and there were accidents all over the city. So I spent my birthday alone.”
“What about your sister?”
“She wanted to seeDisney Princesses On Icein Kansas City that weekend, so our grandma took her.”
Pain hits my chest. I lean up and turn to my right to face him. Even though we can’t see each other, the movement makes me feel closer to him. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”
He lets out a soft chuckle. A handful of silent seconds follow before he speaks. “It ended up being perfect. I didn’t want to have a birthday party in the first place, but my parents made me invite all those kids because they didn’t want me to celebrate alone without Natalie. But honestly? I just wanted to have the day to myself. They thought it was weird. I remember when my mom told me none of the kids could come, I burst into this huge smile and ran to my bedroom. I built a blanket fort and stacked my favorite comic books inside it. My parents felt so bad at the party fail that they let me eat as many slices of cake as I wanted. So I ate, like, an entire Funfetti cake in my blanket fort while reading comic books all day.”
When he finishes telling the story, I’m grinning. “That’s hilarious. And wonderful.”
Through the shower curtain, I see the silhouette of his arms run along the tops of his thighs. The soft sound of fabric rubbing fills the bathroom.
“It always cracks me up to remember that day,” he says.
All those times I’ve seen Tate eat lunch by himself in his officespring to mind. He doesn’t approach anyone at work unless he has to for a work-related reason, and he always sits by himself at meetings. It makes sense now. He’s a lifelong loner.
