Shayla picked up the hose. “I can see what I’m doing, remember. We’re definitely past the backsplash phase.” She’d already reset the hose nozzle to a slightly gentler stream in order to wet the washcloth she’d used on his ears. “It’s cold,” she warned as she squeezed it on and crouched down next to him to run it through his hair.
She used her other hand the same way he’d done, combing her fingers through hair that was both soft and thick. But unlike him, she could see what she was doing.
He’d closed his eyes—he had long, thick dark lashes that had no doubt induced jealousy in every girlfriend he’d ever had, and probably his mother, too. But the muscles in the side of his jaw were jumping, so she asked, “You okay?”
He opened his eyes. Smiled. “My day has included a literal bucket of shit.”
Shay laughed—whatever it was she’d expected him to say, it wasn’t that. And it was true. How often could you say that? Not that she’d want to repeat the experience. Ever.
“So compared to that,” he added, “I’m very okay. I really appreciate you doing this, and um—bonus. It, uh, feels…really nice.” He whispered the last words.
Shayla froze, because, yes, he had absolutely just said that. To her. While looking into her eyes.
Kiss him.
She didn’t move.
Kiss him!
She found her voice. “Well, that’s…good, at least,” she said as she shut off the hose and stood up.
What are you doing? Are you crazy? Kiss him! Kisshimkisshimkisshim! Ahhhhhhh!
She ignored Harry’s total meltdown and backed away instead. Grabbed a towel and got just close enough to hand it to Peter before she backed away again as Harry moaned, What is wrong with you?
Peter didn’t mean what he’d just said. He’d simply slipped back into—what had he called it before? His bar hookup pattern.
Peter sat up, rubbing his head with the towel.
Shayla pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. “I’m gonna…go shower myself now.”
“Right,” he said. “Of course.”
“It’ll take me about forty-five minutes,” she said. “To get ready to go to the lawyer’s office—Fiona’s aunt—Susan Smith?”
“Oh,” he said. “No. Don’t. You don’t have to. I got that. I’ll be ready myself in just a few minutes, so I’ll just…do it. Myself.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid, Harry muttered. You are so stupid, it was contagious and now he’s caught your stupidity, so he’s being stupid, too.
“Oh,” she said, unable to hide her dismay. “I thought…Well, I could hurry—”
Peter cut her off. “Really, Shayla, it’s okay. I don’t expect to get any information from the woman anyway and…You should be writing. You’ve already gone above and beyond.”
He didn’t want her to go with him.
Yeah, because he wanted you to kiss him, and you didn’t, so now he’s all “Let’s not spend an awkward hour in the car together, ’kay, thanks, bye.”
“Will you let me know if Izzy and Hans find anything in Van Nuys?” Shay asked.
“Yeah,” Peter said. “Sure. I’ll, um, text you.”
Jesus, he was stupid.
As Pete stood in his shower and washed his hair with a second handful of shampoo—for the first time in his life, he was following the directions to lather, rinse, and repeat—he marveled that he’d managed to stay alive for closing in on four decades. Someone as stupid as he was should’ve been eaten by a tiger by now. After stupidly jumping into the tiger’s enclosure at the zoo. Because that’s what stupid people did. They did a stupid, stupid thing, despite all of the signs that warned them, Don’t Do That Stupid Thing.
Shayla Whitman wanted to be friends with him. Period.
She’d made that very, very, very clear.
And just because he loved spending time with her, and just because he thought she was both cute and hot as hell, and just because the idea of her running her fingers through his hair had given him a raging hard-on…
She’d posted the sign, he’d seen it, he’d heard it, and he’d jumped in with the tiger anyway. What a fucking stupid idiot.
And his dick was even more stupid than he was. It was still at high alert. Like painfully high. Like Jesus, I’m gonna come just from her running her fingers through my hair high alert.
He’d had to close his eyes and clench his teeth, but God, he’d wanted her hands on him, all over him, wrapped around him…
As he rinsed his hair again, he looked down, and yeah. His dick was like one of those one-legged, happy air dancers, bobbing in front of the local used-car dealer. If it could talk it would be shouting, Yo, bro, we had the foreplay, it was awesome, but where’s the fucking sex?! Come on, come on, come on!
Pete closed his eyes and breathed as the water washed over him and made his elbow sting. He’d scrubbed the crap out of it—literally—as Shay had suggested.
Shay. Sit, she’d ordered with that commanding conviction that he found so utterly attractive. Ah, Jesus, thinking about her was not helping.
He focused instead on Maddie and Dingo—on his daughter maybe making him a grandfather before he turned forty, and on Hiroko who was still angry about injustices she’d faced when she was a child, on Lisa shouting that he didn’t give her what she needed, that it was his fault that she was packing up and leaving and taking Maddie with her….His sweet little Maddie, whom he loved more than he’d ever thought he could love anyone…It was his fault, his fault, his fault….
No wonder Shay had backed away.
And yeah. That did it.
Pete shut off the water and dried himself off, vowing that he would not make that same mistake again, but knowing that he was so stupid that he just might jump back in with the tiger, if he was given half a chance.
As Izzy approached the house in Van Nuys, he saw that it was locked up tight.
It wasn’t just a gone-to-work locked up, but more like gone-to-Spain-for-six-months. Shades were pulled down and dry leaves, dust, and cobwebs adorned the little porch outside the front door. Of course, not everyone used their front entrance, but as Hansie Schlossman followed him around to the back of the house, it was clear that no one had been through the kitchen door in a long time, either. The spider who’d made a web back there was big enough to give them the middle finger.
Hans exhaled something that sounded a lot like a sigh of relief, and Izzy glanced at him.
“I was not looking forward to confronting Maddie,” the younger man admitted. “I mean, yeah, she lied to me, but…” He shrugged. “I remember how hard it was. Losing my mom.”
Izzy’s bullshit meter trembled. Just a little. “Didn’t I meet your parents? At the party after Hell Week?”
“Yeah,” Hans said. “My dad came. With my stepmom.”
“She seemed nice.”
“She is,” he said. “She’s also not my mom. I mean, I love her, she’s great. And she loves the hell out of my dad. He’s happy. Maybe even happier than he ever was. I don’t know, I don’t like to think about it too hard.”