The leggings she’s wearing aren’t helping, nor is the way her stance highlights every tensed muscle in her legs. Nor are the effortful grunts she’s making as she reaches for whatever it is she’s—
“Aha!” Andi says, finally coming back to earth, holding something up and grinning. “I knew it!”
I squint into the darkness of the pantry, because her flashlight is unhelpfully pointed at the ceiling.
“Bubble bath!” she says, and her smile’s a confection, even in the odd light. “I think, at least. The label’s kinda worn off.”
She hands it to me and comes out of the pantry. The label is so old it’s just white. This bubble bath might remember the Reagan administration.
“There’s no way this still bubbles,” I tell her, but Andi just shrugs, still grinning.
“Only one way to find out,” she says, and before I know it, she’s leaning in to kiss me on the cheek, lighting my entire face on fire. “Thanks.”
Then she’s gone, the bathroom door closing behind her, and I’m out here not thinking about her being naked and slick and warm in the—fuck.
I’m pacing. It’s stupid, but I’m pacing, because Andi’s currently taking a bath—she is taking a bath for fuck’s sake—and I’ve been wondering all day how to make last night happen again, but I feel like I’m trying to negotiate in a language I barely speak.
I have, technically, done this before. I’ve been naked with women and brought them to orgasm, thanks, and I’ve enjoyed myself, but I’ve never before spent a full five minutes staring at a rock and thinking about the exact texture of someone’s nipple against my lips. I didn’t even realize it was an option.
What if I just—knocked. To see if she needs anything. I go before I can think better of it.
For a moment I pause at the bathroom door, my forehead against the wood, because—I don’t know. I don’t know where I am and I don’t know where I’m going and this is familiar, too, finding myself somewhere new and unknown, side-by-side with Andi. Up until now I’ve understood relationships as a progression, as this and then that, neat steps toward a logical endpoint. This feels like diving off a cliff.
“Come in,” she calls when I knock, and I stick my head in.
Andi’s somehow gotten the bubbles piled high, over the rim of the tub in places, head poking out of one end, the pale knobs of her knees barely visible underneath suds. The room’s warm and humid and smells of something fruity and floral that I can’t place.
“Hey,” I say, and clear my throat. Then I clear it again. “You need anything?”
Andi looks around the bathroom for a long moment, eyes darting, like she’s trying to find something and can’t.
“Yes!” she finally says, and points so hard with one arm that water splashes out of the tub. “That washcloth over there. Please?”
I close the door and grab the washcloth, and when I turn back to her she’s got her arms folded on the edge of the tub and suds piled on one shoulder and she’s pink from the heat of the water. All my thoughts pop like a soap bubble. From somewhere, I dredge the last of my bravery.
“Want me to get your back?” I finally ask.
“Would you?”
“Why do you think I offered?” I mutter, but it’s on autopilot because yes, I would, of course I would, so I fold the bathmat in half, pull my sweater off, and kneel next to the tub so we’re face-to-face.
“Hi,” Andi says, and her hair’s wet and secured on top of her head in some kind of bun and she’s naked under the water, her skin shining and slick, faint freckles on her cheeks and along the tops of her shoulders and she’s smiling at me like we’ve got a secret. I’m certain my heart’s never beat this hard before.
“Hi,” I echo, the only word that comes to mind.
There’s a few moments of perfect, quiet stillness before I put one finger under her chin and kiss her. She’s warm and pliable and up close she smells even more like a soap store in a mall, but in a good way.
“Turn around,” I say, when we break the kiss and she does, the water sloshing around in the tiny tub. When her back’s to me there are freckles on the back of her neck, darker than the ones on her shoulders, a few small moles dotting the expanse of skin. I push up my sleeves and run a thumb over one, soft and slightly raised.
“You should get these checked out. Just in case,” I say, and then her head dips and her shoulders shake and I sigh. “Shut up,” I mutter, but I’m smiling.
“No,” Andi says, and I run the washcloth across her back.
Her skin turns even pinker everywhere I rub her in slow, careful circles: around her shoulder blades, over her shoulders, down her spine and under the bubbles. The back of her neck. I go over every inch of her skin twice, and when I don’t have that excuse any more, I abandon the washcloth to the tub and slide my bare hand over her skin. She’s hot and wet and there’s no room left in my brain for anything but this, at least not until she leans back, settling against the side of the tub.
The knob of her neck is right there, freckled and bright pink, and I press my lips against it. It’s impossibly warm and wet and slippery and Andi says oh softly, but it’s loud in the quiet bathroom. She tilts her head back over the edge of the tub against my shoulder and looks at me, face pink and lips parted and eyes half question mark, half invitation.
“Thank you,” she says, my heart beating so hard I fear for my ribcage.
“Of course,” I say, and flatten my palms against her shoulders, the tips of my fingers just below her collarbone, warm and slippery and pink with heat. My brain’s half the feeling of slick, soft skin below my fingers and half a cloud of roiling anxiety telling me I don’t know what I’m doing and also that I like it, so I shouldn’t.
“Anything else?” I ask, and Jesus, that sounds like I’m ringing her up at a gas station mini-mart. “I mean, do you need more help… bathing?”
“Are you offering?” she asks, and turns her head, nosing along my neck.
I think of at least five variations on you’re a dirty girl and they’re all awful. Christ, how do people do this?
“My sleeves are already rolled up,” is the thing that comes out of my mouth, and Andi starts laughing, the sound bouncing around the tiny bathroom, the buzz of it under my fingertips. I bite back a smile and draw a circle on her skin with one fingertip. “I’m just saying, I’m prepared and willing to get elbow-deep.” I clear my throat. “In the water.”
“As long as it doesn’t inconvenience you,” she teases, sliding a warm, wet hand around the back of my neck. “While you’re here, may as well help me finish bathing. It’s only practical.”
“Otherwise, I rolled my sleeves up for nothing,” I agree.
“Can’t have that,” she says, and settles herself against the side of the tub with a wriggle I’m going to think about forever. “Wash me off, Gideon, I’m such a dirty girl. Wow, that sounded different in my head.”
I can’t help but snort, my face against her wet hair, and Andi sighs but she leans against my shoulder again, head back. It wipes my brain clean, water and skin and heat and the floral, fruity scent that will probably give me a Pavlovian erection for the rest of my life, and—the anxiety cloud is gone. Not gone. Smaller. In a corner.