Of course, what he’d meant to lose his mind about was his current situation: shirtless, covered in algae, forced to share a bathroom with an employee he couldn’t stop staring at. So many layers of inappropriate and uncomfortable and just not right. He should’ve been turning this awful night over in his head for hours.
Instead, Jacob leaned against the bathroom door and heard the rush of water over what must be Eve’s naked body, and lost his mind in an entirely different way.
Admiring your mouth. Fuck. Fuck. He wanted to ask himself what that meant, but even to a serial overthinker there was only one possible answer. It was very straightforward, really. She liked his mouth. She’d claimed to be messing about, but Jacob didn’t believe her. He didn’t know why. He was hardly an expert in reading people—quite the fucking opposite.
But still, he didn’t believe her. He just didn’t.
So this, then, was the state of things: Eve liked his mouth, disliked the things that came out of it, and was currently naked in his shower.
That last part wasn’t meant to be relevant, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Jacob was staring at the wall, tapping the fingers of his left hand against his thigh in a rapid rhythm, when the lock behind him clicked again. He had just enough time to straighten up and turn around before the door swung open to reveal Eve. There she stood in nothing but a towel—one of his towels—her shoulders bare and glistening with water, her braids piled on top of her head and dripping wet. The scent of lemon hung about her like a cloud, and something low in his gut clenched like a fist. She’d used his soap. There were three different kinds of body wash in the shower, just in case Jacob ever felt like changing things up, but he rarely did, so the lemon one was way emptier than the mint or the raspberry. She must have seen that, she must have noticed that, but she’d used the lemon anyway.
She’d used his soap.
Jacob knew there was nothing strange about that fact, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, it joined the list of things in his head that he couldn’t get rid of.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I didn’t break anything.” Which is when Jacob realized looming in the bathroom doorway wasn’t a normal thing to do.
“Sorry,” he muttered, and stepped aside. “Listen—my room is down there. I put some clothes on the bed for you. Get . . .” His cheeks heated, his voice catching on the words, though fuck only knew why. “Get dressed. And, you know, go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Um,” she said, “about that—” But she’d made the mistake of leaving the bathroom, which meant Jacob could enter the bathroom. He did so, quickly, and shut the door fast and firm behind him. Then he leaned against that door—again—and blamed the steam in the room for the fever rushing through his body. When he closed his eyes all he could see was Eve’s bare shoulders, water droplets winking like diamonds in the light.
And her smile. He could see that, too.
* * *
It took a long, burning-hot shower to scald away whatever weirdness was messing with Jacob’s head. But by the time he was clean—properly clean, his skin fizzing with it—he felt like himself again. Normal. Balanced. In control. Not in danger of fixating on any part of his employee’s anatomy. Excellent.
Then he left the bathroom, entered the bedroom, and found her sitting at the end of his bed. In his clothes. His soft, white T-shirt pulled tight over her chest, his basketball shorts practically cut into her thighs, and Jesus Christ he hadn’t thought any of this through.
He could see her nipples beneath the thin fabric of the T-shirt. Shit. That wasn’t supposed to happen.
She looked down, presumably following his line of sight, then back up at him. Without hesitation, she threw a pillow at his head.
Jacob cleared his throat, averted his gaze, and said with complete sincerity, “Thank you.”
“Yes, you’re welcome, I am a goddess of mercy. Were you staring at my tits?”
“No,” he said honestly. She really ought to ask more specific questions. “What are you doing here? I told you to go home.”
“Hm, yes, about that—”
“Could you just . . . get out, for a minute?” he cut in. “I’m tired and I really want to put some clothes on.” And you’re making me dizzy. You and your eyes and your body and everything I know about you now, it’s all making me dizzy. That disorientation sharpened his words and his expression. Eve, most likely offended by his shortness, pressed her lips together and left.
Which was the desired result. So why the fuck did he feel deflated as soon as she’d gone? It was the puppy effect, again. Jacob didn’t want to kick her, and so when he did, he felt the urge to apologize. With a sigh of resignation, he threw on some pajamas and rushed out of his room, hoping to catch her before she disappeared to wherever the hell it was she lived. But when he opened the bedroom door she was standing right there in his hallway, staring at the picture on the wall.
So he hadn’t kicked too hard; he hadn’t hurt her too badly or scared her off entirely. Perhaps she was starting to understand that most of the time, his sharpness had more to do with himself than anyone else. He released a pent-up breath and moved to stand beside her, staring at the picture just like she was.
What did she see?
Well; he knew what she saw. Aunt Lucy, and Jacob, and his cousin Liam, clustered together at the pointless “graduation” ceremony their sixth form held, like some American school in a glossy film. Except this was Skybriar, so there hadn’t been gowns or caps and the blocky comprehensive building sat in the background of the photograph like a crumbling spaceship. Jacob looked stiff and uncomfortable, because he had felt stiff and uncomfortable. Lucy looked proud, and also short, standing between two teenage boys like that. Liam was grinning at the camera like some kind of supermodel because he was a prat.
So that was what Eve saw. But what did she see? Must be something beyond a family photo, judging by the expression on her face. It was soft, her eyes like melting chocolate, her mouth a gentle curve. Her hair was still up, and for once, she wasn’t wearing her AirPods. She had small ears that stuck out slightly. He had the strangest urge to flick them, which made no sense at all.
Then she said, “You grew up with Lucy, didn’t you?”
Jacob ran his tongue over the inside of his teeth. “I met Lucy when I was ten.”
Eve nodded before pointing at Liam. “Is that your brother?”
“Cousin. Liam. He’s away right now. For work.”
“Oh.” She paused. “So Lucy really is your aunt. I mean—a relative kind of aunt, not a mum’s friend kind of aunt. Because you and your cousin look so alike.”
Jacob stared. “We don’t look alike.” Liam was handsome and charming and probably could’ve played the badboy love interest on a daytime soap opera if he hadn’t been born to play with engines instead. Jacob saw the family resemblance, but he knew he was sharper and harsher and altogether more awkward in a way that drained the handsomeness right out of him.
But Eve frowned as if he wasn’t making sense and said, “What? You’re practically identical. You see that, right?”
Jacob tried to compute the many implications of that statement and developed a small headache that encouraged him to stop. “You thought Lucy wasn’t my aunt?”