Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
“I can do it,” Kat said for what had to have been at least the eighth time since walking through the front door of her condo. They’d been at the medical center for most of the day, waiting first to be seen by a doctor, and then for the results of her x-ray that told her she’d have to wear a cast for the next few weeks.
“I’m sure you can.” She didn’t miss the trace of laughter in Andy’s voice as he continued to hold his hand out so he could help her out of the sweater Andy had lent her and that she was currently struggling with. “I was merely offering to help,” he said. “You know, because of your newly cracked wrist and the fact that you’re on heavy painkillers.” He shrugged casually and chuckled. “But if you don’t think you need me…”
Andy grinned broadly, then slowly and dramatically turned away, holding his arms out, until Kat finally sighed heavily and gave in .
“Okay, fine.” She mumbled the words under her breath. “You can help me.”
Andy turned to face her, his grin even wider, if it were possible.
She’d never had an easy time accepting help from anyone. Ever. Maybe it was the fact that she was the youngest of five siblings, but she’d always had an intense urge to prove herself, in all ways. Even so, Kat couldn’t deny how nice it felt to have Andy there with her today. She’d tried to hide how much pain she was in on the trail, and then again when the doctor examined her. If Andy had noticed, he thankfully hadn’t mentioned it. Instead, he’d reached for her good hand and squeezed while the doctor did his thing.
He pulled the sweater gently from her good shoulder and stepped back.
“It’s not broken,” Kat said. “It’s only a tiny fracture.”
“Kat?”
She watched while he visibly tried to bite back his laughter.
“That’s the same thing.”
“It’s not.” She shook her head vehemently. “It’s only a tiny little crack. I’ll be back to new in no time.” She didn’t have much of a choice, because she had clients waiting for her. Fortunately, it wasn’t her dominant arm. It would be clumsy, but Kat was pretty certain she’d be able to work with a cast on for a few weeks.
“If you say so.” The laughter was gone from his voice.
Kat blew out a breath. “At least the meeting was already postponed. I would have been so mad if my stupid accident was the reason we had to push it back.” A few hours earlier, Craig texted the group chat to let everyone know that he still wasn’t feeling up to a family meeting.
“You’re really looking forward to your turn, aren’t you?”
It was ridiculous, but Kat felt the sudden urge to cry at his simple question. She nodded and bit her bottom lip, not trusting herself to speak. All her brothers and her sister had their own special relationship with their father, but Kat was always Michael Carlson’s baby girl. They’d had a bond unlike any other, and she’d been particularly devastated by his death.
She’d spent the last two years watching while all the others took their turn fulfilling their deceased father’s requests in order to keep the family inheritance intact. It wasn’t the challenge that Kat was looking forward to, but what went with it. If Chase, Charli, Craig, and Asher’s experiences were anything to go by—and she was sure they were—there would be a letter written just for her, from her dad.
She’d spent months imagining what he’d written to her and what message he wanted to pass on to her. It kept her up at night and now, she was finally so close to having her turn.
“I am.” Kat finally managed to speak. “More than I can properly express.”
Andy reached out and squeezed her shoulder. The look in his eyes was one of tender care. “It will be your turn soon, Kat. Just another day or two. And I know you’ll want to be one hundred percent before then.”
He wasn’t wrong.
She nodded and swallowed hard. It had been a long day and no doubt the drugs they’d given her at the hospital were making her more emotional than normal.
Too soon, Andy removed his touch. “Why don’t you go get settled on the couch and I’ll make you a grilled cheese?—”
“I can do?—”
“I know you can,” he said gently. “But I want to, Kat. When was the last time you ate?” He held her eyes for a moment.
Maybe it was the painkillers she was on, but Kat couldn’t help but feel warmed by his gaze.
And she was hungry.
She nodded her acceptance and started to move into the living room. The idea of cuddling up on the couch with a full belly and a glass of wine was suddenly very appealing. She hadn’t even managed to complete one full ride, but Kat’s body was sore. She felt like every part of her was bruised, and a chill was settling over her now that she’d removed Andy’s sweater. She was still dressed in her bike shorts and spandex tank top, and she was cold.
Maybe a bath would be a good idea?
A glance behind her told Kat that Andy had gone into the kitchen as promised. She should probably ask him for help running the hot water and getting the bath ready, but how awkward would that be, given their history ?
No.
She could do this herself.
Once upstairs, she didn’t waste any time getting the water running. It wasn’t until after she’d added a generous pour of scented bubble bath to the water before she attempted to strip out of her tight clothes. The shorts were awkward, but doable once she managed to shimmy one leg down and then the other. It wasn’t until Kat tried to get her tight top off that she ran into trouble.
The medic had pushed up the sleeve to her elbow in order to get her cast on, which at the time had made perfect sense. However, now that she was trying to figure out the logistics of removing the skintight layer, an entirely new situation had presented itself.
“This is so stupid,” Kat grunted as she channeled any and all acrobatic skills into shimmying her top off her good arm and over her head. Only her shirt didn’t go easily over her head and managed to hook itself somewhat inside out on both of her arms and her head, trapping her in the tight fabric.
The water was still running in the tub, and no doubt was getting closer to the top, but she couldn’t see to turn the taps, or even to point herself in the right direction.
“Dammit.” She wiggled and struggled futilely for another few minutes and was just about to admit defeat when Andy beat her to it.
