Chapter Ten
Turns out…pretty complicated.
“C’mon,” I beg the hard-water-stained silver handle.
“Please, just give me two minutes of hot water. That’s it.
That’s all I need. Nothing much. That’s basically a trial period.
A really short one. And I’ll give you a raving review.
I’m great at writing those. Fantastic even.
Everyone will want to shower here soon.”
But the water keeps dripping cold, and yes, dripping. Boone could stand to invest in a new showerhead. I’ve been standing outside the shower, wrapped in the small blue towel Boone retrieved for me, for around five minutes now. The pipes are stubborn, but they aren’t quite as stubborn as I am.
I jiggle the handle again, more to the left than the right just like Boone instructed.
Finally, the water warms from freezing to tepid. I’ll take it.
“Thank you!” I exclaim before dropping my towel and stepping into the bathtub carefully as it groans beneath my weight. Nothing like a moaning piece of plastic to make you feel the weight of the world on your shoulders and your bones.
The water, while more frigid than I’d like, feels cleansing, and I breathe a sigh of relief, but the relief soon turns to panic as the temperature heats to a boil that feels as if it’s melting my epidermis right off me.
I scream, more loudly than I’d like, before I try to dodge the splattering lava to jostle the knob again, except I must jiggle it too harshly to the right because the lava quickly turns to what feels like frozen bullets tearing through my flesh.
I scream again.
And again.
And to my dismay…again.
“Kate?! Are you okay?” Boone shouts from the other side of the bathroom door.
I jiggle the knob again while yelling, “I’ll be fine!”
But I’m not fine, because I jostle too hard again, and the showerhead quickly swaps to raining down fire. Before I can stop it, another scream escapes through my lips, which are still trembling from the icy water that had begun to numb me through.
“I’m coming in!” Boone announces.
“No! Don’t come in!” I yell, arguing while nudging the faucet again, praying it’ll finally submit to my own stubbornness. It can’t win. Not today. Not like this. Not naked in a-man’s-I-really-don’t-know-much-about-besides-he-makes-a-fantastic-coffee-and-has-chickens’s shower.
But the pipes don’t give up. In fact, they seem to stand firm in their hardheadedness. So, I pull once more, but I must pull too hard because while the handle is still in my hand, it is no longer attached to the wall, and I’m stumbling backward, ramming into the back of the shower.
I hear the bathroom door slam open and Boone yell, “Kate!”
On my descent down, I reach out with my other hand for the shower curtain covered in bears and trees, trying to wrap myself in it. I need some of my dignity to stay intact.
I hear a lot of things: the thud of my body as it hits the fiberglass, the ripping of the shower curtain as it tears through the shower rings from the force of my weight, the sound of Boone’s heavy footsteps as he runs toward me, and what I can only imagine is the cackling of the pipes as water continues to pour down on me…
finally at a temperature that feels perfect.
Because of course.
“Kate, are you all right?” Boone is speaking, but one of his large hands is covering his eyes. “I’m not going to look until you give me the okay.”
My neck is throbbing from the way it’s angled against the tub, but I glance down at my body, which is thankfully completely covered. “You can look.”
Boone’s eyes open, quickly assessing the situation. He steps over toward the shower wall, seeing that the faucet handle is missing. “What happened?”
“I jiggled too hard,” I mumble, trying to sit up but wincing as I do.
“Whoa. Easy, Kate. Let me help you,” he says as he bends over me to try to scoop me up, letting the water soak through his flannel shirt.
“No! I’m fine. Don’t touch me!” I exclaim. I don’t want his bare hands to find my bare skin that is most likely bruised beneath this shower curtain.
He freezes at my words. “Okay, so how do you want me to help you?”
I extend the handle that I’m still holding onto and nod my head toward the water.
“Got it,” he replies as he takes the handle, fitting it back over some metal part that it had broken free from. Within seconds, he manages to attach the handle and turn the water off.
“Thank you.” I sigh, trying to sit up, but this time my wince turns into a whine, and Boone is soon on his knees beside me. “I’m okay.”
“You are not okay,” he contends. “You need to let me help you, Kate.”
“I feel like all I’ve done is create problems with which you need to help me,” I complain, because it’s true.
This is not like me. At all. My brother was right when he said I was usually a damsel that was doing all the distressing.
I don’t need help, and I sure don’t get myself into situations that make me have to ask for it.
“That’s not true. You’ve helped me, too,” Boone argues. “You just helped me make an omelet.”
“Really? That’s the best you’ve got to ease my mind? A stupid omelet,” I groan.
“To be fair, it was a really good omelet.” Then his lips curve up in that gut-warming smile of his, and I can’t help but smile back. He’s also soaking wet, water dripping from his beard.
“Okay, fine. It was a really good omelet. So, how are we going to do this?” I ask.
“I can close my eyes as I pick you up?” he suggests.
“Um, no. Going in blind is not the answer,” I say sternly through gritted teeth, trying to conceal the stinging pain pulsing up my spine to my neck.
“Okay, well what do you suggest?”
He’s looking at me, not at my body but into my eyes, and I truly do appreciate that he is focusing there instead of anywhere else. “Do you have gloves?”
Frown lines soon dent into his face. “Of course.”
“Okay, so go put those on, and I’ll do my best to wiggle this shower curtain around my body. Then you can help gently lift me out of this tub, and I can assess what is hurting.”
He tilts his head, and I can tell he has questions, but instead of asking them, he dutifully stands up and leaves the bathroom to retrieve gloves. Gloves that will keep him from touching my skin, because honestly, I’m not afraid of him touching me—I’m afraid of how I might feel if he does.
And what is the popular saying? Catch flights, not feelings? I’ll be on a plane in just a couple days, and I don’t need to have any feelings keeping me grounded.
He promptly returns with mittens on. “Ready?”
“I suppose so,” I mutter.
Boone carefully slips his gloved hands under my body, which is clothed in the shower curtain that I’ve managed to create into a more modest dress than most girls wear to prom. Stylish, too. I mean, who wouldn’t want to wear a dingy dress with bears on it?
As he lifts me slowly, I try not to wince when my head wobbles, but Boone notices.
“What’s wrong?” he asks with a slight panic to his breath.
“It’s my neck,” I groan.
“Lean into me,” he replies.
“What?” I ask, more panic to my breath than there was to his.
“Lay your head on my chest. I’ve got you,” he clarifies.
And while I know my neck will dull in its throbbing if I do, I’m not sure my heart will do the same. But I reluctantly lean in because I’m afraid the pain in my neck will make me cry if I don’t, and I’m not crying in front of this man. After all, I’m not a mope.
I feel my heart begin to pulse against my thin skin as I rest against Boone’s chest and inhale the strength of him, and as I do, I swear I feel the tempo of his heart pick up its pace, too.