Chapter 11 #2
All the renovations she had done to the house held some sort of purpose, an ideal standard (within budget restrictions) that she thought guests of Donwell Cottage would enjoy.
As such, all were chosen with someone else in mind—or something else: mass appeal, profit margins, aesthetic.
She had also wanted to respect the history of the cottage in homage to Ethan’s family.
His parents hadn’t told her that was necessary, but there was a certain element of preservation she wanted to uphold.
Even in redoing the walk-out basement, transforming it from the dingy cellar it had been to the functional kitchen, laundry room, and living space it had become, she had done it all with a purpose, with minimal frills, using things that would work, things that would bring value. In other words, it wasn’t personal.
There was only one renovation she had undertaken in the entire house that was meant for her and her alone. It hadn’t been her bedroom or even the kitchen.
It had been her bathroom.
She hadn’t done much—a vanity with a long counter and lots of drawer space, a serviceable toilet, a clawfoot bathtub with shower—but it was enough to make everything else bearable. For all the other sacrifices and little luxuries she had given up for this house, at least she had her bathroom.
The water lapped lazily around her as she brooded; the image and feeling of Ethan carrying her up the hill, holding her tightly to him, refused to leave her mind’s eye.
It was so unfair of him to do this—to come back into her life after so much time had passed, with nary an apology or explanation for what had unfolded all those years ago.
To act as though things were exactly the same as they had been when they were kids and young adults, when inside jokes were their currency and they shared a comfortable closeness that only came with that kind of familiarity.
She supposed it was hard to just switch it off.
Avoiding someone was one thing; sitting beside them face-to-face and pretending there was nothing between them was another.
With a groan, she sank down so her head was under the water, releasing a few bubbles to the surface as she held her breath.
She knew she shouldn’t take too long in the tub, should just take the time to warm up a bit and clean off the dirt and mud of the forest, but then quickly get ready so Maggie could serve up dinner—what time was it, five o’clock already?
—and Ethan could have a meal after not having eaten all day.
And truth be told, so could she. Then they’d wind down for the night and wait for their guests to arrive so that they could get this week started—and over with.
But it was so tempting to stay under the water instead of facing reality, despite the hunger pangs in her stomach. So easy to float in now-tepid, lightly scented, soapy water, and forget about the pain in her ankle and the pain in her heart and just let all her worries go, if even for a moment.
Still, it wasn’t the right thing to do, and she knew it. What she needed to do—what she had to do—was get out, get dressed, and get dinner going.
Her lungs burned as they protested the length of time she’d been holding her breath. Surfacing, she gasped, taking in deep gulps of air.
The movement made her shift, and her ankle slipped into the water, tea towel and ice bag and all.
“No!” she cried softly, trying to elevate her foot again. Instead, she thunked it too hard against the side of the tub and let out a hiss of pain, watching in dismay as the towel loosened and the bag of ice fell back into the warm water.
Sighing, she fished it out and leaned forward, attempting to rewrap her foot with a now-soggy towel. When her efforts proved fruitless, she snapped the towel to the ground in frustration and called out for Maggie.
Truly, her humiliation knew no depths as she lay in the sudsy water waiting to be rescued by her housekeeper.
After a few minutes, however, only silence answered her.
“Maggie?” she tried again, calling louder this time, too loud for appropriate customer-service volume, but it didn’t matter how loud she was in terms of decency, since she was sure Ethan was all the way upstairs in his room, possibly still showering himself.
“Not Maggie.” A voice came from just inside her room, its owner hidden from her line of sight (and thankfully, vice versa), even though she didn’t need to see who it was to recognize it immediately. “But what do you need? What can I do?”
She tilted her head back until it hit the rim of the tub, harder than she’d intended. Now her head hurt and her ankle throbbed and drowning was starting to look pretty darn good at the moment.
“Nothing,” she responded, cursing the almost-imperceptible waver in her voice, hoping he hadn’t heard it. “I’m fine.”
There was a loaded silence, and she knew that he had heard it.
“How are you going to get out? Let me help you.”
She scoffed incredulously. “You’re seriously insane. This is pushing boundaries even for you. I’ll be fine, thanks, I just need you to get out of my room.”
“I won’t look, Gem, I swear. But you’re going to slip and kill yourself if you try to get out yourself, and as the proprietor of this place that’s supposed to save my career, it’s just not a good look for me.”
She rolled her eyes, biting back an amused smirk against her better judgment. “I’m actually fine. I think I can get out of a bathtub by myself.”
“Why were you calling Maggie for help, then?”
Darn. “The stupid towel wrap fell off my foot, but it’s fine. I’ll just dry off and put it back on when I’m done.”
“I’m coming in!”
She sat up with a jolt, hissing in pain as she put unwanted pressure on her leg while reaching for the towel on the chair beside the tub. “Don’t you dare—”
“I’m kidding. But seriously, let me help you.”
Exhaling sharply, she shook her head. “You’re ridiculous. Fine. Stay there. I’ll call you if a fall is imminent.”
“Deal.”
Bracing her arms on either side of the tub, she stood up slowly, careful not to apply any pressure to her bad leg.
It took a bit of maneuvering, but eventually she managed to get herself up in a tentative one-legged balance, body tense as she tried not to slip in the now-cool water.
Hazarding a quick glance, she looked through the door, which remained slightly ajar to ensure that her privacy (and dignity) remained intact.
The room appeared empty, at least from her vantage point, and really, despite the awkwardness, Ethan wasn’t exactly the Peeping Tom type and would never try to do anything without her explicit consent.
As kids growing up together, the two had seen each other in various states of undress throughout the course of their lives—some circumstances more awkward than others, she thought with chagrin—although overall she couldn’t exactly pinpoint a shyness with Ethan, at least not prior to their falling-out.
She distinctly remembered there being a time when the awareness of each other’s gender impeded their freedom to dress and undress in front of each other—for the pool, summers at the lake, quick outfit changes after school—but even then, a quick command to turn around, which was always faithfully obeyed, seemed to do the trick, and life moved on.
Now, however, the divide between them was too great. The thought of Ethan—this Ethan, this virtual stranger—seeing her in any state of undress made her feel too exposed, too vulnerable.
Gooseflesh rose on her skin as she debated her next steps.
Balancing on one leg worked decently enough for standing still, but she couldn’t exactly use that leg to vault herself out of the tub without landing ungracefully and likely painfully on the other one and resulting in an even worse predicament than she’d been in before.
She considered sitting on the edge of the tub to turn herself around and get herself out, but she had it on good authority (her own) that the extremely narrow, slippery edge wouldn’t allow her to actually sit long enough to turn without some dramatic tumble backward into the water or onto the tiles.
Standing there a few moments longer, practically hearing Ethan’s historically minimal stores of patience waning in the other room, she heaved a sigh and dipped to the side to grab the towel before hastily wrapping it around herself.
“Okay!” she called out after the briefest of hesitations.
“Okay…what?” he replied, an uncharacteristic reticence in his own voice.
“I need help. You can come in.” She cinched the towel tighter across her chest and waited, feeling the goose bumps prickling her arms and legs from the chill in the air—and maybe something more.
Something like…anticipation.
Stop, she admonished, stomach pitting with the direction her thoughts took.