Chapter 2
TWO
SPLISH, SPLASH
Caroline
I slipped down into the warm water and let it wash everything away. Thanks to Ryder, my relaxing girl’s night had turned into me sitting across from my best friend feeling guilty and horrible for what I was keeping from her.
Not that there was much to tell anyway, and it wasn’t like she needed to know every thought I ever had. Or every one of Ryder’s flirty remarks. But those were convenient excuses I told myself to feel better.
I was self-aware enough to know I was delusional.
Soft music filtered through the bathroom, and I swiped my fingers through the bubbles gathered on top of the water. The warm scent of sandalwood and lavender wafted around me, and I closed my eyes.
I felt myself begin to drift off. I wasn’t going to fall asleep in the bathtub, but lingering in that place just before the drowsiness took over was calming. It was a state where, although those thoughts were still plaguing me, they were duller and less critical.
It was nice until my phone started buzzing on the edge of the tub. I squeezed my eyes shut and willed it to stop. When it continued, and I realized someone was calling me past midnight, I begrudgingly leaned forward and grabbed it.
Glancing at the screen, I rolled my eyes and set it back down. The vibration continued for another second then stopped.
Of course it was Ryder, but I already had enough to feel guilty about. Answering the phone was bound to add more to that list.
I hadn’t even closed my eyes again when the vibration started. Letting out a loud groan that echoed off the tile, I quickly answered. It was a split-second decision to answer, make sure there wasn’t something urgent, then hang up.
“Why are you calling me?” I bit out, wiping one hand on the towel next to me then switching hands.
He took a deep breath and said, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Suppressing my initial emotional reaction, I scoffed. “Is that all?”
“It’s my birthday,” he said, his words slightly slurred but not enough to keep me from understanding him.
“I know.”
“And you haven’t wished me happy birthday yet.”
“Yes,” I said slowly. “I texted you this morning. You responded to it as well. Have you started to lose your memory in your old age?”
He laughed, and it was loud and unencumbered. “I’m not sure twenty-three is considered old, but you do have a point. I meant you haven’t told me happy birthday. A text isn’t very personal?—”
“Happy birthday, Ryder,” I said.
“Fuck,” he groaned, and the low, muttered curse shot through me and settled between my thighs. Not all my reactions were so easy to suppress, especially the physical ones I couldn’t seem to control .
Startled by my body’s response, I took a breath and started to pull the phone away from my ear. “Bye, Ryder.”
“Wait, no,” he said quickly. “Don’t hang up yet. Just?—”
I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was music in the background. It was loud, the beat heavy, and raised voices carried down the line.
“Are you at a bar?”
I could hear his steps against the ground and assumed he was outside and walking away from the bar as the noise grew softer.
“Ehh, it’s more like a club,” he explained.
“Either way, you’re at a club, and you decided to call me?” I trailed my fingers through the water and leaned back against the cooler white porcelain.
“Yes, because listening to your voice is better than anything that’s currently happening in there.” He said it so matter-of-factly and without the usual playfulness tinging his voice that I was stunned into silence. He was so serious, and I wasn’t used to it.
I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I couldn’t find the words, and I was uncomfortable with how off balance it made me. Readjusting my position, I wasn’t paying attention and hit a shampoo bottle poised on the edge of the tub. I gasped and tried to catch it, but it slipped through my fingers and splashed into the water.
Water splattered everywhere, and in the process of trying and failing to catch the shampoo, my phone slid from my ear. I fumbled for it and managed to grab it before it hit the bubbles.
My heart was pounding like I’d just run a freaking marathon, and I’d almost forgotten about Ryder until I heard his voice coming from the speaker.
“What was—are you taking a bath?”
Annoyed by everything that had just taken place, I said, “I’m hanging up now.”
“Do you really want to hang up, Caroline?” he asked. “Becaus e just imagining you in the bathtub right now…the mental image is fucking amazing.”
He waited, and when I didn’t say anything, he continued. “I bet your hair is pulled back, isn’t it? All your blonde hair in one of those big clips to keep it out of the water. And showing off your neck. Until I met you, I didn’t know a neck could be beautiful. But—are there bubbles? Fuck, because in my mind, there are bubbles. But only enough to slightly…umm, what’s the word…obscure your body under the water.”
As he imagined me, I imagined him, standing outside of a club on his birthday with his eyes closed and the phone to his ear, describing in awe-filled wonder the scene in his head. One that almost perfectly matched what was happening in my bathroom.
My breath came out in short, quick pants, and I slipped deeper into the water, further from the judgment of the world. It couldn’t reach me there. And the longer the phone call went on the, the more I needed to hide.
“I feel like you would add Epsom salts, too. And the entire bathroom would smell slightly sweet, like flowers in sunshine because that’s what you usually smell like. But I don’t really care about what it smells like because the bubbles are slowly dissolving, and the water is lapping across your chest. Just the tops of your tits are peeking out, and you’re?—”
“Ryder—” I said quietly, effectively cutting him off. Thankfully, because I didn’t know if I could have lasted another second. There was a definitive tightening in my core that I couldn’t ignore, and my skin was heating even as the water cooled.
Another groan and I almost threw my phone. “Just say my name one more time, then you can hang up on me.”
Swallowing, I took a breath and said, “Goodbye, Ryder,” before I hung up the phone.