“You’ll get used to the funk,” he teased, taking off his own hairnet (which looked almost as good on him as it did on me) and scratched at his hair, extra curly after cooking under the nylon all day.
“I wouldn’t count on it. I’ll be lucky to ever eat Comté again! You may have ruined me.” I sighed, sucking in big gulps of the fresh air. I was feeling a little queasy. Cheese making was long, backbreaking work, and I’d never take it for granted again.
I also might need to modify my Dream Cupboard to reflect less cheese making and more cheese eating. Fingers crossed. Because right now, the last thing I wanted was—
“Oh, I almost forgot. Since I can’t really pay you for today, I’ve got a surprise.” From behind his back, he pulled out a paper bag with Bailey Falls Creamery stamped on the outside, with the signature blue and white gingham wrapping peeking out from inside. “Your favorite Brie.”
I threw up on his boots. The ones I was wearing, luckily . . .
“I threw up on your boots.”
“You sure did.”
“I mean, my God, I threw up on your boots! For fuck’s sake, how embarrassing!” I moaned, covering my face with the damp towel he’d brought me. One thought about Brie, the tiniest whiff, and out came the pancakes from earlier that morning. I could just die.
After making sure I wasn’t about to barf again, he’d driven me to his house, and tucked me into a rocking chair on the front porch with a glass of water and the cool towel.
“I don’t even know what happened! It was just, like, no more funk.”
“It happens.”
He said everything in that matter-of-fact, easygoing way. I’d thrown up all over the place, and he took it in stride as though I’d just dropped a bag of pretzels or something.
Was that his game? Acting like nothing bothered him, no skin off my nose, nothing was a big deal? Was not playing games his game?
Before I could ruminate on this for very long, the wind shifted and I got a strong whiff of . . .
“P to the U,” I groaned, pinching my nose.
“You get used to it. They’re just cows.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s me. I’m downwind of me, and all I can smell is vomit. I need to get back to Roxie’s so I can shower.”
He rocked back and forth on his heels, seeming to ruminate on something himself. “I’ve got a shower here. I’ve even got some flowery soap that girls like.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” I asked. Was it left over from Missy? Hell, who gives a shit? “What kind of soap do you use?”
“Lava.”
“Of course you do.” I sighed, stretching out in the rocking chair, not feeling sick at all anymore. “I suppose I could shower here. It does present a problem, though.”
“Problem?”
“Mmm-hmm. I’ll be naked. And you won’t be.”
He shook his head. “I must not have been clear. If you’re showering, I’m showering.”
My skin tingled. “That makes sense. Water conservation, being a good host—all those things.”
“Plus, you’ll be naked. And wet.”
I blinked. “Why are we still talking about this, instead of doing it?”
I stood in his bathroom, letting the water warm up while brushing my teeth with my finger and then swishing with half a bottle of Scope I’d found in the medicine chest. I rinsed once more, just as the steam was starting to fog up the mirror. It was an old-fashioned bathroom, with a makeshift shower suspended over a claw-foot tub, which I’d bet someone’s last dollar was original to the house.
I never bet with my own money.
He knocked at the door just as I was slipping out of my clothes, and I turned to look at him over my shoulder as he peeked his head around, his eyes covered with his hands.
“You decent?”
“Far from it,” I replied.
His answering grin was slow and sweet. He uncovered his eyes just as I let my smock hit the floor, and I loved the way they lit up at the sight of me, naked and ready for the shower.
“Nice,” he murmured.
I did love how he said exactly what was on his mind.
“Did you have this in mind when you asked me over here today?” I asked.
He closed the door, stepped toward me, then pulled his shirt off over his head. “You mean, when I invited you over to teach you how to make cheese only so you could vomit on me? All in the hopes of getting you naked and wet in my shower?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I knew it.”
He unzipped his jeans, pushed them down, and stepped out of them, leaving him as naked as I was, but with one beautiful difference.
“You’re hard.” I gulped.
“I’ve been hard all damn day.” And with that he lifted me straight up and over the edge of the tub, under the spray of the water.
“That must have been terrible,” I teased as he closed the pink rose shower curtain around us. “I like the flowers, by the way.”
“What flowers?”