Awkward
NORA
I stand there under the spray as it goes from warm to lukewarm to ice cold in the span of thirty seconds, soap still in my hair, and seriously consider just rinsing with freezing water rather than dealing with the alternative.
The alternative being: walking to Nate's cabin and asking to use his shower.
Which is ridiculous.
Which I'm not going to do.
Except I can't rinse soap out of my hair with ice water, and I'm not sleeping with shampoo crusted to my scalp, so apparently I am going to do it.
I wrap myself in a towel, pull on pajama shorts and a tank top, grab my toiletry bag, and stand in the middle of my cabin for a solid twenty minutes trying to talk myself into this.
It's just a shower.
Friends help friends.
This is practical. This means nothing.
It feels like walking directly into temptation wearing nothing but pajamas and the world's flimsiest excuse.
But what am I supposed to do? Drive back to the lake house at nearly 11pm just to wash my hair? Call a plumber at this hour for what's probably just a water heater issue?
No.
I'm asking to use his shower. That's it.
Completely normal. Just two people who used to know each other extremely well navigating a temporary housing situation.
Right.
I finally find the courage around 10:50pm.
I climb the short path to Nate's cabin, the night air cool against my bare legs, gravel crunching under my feet.
The sky is dark now, scattered with stars, the trees silhouetted black against the deep blue.
His cabin glows with warm light from inside.
It's just a shower.
I pause at the door, the excuse I've been rehearsing running through my head on repeat: the hot water in my bathroom isn't working, I just need a shower, this is practical, this means nothing.
Except it doesn't feel like nothing.
I knock once. Twice.
No answer.
The cabin sits quiet, warm light glowing from inside, but no movement visible.
I know he's home. I saw his car earlier.
And then I hear it.
Water running.
He's in the shower.
Of course he is.
Perfect timing, Nora. Absolutely stellar.
I should leave and come back in twenty minutes. This is weird enough without interrupting his shower.
But I'm standing here with soap drying in my hair, wearing pajamas and no bra, having spent twenty minutes convincing myself to do this, and if I leave now I'll never find the courage to come back.
So I do something possibly insane.
I knock again, louder this time.
"Nate?" I call out. "Nate, are you in there?"
The water shuts off.
There's a pause.
Then his voice, rough and surprised: "Yeah. Yeah, I'm—hold on."
What am I doing?
This is a terrible idea. This is possibly the worst idea I've ever had. But it's too late now because I hear movement inside, and then the bathroom door opens, and—
Oh god.
A towel hangs low on his hips—dangerously low, the kind of low that makes my mouth go dry—and his skin is still damp, droplets glistening along the lines of his neck and collarbone, trailing down his chest.
His very sculpted chest.
His absurdly sculpted chest that looks like a Greek god took a personal interest in the project and refused to half-ass it.
Nobody should look like this. It's obscene. It should be illegal.
And I'm standing here in pajama shorts with soap in my hair, staring at him like I've forgotten how language works.
Cool. Very normal. Extremely friendly shower-borrowing behavior.
His hair is wet, slicked back from his face in a way that makes the angles of his features sharper, more pronounced.
His chest rises and falls with steady breaths, and even in the dim light everything is visible—the curve of muscle along his shoulders, the defined lines of his torso, the ink on his ribs that disappears beneath the towel.
He's broader than he used to be. More solid.
The kind of body that comes from years of discipline, not vanity. Lean muscle over sharp bones, every line carved with intention.
I tell myself to look away a hundred times in the span of three seconds.
"Uh..." My voice catches, comes out strangled.
I clear my throat, force my eyes up to his face where they definitely should have been the entire time.
"I, uh, the hot water in my bathroom isn't working. I was... hoping I could, maybe... use yours?"
He tilts his head slightly, one eyebrow raised, and there's amusement flickering in his gaze—not cruel, just aware.
Aware that I'm flustered. Aware that I'm staring. Aware of exactly what effect he's having on me standing there in nothing but a towel with water still dripping down his chest.
"I knocked," I say too quickly, defensive. "You didn't answer. And I heard the shower and I thought maybe you couldn't hear and I really need a shower and—"
I'm rambling. I know I'm rambling.
I make myself stop.
I shuffle my feet, suddenly hyperaware of how small the cabin feels, how close we are, how painfully aware I am of every line, every curve, every droplet of water clinging to his skin and sliding slowly downward.
Heat floods my chest.
There's something dangerous threading through me, something I've been trying to ignore for days now, something that looking at him like this makes impossible to deny.
"I—sorry," I mutter, glancing down at my hands because looking at his face is somehow worse than looking at his body.
His eyes are too knowing. Too warm.
"You need to use my shower? Go ahead.” His voice is low, and there's something in it that makes my skin feel too tight.
I nod, my words failing me entirely.
He gestures toward the bathroom, and the movement makes the towel shift slightly, revealing another inch of hip bone, the beginning of that line of muscle that disappears beneath the fabric.
My knees weaken.
"It's all yours," he says casually, as if the air between us isn't crackling like the moment before a lightning strike.
I want to respond. Want to make some clever, flustered remark that proves I'm not as affected as I clearly am.
But my throat is dry and my brain has apparently stopped producing coherent thoughts and all I manage is a barely audible "Thanks" before I retreat toward the bathroom like I'm fleeing a crime scene.
