The door closes and the shower starts, and I’m suddenly distracted by the wet slap of Josh’s clothes on the floor and stark awareness that he’s naked in there. With a clarity I’m surprised my booze-soaked brain can muster, my thoughts bend to the memory of him talking about fingering someone under the table.
Settle down, Drunk Hazel. Josh has been naked in places near you before. I used to live at his house and he was naked all the time. Josh naked isn’t interesting, right?
STOP SAYING NAKED.
I shake my head, and it makes the world tilt and then slowly right itself. Winnie appears again and licks my hand. I reach to pet her, missing her head the first time.
The shower curtain screeches open and then closed again as he climbs in, and his low groan of happiness reaches me all the way out in the living room.
The sound does weird things to me. Weird, warm, slithery things, making me suddenly very aware of the bits of my body below my waist that have been ignored for so very long.
But as soon as I’m aware of those bits, the bladder pushes its way front and center, practically punching me from the inside. LOTS OF LIQUID, it screams. I AM FULL OF GIN AND TONIC. I squeeze my legs closed, hopping around a little and cursing that I only have one bathroom and didn’t think to go before we left the restaurant. I need to get his wet clothes anyway . . . Maybe I can just sneak in and pee really quick and he’d never know I was doing anything other than taking his stuff for the dryer?
I also curse my lack of home maintenance as the doorknob creaks under my hand, and I hear the drunken slur of my voice when I warn him: “Josh, I’m coming in for your clothes.”
“Okay!” He is the happiest drunk I’ve ever known. It smells like my body wash in here, and he must notice, too, because he laughs again. “I’m going to smell like cake!”
With as much ninja stealth as I can muster, I unzip my jeans, pull them down with my underwear, and sit on the toilet, but the relief is so amazing that I let out a groan of my own before I can slap a hand over my mouth. I look in horror over at the shower curtain when it quietly squeaks open. Josh stares back at me, his jaw slack.
I yell the obvious: “I’m on the toilet!”
He laughs, his dark eyes shining with inebriation and the joy of a hot shower after a cold run through the rain. “What are you doing there?”
I frantically start shooing him back behind the curtain. “I’m peeing! Go away!”
He looks down the length of my body to my feet and back up again before diving back behind the curtain. His laugh echoes off the tiles.
I want to flush myself down this toilet. “I can’t believe you saw me peeing!”
“I saw your butt.” Clearly he wants to torture me.
“You did not!”
“And your thighs.” He speaks all garbled, as if he’s got water running over his face. “You have nice thighs, though, Hazie.”
I stand with a growl, flush with mild vengeance, wash my hands, and kick off my wet jeans, nearly falling over in the process. Bending, I pick up his wet clothing with mine and leave the bathroom to put everything in the dryer.
The faucet squeaks as Josh turns off the shower, and just as I’m leaving my bedroom in my dalmatian pajama shorts and tank, he emerges with a towel around his waist. “You said you were going to bring me a blanket.”
I pull up short, and my brain becomes a cup overturned: his words spill out onto the floor.
Josh’s bare torso is a study in lines and shadow. “I . . . what?” Even I can feel the depth of my drunken leer as my eyes find his happy trail.
“Blanket,” he prompts.
It’s relatively dark in the hall, which you’d think would be helpful. Somehow it’s just making it better. Or worse. I don’t even know anymore. “Yeah,” I mumble, “I . . . blankets.”
Silence falls over us for a few breaths. “You’re staring, Haze.”
I look up and honestly, with his jaw and sensual dark eyes and smooth, straight nose, his face is just as appealing as his bare chest. Everything about him is perfect. “Can’t you be flawed in some way?”
“Huh?”
“It feels really unfair that I get to see wildlife framed in its natural element”—I gesture to his body—“and you saw me on the toilet.”
I think he’s smiling at me but I continue to stare at his chest.
“I just. Your”—I motion to his chest and the man nipples I like a lot—“and the”—I wave vaguely to his stomach and the soft line of dark hair there. “It’s nice.” I’m mortified all over again imagining myself curled furtively over the porcelain, groaning in relief. “Toilet. So unfair, Josh.”
I don’t anticipate what he’s doing when his hand comes up to the place where the towel is tucked in around his waist until he tugs it. The blue cotton falls soundlessly to the floor, and my heart vaults up into my throat.
Josh
is
naked.
In front of me it seems like Josh has miles and miles of golden skin. I don’t even remember how to blink; he has muscles TA Josh once taught me the names of but now I just know as the Tight Curve of His Bicep, That Appealing Ridge Below His Collarbone, the Edible Eight Pack, and That Lickable Shadow Above His Hipbone.
I also notice he isn’t making any move to cover himself. Instead, he’s watching me with a cocky half smile, like he knows he’s been hiding this bit of artwork under clothes all this time and agrees I’m pretty lucky to be seeing it bare. Drunk giggly Josh is my favorite, but drunk confident Josh is my new religion.
My gaze drops lower and I realize I’ve half expected him to bend down and pick up the towel and ask for a blanket again. But in the time since I first peeked and then did a leisurely perusal of his torso, Josh has gotten . . . hard.
And, with my eyes focused on that hard part of him . . .
he goes the rest of the way.
Just watching me looking at him got him hard. I don’t even know what to do with that information. I’m afraid to blink, afraid all of this will disappear in the split second my lids close. When I look at his face, I see his mouth is open slightly. He has a question in his eyes, but he’s also looking at me in a way I imagine is similar to how I’m looking at him.
I can’t look away.
What is breathing? Why do I need to do it again?
In a rush it feels like all the elements in my body pool low, between my legs. I take a step forward, and—because I have zero impulse control when I’m sober, let alone drunk—slide my hands up and over the warm skin of his chest. His groan is barely audible. It’s not a sound I’ve ever heard him make before, but it fits him—restrained and quiet, an understated gust of relief.
In contrast, I let out a colorful string of expletives when my fingers dip into the hollows of his collarbones. Josh is so smooth and yummy. I want to dust him with sugar and lick him clean.
Apparently I’ve said it out loud, because he whispers, “You could. If you wanted.”
What?
Josh Im is giving me permission. I’m touching the unattainable.
Holy shit, what are we doing?
“This is a bad idea,” I tell him.
He nods, but his hands come up anyway, thumbs sliding beneath the elastic of my shorts, stroking my bare hipbones. He gently works my shorts down until they’re a puddle of dalmatian polka dots at my feet.