Chapter 7
Tab
Istare at the underside of my blankets before whisking them off in an aggravated flourish that looks like I’m a matador in the ring with a bull.
It felt like that all night, except the bull wasn’t a bull, it was sleep, and he certainly didn’t charge at me, he was playing hide and seek.
Levi kept popping in and out every time I tried to count sheep.
Instead, I counted his handsome face bobbing up and down like a bobble head strolling down a football field.
Then when sleep did come, it dissolved into X-rated snippets of Levi’s limbs tangled with mine.
Hot breaths. Moans. Touches that singed my skin.
Good lord, I need help.
I pull my pajamas off and start the shower. In a way, I’m glad my libido is back. I haven’t felt anything downstairs since the fire, and I honestly hadn’t noticed I’d been missing that until last night.
Blowing out an exaggerated breath, I hold out my left arm, inspecting it in the bathroom mirror. My burns hurt this morning. A low throb of pain. Sometimes, the stinging feels like it can go straight through to my bones, but fortunately, this is topical. I’m due for pain meds.
Even though the injury itself looks so inconspicuous wrapped in bandages I hold my breath every time we take them off. Wishing, hoping, that they’ll be in a state of healing. But we never know.
I take the clingwrap that now has a permanent place on the bathroom countertop and cover my entire arm before stepping under the hot spray.
I hiss when the water hits. As always, the heat makes my burns worse, as if like finds like, and intensifies the inferno.
Despite that, I make myself stand there, water dripping off me and draining. A cleansing of sorts.
I do this every morning as if I can wash the fire away. Sometimes, I close my eyes and picture the old bathroom and pretend I’m still that Tabitha Riley. The one who had her shit together. Fifty percent owner in a successful business. Friends she loved. Busy but fulfilled in the best ways.
Then when I open my eyes, I realize I’m in Micah’s castle in the sky and it all comes crashing back down again. How did I get here? Who knew that stupid, faulty wiring that just finally decided to catch that day would do so much damage? Physically and mentally.
I think of all the things that had to line up so that we were both in the apartment when it caught fire.
The fact that I sent Raeann back up to the apartment so she could be creative.
The fact that I followed her up there after having a splitting headache that day, letting the team close up.
Both asleep, we had no idea what was happening.
The chaos that one spark was about to let loose into our lives.
So, yeah, every morning I stand under the shower and try to rinse the unfairness away, but it never works. It clings there like this wrap I have to put on my bandages, like a leech bleeding me dry.
After the dreams last night, I should also hope the water does one more thing, because I could use a baptism.
Not that I will actually ever know what the Levi Soucy is like in bed but if he’s half as good as my imagination, he’s…got nothing to worry about. It’s his fault I dreamed what I did anyway. If he hadn’t told me that ridiculous nickname…
Who calls themselves Big Dick Levi?
I snort, shaking my head, then turn, letting the hot water hit the top of my head and soak my hair. Of course I had fantasy after fantasy. It’s like Levi implanted a subliminal message into my brain, and it latched on like a very horny parasite.
Wait. Why am I starting to think he knew exactly what he was doing? Is this how he gets as many girls as he does? Beyond being strikingly handsome and charming, he embeds a sexual phrase into women’s minds, and then they just can’t help themselves. He’s not a sex god, he’s a sex genie.
I finish up in the shower and put on a clean version of nearly the exact same outfit I wore yesterday.
Raeann designed a whole line of sweatshirts with the Pet Threads logo on it just so I could have something to wear that wouldn’t catch on my bandages.
So, yay for sales, but I don’t think they were meant to be worn day after day like some sort of teenage cry for attention.
I’m about to slip out of the room when my new phone buzzes.
My face flames like Levi is standing in front of me, and since I know he’s a sex genie now, he’ll already be aware that I had the most outlandish dreams about him.
I cross my arms and tap my foot on the ground, staring at my pillow where I hid the phone underneath so Raeann wouldn’t find it.
I start to walk back out of the room, but stop almost immediately.
No one else has that number so I know it’s Levi, and there’s just this pull I can’t ignore.
I march to the phone and pull it out, heartbeat kicking up a notch.
Levi: Good morning, Rapunzel.