But before I close the door—because apparently I hate myself—I glance back.
He's watching me.
Still standing there in that towel, water still dripping, one corner of his mouth lifted in a faint, knowing smile that makes my knees weaker.
And in that instant, I remember exactly why I came here.
Not for the shower. Not really.
But because being near him is like standing on the edge of a cliff—thrilling, terrifying, and entirely impossible to resist.
I shut the bathroom door harder than necessary, lean against it, and try to remember how to breathe.
I see him when I close my eyes—every detail burned into my memory with photographic clarity.
I'm engaged I reminded myself. And yet here I am, in Nate's bathroom, using his shower, trying not to think about the fact that he's standing on the other side of this door.
I turn on the water, let it run hot—actually hot, because his water works unlike mine—and strip off my clothes. Step under the spray and close my eyes and try very hard not to think about how many times we've been in showers together.
How his hands felt on my wet skin.
How he used to press me against the tile and make me forget my own name.
I bite my lip. Hard.
I scrub at my skin harder than necessary, using his soap that smells like him, his shampoo that will make my hair smell like him, erasing any hope of pretending this didn't happen.
God, what am I doing?
I finish quickly, wrapping myself in a towel—my towel, which now smells like him, because apparently the universe is determined to torture me—and take a breath before opening the door.
The cabin is quieter now. Darker.
He must have dimmed the lights.
I pad out carefully, clutching my belongings, and find him in the kitchen area.
He's dressed now—thank god—in sweatpants and a t-shirt that somehow makes him look just as good as the fucking towel did. His back is to me, and he's pouring water into two glasses.
"Better?" he asks without turning around.
"Yeah. Thanks." My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
He turns, offers me one of the glasses, and when our fingers brush during the exchange the spark travels through my entire body.
A reminder. A warning.
"I'll get that water heater fixed tomorrow," he says, leaning against the counter.
Like we're not standing in his cabin after he was half-naked ten minutes ago.
"You don't have to—"
"Well it's either that or," he cuts me off gently, "you keep coming over here in the middle of the night to use mine. Which is also fine too, by the way."
I nod, taking a sip of water just to have something to do with my hands.
"How was your day today?" he asks.
"Good. Mia's excited.” I'm babbling again. "Marcus flew in yesterday—he's bringing his new boyfriend Alex to the shower. Apparently he's a lawyer, which is not the kind of guy I thought Marcus would end up with, but hey, when you know you know.”
He smiles—really smiles—and it transforms his face.
"Marcus with a lawyer. Never would've guessed."
"Right? But apparently it works."
We fall into silence, and it's not uncomfortable exactly, but it's heavy.
Weighted with everything we're not saying.
With the fact that I'm standing in his cabin in my pajamas with wet hair smelling like his soap. With the fact that he saw me looking at him like I wanted to devour him. With the fact that neither of us is acknowledging any of it.
"I should go," I say finally, setting down the glass. "Let you get back to... whatever you were doing."
"Reading," he says. "Very exciting evening."
"What are you reading?"
He gestures to the coffee table where a worn paperback sits face-down, holding his place.
I move closer to see the cover.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
Of course.
Of course he's reading Kundera.
Of course it's a book about impossible choices and the weight of love and whether anything we do matters when we can only live our lives once, in one direction, with no way to know if we chose right.
Of course.
"Heavy reading," I manage, trying to keep my voice light even though my chest feels tight.
"Seemed fitting." He picks it up, runs his thumb over the cracked spine. "I read it years ago. Thought it might land differently now."
"Does it?"
He meets my eyes, and there's something raw in his expression.
"Yeah. Turns out living through something changes how you read about it."
"We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come."
"You've read it?"
I read it the summer after Málaga, trying to understand how we'd gotten everything so wrong when it felt so right.
I don't tell him that.
"A while back. I forgot how similar our taste in books was," I say quietly, because apparently I'm determined to make this moment even more loaded. "We both seem to enjoy reading things that hurt."
"Remember that summer you made me read The History of Love? I didn't sleep for two days after finishing it." His voice is soft.
I do remember. I remember him lying in bed reading while I watched the way his expression changed with each page, the way he'd look up and tell me about passages that gutted him, the way we'd stay up talking about love and loss and whether anything truly permanent exists.
"That was a good summer," I say, because what else is there to say?
"Yeah." He sets the book down carefully, like it might break. "It was."
The silence that follows is heavy with memory, with all the summers we shared and all the ways we thought we'd have more time.
"Sounds like a perfect night actually," I finally manage, gesturing vaguely at the book.
He walks me to the door, and in the small space of the cabin that means we're close again.
"Nora." My name on his lips stops me at the threshold.
I turn back.
"Yeah?"
He hesitates, and I watch him war with something internally before he just shakes his head.
"Sleep well."
"You too."
I make myself walk back to my cabin, make myself not look back even though I want to, make myself close my door and lean against it and try to process what just happened.
And just as I walk through the door, my phone buzzes on the counter.
Wes
Enough of this. When are you coming home?
I stare at it for a long moment and decide not to respond.
Instead, I lie down in bed that smells like clean sheets and try not to think about what happened tonight. But I know—with absolute, terrifying certainty—that I'm in trouble.
The kind of trouble that doesn't have easy solutions.