Page 50 of Touchdown, