The size of the tub matched the house.
It had to be to accommodate him and made it easy to wrap my legs around him.
It made it even easier to hold him.
Ramses angled his big body back into my arms as I scooped cups of water over his broad chest, his large shoulders. I followed the muscled surface down to his biceps, lacing our fingers once I got there. There was something incredibly intimate about this besides the obvious, and we’d been in the bath so long the water wasn’t even warm anymore.
He’d said that was what he wanted to do.
He’d wanted to bathe together, be together, and we hadn’t even had sex. We just were, and I’d be lying to say I wasn’t worried. His text messages had been so off, and we never met up in Maywood Heights. I had my reservations about it. Small town, people talked. True, people around here didn’t know me from Adam, but they knew him. A mere description and Evie would know exactly who had strolled down the sidewalk with him.
Went to his house.
I held him, hugging his chest. He’d been silent so long, smelled like heaven. I mouthed kisses across his neck, and something deep and carnal radiated from his chest. He held my hand, his forehead grazing my chin.
“I got in an argument with my mom today,” he said. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “A pretty bad one.”
My throat constricted and almost immediately. An argument?
With Evie?
Basically instantly, I thought the argument surrounded us. That maybe she found out about us somehow. We’d been careful. We didn’t even meet on campus. Just at his duplex and for our jogs, of course.
Had it been that?
All kinds of scenarios traveled in my head, and in my silence, Ramses tilted his head back. He cupped a hand to the entire right side of my face, his smile faint as he pushed it up into my hair. He was a complete god, skin moist from our bath and muscled frame oozing of sex. I was even getting used to his hair, which he still kept short. He shifted in the bath. “It wasn’t about us if that’s what you’re thinking.” He laughed light. “She doesn’t even know about us, Bri.”
He kissed me as if to assure me, and as my guard loosened and anxiety faded, I felt like a complete ass for even thinking that. For defaulting to that. He’d said he and his mom got into an argument, and freaking immediately, I’d made whatever that regarded about me.
I was an ass.
I was selfish and definitely when it came to him. I had him all to myself, in my own little world with him like I had that right.
“I’m sorry.” I nudged his cheek with my nose, because I was sorry. So damn sorry for being selfish. I gripped my wrist around his front. “What happened? I mean…”
I had no right to that information either, to butt in, especially when it came to the private relationship he had with his mom. Neither was me knowing appropriate, either. She was my friend, and I had to draw the line somewhere.
I lifted my hand. “You don’t have to tell me. That’s private.”
He sat with that, the candles he’d lit flickering waves across his golden skin. He’d lined the tub with them, this whole thing romantic, soothing. I wasn’t quite sure he’d been aiming for the former. The ambiance brought this whole room peace and maybe that’d been something he needed. We could only see each other through the warm light with the lights off.
Like stated, all this was incredibly intimate.
The conversation somehow embed that way as well. Ramses’s hand circled my arm. He ran it up and down, sliding along my damp flesh.
“Ask me about it.” He angled a look up at me again. “Ask and I’ll tell you. I want to tell you.”
He did?
We definitely didn’t operate that way. In fact, when we told each other stuff, it simply spilled out like word vomit. It’d never been by choice. Like the need to tell each other our innermost thoughts and secrets just pulled from each other. Like our bodies knew to trust the other.
Even when our brains didn’t.
This was a new level, actually initiating that trust without frenzy or panic. I touched my chin to his shoulder. “I only want to know if you want to tell me.”
He extended his neck, staring up at the ceiling. He shifted and the water sloshed, looking at me. “I want to tell you. So, ask me.”
Something scared me about his statement. I didn’t know why, but it did.
It reminded me of that day I’d caught December at his house, this feeling of impending doom I couldn’t identify.
In this case, fight or flight surrounding something more internal. That something was happening here, and I wasn’t sure if I should stop it.
Or if I wanted to.
He laced our fingers, and I swallowed.
“Please tell me?” I asked, because I did want to know. I wanted to know everything. Everything about him he could give. I hugged him. “I want to know.”
And so, he did.
He told me details about him and his mother, the argument, of course, but something else too. He told me about his father, and something Evie had never shared. I’d never pressed her about it. I mean, people got divorced every day.
But this?
“My father is in prison for covering up a murder,” he said, tugging my arms in like he was holding me and not the other way around. Like it wasn’t him who needed the security, the warmth and love. He wet his lips. “The murder of my best friend’s sister. December’s sister.”
My God.
“It happened in high school,” he said, nodding. “And I left this town. Haven’t seen my father in years.”
He went on to say it’d been his uncle to commit the murder, Ramses’s old headmaster from his school, and the story surrounding was like something off of Dateline.
As well as the stuff of nightmares.
It was Ramses’s nightmare in real life, December’s nightmare. They’d come into each other’s lives because of all that had happened.
They’d somehow become best friends.
They had such a deep history, and one I hadn’t understood. They really were here for the other.
And God, Ramses.
His mom was pushing him to see his dad, get closure. His dad wanted to see him, and the retelling made his chuckle dry.
“He actually said he did it for family back then,” Ramses said now, smirking. Though, he found nothing funny. In fact, most of his story he’d been in a far-off place, eyes vacant, voice hollow. He encircled my wrist. “Before the trial and all that, family. He said he had to protect us. My uncle Leo, my mom and me and the family’s image.” He shook his head. “He said he’d do anything.”
My chest hurt, physically pained but only for him. I squeezed him. “How is December?”
“She’s fine. Well, as fine as she can be.” His chest rose with weighted breath. “Time has passed. That helped.”
But still.
I closed my eyes before facing him. “Will you see him?” My knuckles ghosted his cropped hair. “You don’t have to, you know.”
“Maybe I should.” His smile was faint. “Get that closure. My mom’s probably right. It’s plaguing me. Makes me do stupid things.”
He didn’t go into that, but really, he didn’t have to. In all honesty, I had no idea why he was telling me any of this at all. He most certainly didn’t have to.