The phone buzzes again while it’s in my hand, just when my heart did a little skip from the nickname Rapunzel. It’s so corny…but also sweet. Or it could be because that name played a role in my fantasies last night, paired with a little hairpulling.
Levi: Don’t be shy.
Me: Good morning, Levi.
His reply is almost immediate.
Levi: There she is. I thought about you last night.
Me: Oh, really? I didn’t think about you at all.
Thank the heavens for being on the phone because I never would’ve been able to pull off the lie in person. I can feel the heat licking at my cheeks.
Levi: You wound me.
Me: I doubt that, Playboy. I think we had a similar conversation yesterday.
I smile, almost sitting on the bed to continue this conversation with him because it’s fun.
However, the pesky throb has turned a little more painful, so I place the phone back under my pillow and head out to the kitchen.
I grab my meds, double-checking to make sure I have the morning pills correct, and then place them over on the island before getting water.
I’m just swallowing the first one when Raeann comes out of the room. She stops, confusion sweeping across her face, then concern. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, then take the second pill.
She eyes me warily. “Usually I get your pills. Do you know—?”
“Which ones to take?” I giggle a little. “I’m not that much of an invalid.”
I shake my head at her, but the truth is, Raeann really has been running things. This is the first time since I’ve been home that I’ve been out of bed before her. Something I used to do all the time before the fire.
“You’re a good friend,” I tell Raeann as she heads to the refrigerator and takes out some eggs.
“The best,” she replies, beaming at me while she gets out a bowl and a whisk.
A door opens from the room Raeann just walked out of, and the both of us look up to find Micah with a towel wrapped around his hips. He’s stopped mid-stride in the same place Raeann did.
“Tab.”
“Micah.”
He pulls the towel closer around him, and I try to avoid looking even though abs and my eyes are like magnets for each other.
“You’re not usually up.”
“I’m turning over a new leaf.”
When he doesn’t say anything, I peek up to find his entire face red. I quickly look away when our eyes meet again.
“Awkward…” I whisper to Raeann. Athena, who escaped when Micah walked out, sits next to me and licks my hand. I pet her as Raeann laughs.
She asks Micah, “What’s up, babe?”
“Did you say you washed some of my clothes?”
“Sure did. Check the dryer.”
He walks into the laundry room, and I shake my head. “Girl, you did good.”
By the time he walks back out, we’re both laughing. “Alright, alright,” he says. “You two are worse than high school girls.”
“I was just standing here minding my own business,” I protest with a smirk. “You’re the one walking out of the bedroom like you’re about to do a male revue.”
Micah waves his hand as if he’s shooing me away, but in the process, he drops his clean boxers on the floor. Next to me, Raeann whistles when he bends to pick them up.
He shakes his head all the way to the bedroom, leaving us in the kitchen dissolved in laughter like we really are pubescent girls who haven’t seen a male body before.
“So jealous you get to sleep with that.”
Raeann wipes the tears of laughter from her eyes then starts whisking the eggs. “You’ll get yours.”
“Goodness, I hope so.” I go to the fridge and take out the grapes, popping one in my mouth. “I’d even settle for one with one less ab row. I’m not picky.”
“Certainly not. He just has to look like a Greek god. What’s so hard about that?”
“Exactly.”
Raeann chuckles while starting the stovetop and placing a pan over the burner. After adding some cooking spray, she dumps the whisked eggs in the pan and adds salt and pepper. “Hope you want scrambled eggs.”
“Sounds perfect.” I admit, my own voice doesn’t sound as cheerful as it just was.
Not that I have to get a man who’s packing like Micah, but joking about it makes me wonder if I’ll even get a man at all now.
I’m sure there has to be one around who isn’t superficial, but it’s definitely not Levi no matter what he says over those texts.
Maybe he’s on some sort of journey to get right with a higher power, and he thinks being nice to me will make him win championships or something. Or just good juju for his life.
“What’s wrong?” Raeann asks.
“Letting negative thoughts win today, I guess.”
She stirs the eggs. “Care to share?”
I lean against the counter and face her. “Not really because you’re just going to tell me I’m wrong, and I’m going to agree with you verbally, but on the inside, I’m still going to feel the way I feel, so really, there’s no sense because I really don’t want to lie to my best friend right now.”