The Romance Revival(30)

He leans forward to look at it. “I wondered what that was.”

“You have about a dozen others like that.”

“I don’t know where I learned this, but I seem to recall that chicks dig scars.”

I grin up at him. “Look at you, remembering shit.”

He shrugs and gives a small, cocky grin.

“Ready?” I ask, standing.

A tiny smile flickers at the side of his mouth. “Are you going in like that?”

“Oh.” I look down at the sweatshirt and leggings I’d put on after my shower, the thick socks bunched around my ankles. “Right.”

As casually and quickly as I can, I pull my sweatshirt off, unhook my bra, peel the leggings and socks off in one go, tossing them aside. After a hiccup of hesitation, I decide to leave my underwear on. I’m aware that Luca is watching—of course he is—and I’m trying to be very cool about it, while inside I feel like a teenager walking across the pool deck in a bikini in front of a line of my peers.

Luca likes my body—Luca as my husband, at least. But what does this Luca think? Is he wondering if I’ve let myself go a bit? Does he think my thighs could be more toned? My boobs higher? I can’t think about it.

When I turn back, he looks up. Our eyes meet and hold for one second, three, five. He blinks down to my mouth and slowly back up again. He looks like he’s thinking of kissing me. My lips tingle with a sense of déjà vu. I want to stretch this moment, to think back on it when the fear and anxiety about our future bang on the door to be let back in, but the water is still running beside us, and Luca is leaning a little, worn out and growing unbalanced on his feet.

Opening the shower door, I step in, turning to carefully help him in after me. It’s not fancy, but there’s a tiled ledge on the far side of the tub that I use when I shave my legs. It’s not much of a seat, but it works in a pinch and is better than Luca trying to balance himself on slippery porcelain. I have another thought and reach out for a hand towel, coming back to carefully drape it over his lap for privacy. “Let me do us both a favor,” I say, and he huffs out a quiet laugh.

The showerhead is detachable, and I lift it out of the clamp.

“This is a little like showering with someone on the first date,” he says, and lets me guide his head back under the stream of water.

“Actually, we did shower on the first date.”

Eyes closed, he lifts his brows in silent surprise.

“We did a lot more than that,” I add.

“Oh, wow,” he says. “Little sluts.”

Laughing, I hang up the nozzle and reach for the shampoo, squeezing it into my palm, and sending my hands into his hair, scrubbing. Luca has always loved having his hair played with, and right on cue, he groans quietly, just like he always does. The sound vibrates down my spine.

Luca seems to sense a change in my posture and his eyes drift open.

My breasts are literally in front of him, and my nipples are hard now. He stares, openly, part conflicted, but also hungry. At least that hasn’t changed.

“Yeah, it was a first for us both.”

“We were virgins?” he asks, looking up at my face in shock. Sudsy water sluices down his cheeks.

This makes me laugh again and I tilt his head back to rinse. “No, no, I mean it was the first time either of us slept with a virtual stranger.”

“Must’ve been a good night if we ended up married.”

I nod, inhaling slowly. It had been a good night. So good that “good” is a comic understatement.

The obvious question follows: “How long were we together before we got married?”

I swallow, wondering how he’ll feel about my answer. “Just over two months.”

“I… Wow.”

Anxiety hardens to cement in my gut. Freshly unable to articulate to myself what Luca ever saw in me, I wonder if there’s a reality in which he might not make the same choice.

“How long have we been married?” he asks.

“Three years.”

“Were we happy?”

This question shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. “Yeah, we were. I mean… I worked a lot. But yeah. Who doesn’t, I guess.” The question sticks with me in the following silence, the rhythmic pulse of the shower playing behind it. I see myself at the office while he was home, working on the couch while Luca watched a movie, reading his texts asking when I’d be coming home. I see myself racing through traffic, late for our anniversary dinner, his body on the ground, crumpled and bleeding out. I had been happy—at least I thought I had. But then why did I have to carve out time to be with him? Why was work always first?

The obvious understanding lands: Luca hadn’t been happy. I knew it, I felt it, I put off facing it, because fuck, it hurts to stare directly at it.

Too bad, Emery.

Shaking water out of my eyes, I refocus on rinsing his hair and washing it again. “Your hair hasn’t been this long in years,” I murmur. “Not since we met.”

“How did we meet?”

“At a wedding. Your friend was the groom and my cousin was the bride. I was supposed to go with this guy, but he bailed on the trip, and I couldn’t cancel my RSVP last-minute.”

“Were you two, like, together?”

I glance down at him. I know logically he can’t be jealous about this—we’re married, and he doesn’t even remember me—but that familiar edge is in his voice, the sexy protective one that makes my knees turn to jelly and hope flare in my chest.