Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
A vi stayed until the candles had gone out completely, then retreated to his room. He could see how exhausted Leah was from the unexpected detours of the day, starting with him.
At least the place had hot water. The radiators were just starting to trickle out heat, but the water pressure in the shower more than compensated. Stripping quickly, he jumped in. His skin prickled from the warmth, starting at the back of his neck and buzzing up to his skull. The long, low groan he emitted echoed off the tiled walls.
Almost as euphoric as…
No, do NOT think about orgasms with Leah Gellman – and all that rugelach – in the next room.
He squeezed his eyes shut and scrubbed shampoo through his hair. Then moved methodically down his body with the soap bar before rinsing and toweling dry with a thick white towel.
The proprietors certainly had the place well-stocked. Maybe they had more business come summer. But for now, he was pretty sure he and Leah were the only ones occupying the entire place.
Avi tilted his head to one side, towel-drying his hair before flipping it back out of his face. He imagined the long row of locked rooms, ready and waiting. Not unlike parents, keeping unused bedrooms made up in case their adult children journeyed home for the holidays with their own families. Keeping everyone under one roof.
Not that Avi had been home for Hanukkah in the last decade.
He dressed quickly in the lingering steam of the enclosed room. Not jazzed about getting back into his chocolate-smeared shirt and the same boxers, but at least his bits were clean.
A tentative knock came on the adjoining door.
Leah stood there, encased in her entire bedspread like it was a Bedouin robe. Peeking out from beneath it, she peeped, “I’m too cold to sleep.”
“Come’ere.”
She shuffled over to him, and he reached his arms out. “May I?”
She nodded, permitting him to rub his hands vigorously up and down both of her arms she kept pinned to her side. “Friction,” he explained. “Kinetic energy converting to thermal energy.”
“Yay, more science.”
He laughed, letting the motion and effort warm both of them.
Leah let the blanket loosen a bit. Underneath, he could see she was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with Peace, Love, and Mahjong across the front, pink fleece bottoms, and thick socks.
“This is great and all, but…we can’t very well stand here all night.”
True. But he wasn’t sure how she would take the only other solution he could think of.
“Can I propose another approach…purely scientific?”
His dick and dirty mind might beg to differ whether or not there was anything pure or scientific once she crawled in bed with him.
But he took that chance, sliding under the covers and holding them up for her to be enveloped.
“Sharing body heat. You can leave your schmatta on if you’re more comfortable.”
“ Schmatta ?” Leah sputtered in mock outrage, flapping the blanket like bat wings. “I’ll have you know; floral plaid is the new black.”
Still, she opted for unwrapping, draping it on top of Avi’s bedspread before climbing in, her back to him. That curtain of dark hair, now spiraled up in a fat bun and resting on the pillow, was temptingly close. “Is it now the same amount of heat, just shared between two people? Or does it only increase the heat of the less warm person?”
“Um…neither?”
“Explain it,” she demanded, rolling to face him. “Explain it like I’m five.”
“We lose energy at our surface; heat radiates away from us. Currently, we are two bodies, double the surface area.” He patted the space between them. “Nothing’s really changing. Right?”
Leah nodded into her pillow, and he took it as a cue to continue.
“If two bodies make contact,” – she snuggled in a little closer at his words – “and touch…”
Her hands pressed tentatively to his chest, cool against the thin fabric of his T-shirt. Avi glanced down, amused. “Are we demonstrating?”
She shrugged. “I’m a hands-on learner.”
He covered them with his own. “Now we’re decreasing the surface area.” His bent knees bumped hers. “Less heat loss…with the same heat production.”
“Damn,” she whispered. “Where were you when I was failing Chemistry?”
Avi pretended to think. “Probably practicing for my Battle of the Bands debut.”
His quip totally earned that playful kick to his shin. Worth it .
Someone had to say something. Leah’s mind scrambled for something to cling to, anything that would keep her from falling into his dark amber eyes with those impossible lashes. Falling onto that top lip that seemed just ripe for kissing.
“Just so you know, when I get too warm…I’m a sleep-stripper.”
“A what?” The laugh he sputtered ruffled a stray lock that had fallen loose from her bun. He was that close.
“Surely it’s more common than sleepwalking…taking off layers in the night without waking? It’s definitely a woman thing.”
“Um, I think it’s a Leah Gellman thing.”
That’s right, I’m sure he’s slept with a lot of women . Willing test subjects of some scientific theory or another. For all that uncountable consummation. They probably didn’t have to sleep strip because they hopped right into his bed, already hot and naked.
And here Leah was, crawling into his bed in fleece and wool socks.
A Leah Gellman thing . A surprise well of tears sprang to the surface
“I’m sorry.” She turned quickly so he wouldn’t witness her mortification.
Avi scoffed at her apology. “You’re hardly Mother Nature.”
“You’d be on a nice warm tour bus if it wasn’t for me.” If she hadn’t killed time at the mall or bothered paying that condolence call to Hattie, Avi may have actually had a chance to catch up with his bandmates. “You’d already be in New York City.”
“Are you kidding? If it weren’t for you, I might still be sitting at that rest stop, curled up with my beef jerky.”
That admission, at least, halted the flow of tears. He rubbed her shoulders, either out of consolation or to generate more body heat. Either way, it felt infinitely better than chastising herself. “Honestly, I’d rather be here.”
Leah waited for Avi to elaborate, but he said no more. He continued making slow revolutions with his palms on her shoulder blades until the motion – like the push and pull he had described of the ocean – finally lulled her to sleep.
It was all so unexpected. The detours, the delays…the utter frustration of being paired with this not-so-much-a-stranger; turning into an easy comradery once the sun went down. Once the candles were lit.
But having all that morph into this – this supercharged feeling he couldn’t put words to? Tender. Jangly guitar power chords bounced between his ears like a one-two punch. Tender is the Night.
Leah had him living in a catchy Jackson Browne song, where he just wanted to hold her tight. So he did. Finally feeling her body, tense from the cold, the driving, and the re-hashing of old memories, gently relax against him. She sighed, shifting slightly in her sleep.
Suddenly, Avi felt a breeze as something – a sock? – passed by, just inches from his nose. Sure enough, a second one sailed overhead and onto the floor.
He held in a laugh. You weren’t supposed to wake sleepwalkers, right? He wondered if the same went for sleep-strippers. He turned on his side, away from Leah, as warm toes brushed against his calf. Good thing she warned me.
Next, she wriggled out of something that landed with a soft thud at the foot of the bed. Her sweatshirt, apparently; he felt bare arms pull him close like he was her life-size teddy bear. Her breasts, loose under the thin material of whatever she’d layered beneath the bulky pullover, mashed against his back.
Surface area markedly decreased.
He had to think about science. Or kittens in baskets. Or grandmothers holding kittens in baskets. If he thought about the situation at hand – and how close her hands were to –
Did the Bit O’ Honey have vibrating beds after all? The mattress was shaking. No, just Leah – shimmying out of her fleece bottoms. She rolled a little away from him, taking heat with her.
This wasn’t the worst Leah Gellman thing he’d had to deal with. But Avi knew if she even so much as slipped a smooth bare leg between his, he was gonna lose it.
No matter what he’d told her earlier about his willpower.
But she had that doctor date waiting for her in New York, and he respected the guy code – mostly. More than that, he didn’t want to give her another reason to resent him by ruining her plans.
He carefully slid out of bed, making sure she stayed covered with the blankets and headed to the adjoining room to try to get some sleep.