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“Guess it’s my turn,” I said, getting up.
“Stella, wait. Maybe you should?—”
“It’s fine. I need a minute to myself anyway.”
When I was alone in the bathroom, I gave myself one breath to think more about what had happened on the pullout couch. Then I put it out of my mind and turned on the water.
I nearly yelped when I felt the frigid water. Alden had to be lying. There was no way this shower wasn’t going to beterrible.
I considered skipping it, but one smell of my pits told me I absolutely couldn’t. It had to happen, and I had to be miserable.
And it was. The water pelted me with unrelenting cold. This was my worst nightmare, and my hands turned to ice within the first minute. I washed myself as fast as I could, thankful I’d left a bottle of my favorite body wash here when I stayed over a few weeks ago to get a break from Reed.
When I turned off the water, I was racked with full-body shivers and all I wanted to do was find whatever warmth I could. I dried off as fast as my stiff hands would let me, but clothes didn’t seem to help at all. My wet hair went into a towel, and I cursed everything from the weather to the shit luck that had gotten me here.
I even cursed the invention of the water heater. Maybe I would have been used to cold water if I’d never known the luxury of a hot shower.
The living room was warmer, but it wasn’t enough.
“Y-you said it wasn’t that bad,” I stuttered out. I sat in front of the fire, trying to move my hands.
“Are you okay?”
“Do Ilookokay?”
He was wearing an old flannel, one of Amma’s ex’s if I had to guess, but as much as I wanted to admire how it stretched over his muscular arms, I was too miserable to.
“Come here,” he said.
“You’re not gonna touch me after a betrayal like that.”
“It wasn’t that bad forme,but you’re cold-natured. It won’t happen again.”
It definitely wouldn’t because I was never showering in the cold again.
His offer was tempting. And not only because he was a living heater. I was growing far too used to the feeling of his body pressed against mine.
“F-fine.” I let him sit next to me on the couch. He pulled me to him and I sank into his warmth. I pressed my face into his chest, eager to be as close as possible.
I could hear his heartbeat. It galloped a mile a minute, and I wondered if it was becauseIwas near.
Something wasn’t adding up, and as much as I wanted to enjoy being friends with him again, I needed to knowwhyhe acted the way he did and why his body told an opposite story.
“Feeling better?”
His voice was different when I was so close to him. It sent shock waves through my body.
“Yeah, a little.”
“Good. I need to go chop some wood.”
Alden was gone without another word. I replaced his warmth with a blanket, and I sighed in the empty living room.
“Alden Canes, what the fuck is going on?”
Boredom eventually weighed heavy on me and I found myself missing my phone. I didn’t realize how much I used it until I didn’t have it.
After I felt sufficiently warmed, I searched for the only technology that worked—Amma’s Polaroid. At first, I took a picture of the roaring flames inside the stove and the bed we’d made. Then I glanced outside at whereAlden was chopping wood. It was in perfect view of the dining room window.