Page 63 of The Mountain
Seth
I don’t know what came over me, asking to share a shower with Lily. Maybe it was the feel of her hand in my own, the heat of her body as she stood next to me, the way it chased away all the cold horror from the morning. The thought of being apart from her, of being physically separated from her, even for ten minutes—it was almost unbearable.
Now, with the steam rising up around us making the bathroom lights dance and flicker, I’m starting to doubt my own intelligence.
“Are you okay?” Lily asks.
She peels off her thermal top, then her sports bra, before turning to give me a questioning look over one shoulder. The angle has the defined muscles of her back on full display. It’s a surfer’s back, a swimmer’s back, strong and feminine, with long lines and curving softness. I’ve felt the strength of those muscles under my hands nearly every night.
That doesn’t stop my heart from racing, an almost dizzying staccato that has my thoughts scattering like light fracturing in the steam.
“Seth?” Lily’s voice mingles with the pelting drone of the shower. She purses her lips, wary confusion painted on her features, her thumbs frozen where they’re tucked into the waistband of her thermal pants.
I stare down at my body, still fully clothed. My throat bobs.
I haven’t been naked with someone since Claudia. The first person I came out to as ace, two years ago. I’d held that term out to her, an awkward offering, an apology, an explanation found on Google after long hours and secret nights of searching, of wondering what was wrong with me.
“We can work through it,” she’d said. I can still remember the feel of her hand on my shoulder, the patient smile curving her lips. “We’ll get through it together.”
But her idea of working through it had been to search for a ‘cure’—to suggest hormone therapy and testosterone and herbal supplements that would make me ‘normal.’
“Seth.” Lily turns to face me, her arms banding over her chest to hide her breasts. “If you’re uncomfortable…”
I let out a breath, and it catches in my throat with a frustrated growl. Iamuncomfortable. Wildly uncomfortable. But I don’t want to be.
“I’m not uncomfortable,” I lie.
Lily cocks one brow, giving me a disbelieving stare. I sigh, dragging one hand over my face. It’s clammy, either from myown ridiculous nerves, or from the thickening steam of the shower.
I turn to stare at the wall, at the worn paint streaked with water tracks. “I’m just… it’s just… I don’t want to mislead you…”
How can you touch me like that, and not want more? Can’t you see you’re sending mixed messages here, Seth? And what about all those other times? You came, you fucking came, and you’re trying to tell me you hated it.
“Mislead me? What?” Lily makes a choked sound, and then she’s stepping into my space, drawing my attention back to her, to her upturned face and those honest hazel eyes, to that freckled nose and those bow-shaped lips pulled into a frown. “I know you’re ace. I get it.” Her hand grips my sweater-clad forearm, her fingers gentle against the tense muscle. “It’s just a shower.” The frown fades as she shoots me a teasing smile. “People shower together all the time. It saves water.”
I snort at that, tipping my chin toward the shower that’s been running for the past couple minutes. There is absolutely no water saving going on right now.
Lily gives an unapologetic shrug and rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
I don’t. Not really. I’ve never showered with someone I wasn’t sleeping with. With someone who didn’t want more from me than I was able to give them. Maybe things are different in Hawaii, where sun-soaked bodies are constantly on display.
Her smile softens, and she wraps one arm around me in a half hug, her other arm still banded across her chest. “Oh, Seth.” Her forehead presses against my bicep, and she lets out a breath. IfI was shirtless like her, would I feel her breath against my skin, warm and fluttering?
My arms come around her, enveloping her, callused hands skating over the smooth of her back, tracing those familiar muscles. That warmth from earlier rushes back over me, lulling and comforting, pushing this morning’s panic further back, dulling it. I let out a shuddering breath and pull Lily close, until her head is tucked under my chin and her body is flush against my own.
Lily isn’t Claudia. She’s never once made me feel like there was something wrong with me, or like I should be anything other than the way I am. It’s almost unfair of me to have this fear, when Lily hasn’t done anything to deserve it. But it’s there just the same, a nagging sense of unease that eventually I won’t be enough.
“I want to be close to you,” I murmur, my cheeks flushing, although it’s easier to admit this with her in my arms. “I love the feel of your body against mine, love touching you…” I let out a mirthless chuckle. “It’s not the thought of getting naked with you that scares me…”
It’s that it’ll give her the wrong idea, that I’ll be crossing some invisible line in our relationship betweenaffectionandsex, that it would be unfair of me to take what I need and not give her what she needs.
“My ex-girlfriend, she used to say I was leading her on. Sending mixed signals.” I cringe, blinking up at the steam-filled ceiling, muscles tensing in readiness for Lily to push me away. It’s bad form to bring up an ex, right? To complain about them? To imply the person you’re with is going to be like them? “If I did stuff likethis with her—you know, give her a massage, or go for a shower with her, touch her too much…”
Lily makes a pained sound, tightening her hold on me. I squeeze her right back, like the feel of her against me will quieten the thundering in my chest.
“You just have to tell me if I’m crossing some line, okay?” Because I want this to work. I want it so fucking bad. I want it so much that I’m almost tempted to tell her ‘And if you need sex, I can give that to you.’ I probably would, if she asked me.
I would give her the world, even if I had to carve it from my own heart.
