Page 30 of Maid For Each Other
“Why is that a measurement?”
“Because whenever you try to use the hot tub at a hotel there’s always some stupid sports team in there…?”
“Oh. Yeah,” she said, and I knew she was nodding. “Why are they always there?”
“No idea. Hey, you can put bubbles in a whirlpool tub, right?” I asked, so excited to relax in the tub that I usually hated. His bathtub was theworstto clean because of its size, but this time I had Stephen King’s latest in my backpack, so I was looking forward to reading with bubbles all the way up to my chin.
“Sure,” she said. “Hey, before I let you go, are yousurehe’s not expecting something more than justpretenddating?”
“Positive.”
“Because that is alotof money for what boils down to a couple dates. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t, but the way he deals with money doesn’t make sense because he’s so rich it’s inconceivable to us mere mortals. He saidokay, take itwhen I said I wanted his car. He didn’t blink when I asked him for thousands of dollars. Declan Powell, as a human, doesn’t make a bit of sense.”
“Hmm,” she said. “Does he know it’s for student loan debt? Maybe that’s his thing, his cause.”
“Nope.”
“Does he know you’re a student?”
“Nope,” I said. “I figure the less he knows about my life, the better.”
“Nowyou sound smart,” she said. “Tell himnothing. If you can leave at the end of this weekend and he doesn’t know enough to find you afterward, then you’ve done it right.”
“Agreed.” I ran the sponge over the fancified wood block countertops I loved and said, “Besides, if I’m going to use his cuckoo lifestyle as inspiration for a short story, I need to create a lot of space between us when the weekend ends.”
“True.”
After that we said our goodbyes, mostly because she had a workout class the next morning at five so she needed her sleep. Once the muffins were out of the oven and on the cooling rack, I filled that massive tub with jasmine-scented bubbles and jumped in with my book.
Only I quickly discovered that the jets wreaked havoc on the bubbles, as well as on my peace, because those jets inflated the bubbles to ridiculous proportions, pumping up the froth so high it was about to overflow all over the floor.
“Shit!” I turned off the jets but had to climb out of the tub and start bailing handfuls of bubbles out of the tub and into the bathroom sink because the bubbles kept forming exponentially. If I flooded that luxurious bathroom, any shot I had at this lottery weekend might be screwed, so I was in a full panic as I pulled the plug and kept scooping out bubbles.
I imagined I was quite a sight, running back and forth, naked, with handfuls of frothy clouds in my arms, and I couldn’t stop cursing myself for being so flighty as I repeatedly attempted to corral airy puffs of bubbles into the marble sink.
“What did you think was going to happen?” I said to myself as I rushed back and forth, annoyed that I’d been so obsessed with the idea of reading in the tub that I’d failed to use my brain.
I was pretty sure this wasn’t what Lauren meant when she suggested I run around without pants.
It took me nearly an hour to get the tub drained and under control, and I was going to have to clean the sink and vanity in the morning, after all the bubbles were finally gone. I was exhausted when I finally climbed into Declan’s huge bed, so exhausted that I didn’t even turn on the TV.
I flipped off the lights and burrowed my wet head into his pillow.
And then my phone buzzed.
“Comeon,” I muttered. When I picked it up off the nightstand, I recognized the number as Declan’s.
ARE YOU STILL AWAKE?
I held the phone above me in the dark, too tired to lift my head as I texted:I don’t know who this is.
He replied an instant later:IT’S YOUR BELOVED BOYFRIEND
That made me smile and message:Oh, hey, boo.
Declan:PLEASE TELL ME YOU’VE NEVER ACTUALLY CALLED A BOYFRIEND BOO