“Kat?”
She heard him call from her attached bedroom. The last thing she needed after the day she’d had was for Andy to see her completely naked, trapped in her shirt, but there didn’t appear to be any other choice.
“Are you okay?” He knocked on the door. “You’ve been taking a long time.”
Kat swallowed her pride. “Can you come in?” Her voice was muffled by the shirt. Still, she added, “Please. I need your help.”
A moment later, she heard the door open, and the chuckle Andy didn’t bother to hide.
“It’s not funny.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “From where I’m standing, it’s actually very funny.”
She dropped her chin to her chest. “Can you help me, please?”
Andy didn’t answer right away. He couldn’t. He was way too taken aback by the sight of Kat’s curvy, mostly naked body in front of him. She was every bit as gorgeous as he remembered. Maybe even more so. Either way, she took his breath right out of his body.
He was thankful for the fact that she couldn’t see the way he was staring at her, because they weren’t supposed to be looking at each other in any way besides a friendly way. And the feelings rushing through him—directly to his dick, which had very much taken notice of the mostly naked woman in front of him—were definitely not purely friendly.
Andy took a moment to pull himself together, swallow hard, and set himself to the task at hand, which was helping Kat out of her predicament before she hurt herself even more.
“Of course.” He moved to the tub first and turned the water off before reaching for the tight shirt that she’d somehow managed to twist around her head in what had to be a very uncomfortable way. “Stop struggling.” He put his hand on her bare hip and stilled her. Heat shot through him and again, Andy was glad that she couldn’t see his reaction. He was really going to have to get himself under control, and quickly.
“It hurts,” Kat moaned through the fabric. “Get it off. I don’t care if you have to cut it.”
“We’re not going to have to cut it.” Reluctantly, he moved his hand from her hip and started to work on the fabric. Gently, he tugged the shirt first off her good arm and then, when that was free, he moved his attention to get her head free. Kat pulled in a gasp of air as if she were being suffocated by her clothing, and Andy had to fight the urge to laugh. “Better?”
“So much.” She held out her bad wrist, and he pulled and shifted the fabric until he was able to stretch it over her cast and free her completely from the self-imposed trap she’d found herself in. “Thank you. I just decided that I wanted to warm up with a bath, and I didn’t think it would be so hard to get out of my?—”
She broke off and glanced down at her mostly naked body, as if realizing for the first time that she was only wearing her bra and panties .
Andy did his best to keep his eyes to himself, so when she looked up again, he was staring straight into her eyes. “Let me help you into the tub,” he said gently. “I don’t want you to slip and hurt yourself further.”
He expected her to object, but to his surprise, she nodded. “That’s probably not a bad idea.”
Andy waited and watched while Kat tested the water and deemed it just right before he held out his hand.
Kat stared at him for a second before a blush crossed her entire body in a very sexy flush.
“What?”
She squeezed her eyes for a second before opening them on a sigh. “I need to take my underwear off.”
Oh.
The blush made sense now.
Andy swallowed hard in an effort to control his own response to what she was implying. “I’ve seen you naked before, Kat.”
“That’s not helping, Andy.” She shot him a look and turned her back to him. “Just don’t look, okay?”
That was a promise he was going to have a very hard time keeping, so instead of making it, he said, “Let me help.” And reached for the clasp of her bra when she finished shimmying out of her panties.
Her breath hitched as his fingers skimmed the smooth skin of her back, and he let his fingers linger a little before he unclipped her bra.
Friends.
He had to keep reminding himself that whatever had happened between them had been one time only. They were friends. And not the kind with benefits.
But maybe ? —
She shivered, reminding him that she was cold. He did his best to keep his eyes averted as he held out a hand and helped her sink into the tub full of bubbles, taking care to keep her cast out of the water.
Only when she was settled did Andy once more risk turning around. He was having a harder and harder time remembering the terms of their friendship, and seeing her wet and naked was definitely not going to help matters. Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how he looked at the situation—the thick layer of bubbles covered Kat completely.
“I should probably?—”
“Stay.”
“Stay?”
Kat nodded. “I mean…it’ll save me from hollering for help when I’m ready to get out.”
She bit her bottom lip and glanced away from him, but not before he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes. Kat was usually so tough and independent. It wasn’t until a few moments earlier when she’d mentioned the family meeting that he’d noticed how bothered by the postponement she was.
And with everything else that had happened, maybe the events of the day had impacted her a little more than she was letting on.
“That’s a good point.” He nodded and sat on the closed toilet lid across from her. “And I really wouldn’t want you to try anything that might cause another shirt incident.”
She laughed and shook her head. “Do you have any idea how annoying a cast is?”
Andy shrugged. “We did a unit in school where we had to train with a cast on to see what the patient experienced.”
“Really?”
He chuckled. “No. Not really. But that would be a good class, wouldn’t it?”
Andy watched her struggle not to laugh, but finally, she did, which had been his objective all along. He’d do anything to see that smile.
“It actually would be a good class,” Kat said as she reached for a large poofy sponge thing on the side of the tub. She made a few attempts to wave the sponge around in an effort to get her shoulders before Andy moved to the side of the tub and took it from her hand.
Everything about it was a bad idea, but there was no way he couldn’t. “Here,” he said. “Let me.”