Page 57 of No More Billionaires

A knock sounded at the door.

“Go away. I’m not talking to you,” I shouted.

No answer. After a minute, I opened the door a crack and peeked out to see two steaming pots of water and a folded towel on the floor just outside the door.

Larson’s clean t-shirt was resting on top of the towel. He was nowhere in sight.

I opened the door and retrieved his offering, added the hot water to the bath, and then stripped off my dirty clothes and climbed in, enjoying the sensation of warm water on my chilled skin. I lay back in the tub, running the bar of plain white soap over my body, sudsing my hair with cheap detergent shampoo.

It actually had quite a nice lavender scent for a hair product with a ninety-nine-cent grocery store price sticker on the bottle.

And I tried to relax. Tried to forget Larson’s words.

Incredibly beautiful.

In spite of the fact I had, exactly as he’d accused, gone out of my way to look unappealing, Larson thought I was beautiful.

It was too close to what Heidi had said—the right guy would love me exactly as I was.

But Larson didn’t love me.

And he definitely wasn’t the right guy.

Still… when he’d said it with that particular look in his eye… parts of me had responded, had thrilled at hearing those words from him.

Shoot.

How was I going to get through the rest of this night? It couldn’t be later than eight o’clock. I definitely didn’t want to talk anymore, but I couldn’t hide in here all night.

After killing as much time as possible in the bathtub, I got out and dried off and stood looking at my two clothing options.

In this corner—Larson’s clean, fire-warmed t-shirt. In this corner, my repulsive two-day-old clothing. I slipped on the t-shirt and opened the door.

Larson’s back was to me. He sat in a chair, facing the stove, listening to sports talk at a low volume.

I scrambled up the ladder and called out from the concealment of the dark loft.

“Okay—done in there. It’s all yours. I’m really tired—just going to go to sleep—try not to wake me when you come to bed, okay?”

There. I’d acknowledged the shared-bed necessity and laid the don’t-talk-to-me ground rule.

“Goodnight,” Larson said without looking up.

Rising from the chair, he lifted the third pot of boiling water from the stove and carried it across the room toward the bathroom beneath the loft.

I lay in the bed, pulled the quilt over me, and stared up at the ceiling. The stove cast a dim, orangey light on the wooden planks above me. The grain of the wood seemed to dance and change as the firelight flickered from below.

I wasn’t the least bit sleepy.

I’d slept so late this morning because of my complete inability to sleep in the same bed with Larson last night. Now my mind was fully alert.

Certain parts of my body were coming online as well as I listened to the sloshing water-sounds coming from the bathroom below.

I’d had no idea last night that Larson was able to hear every time I moved in the tub. It was impossible not to put a mental image to the noises drifting up to the loft—splash—Larson’s long legs shifting in the tub, searching for some space to stretch out.

Swish—his bare torso, wet and soapy, his well-formed chest and forearms glistening in the candlelight.

I squirmed in the bed, unable to find a comfortable position.

---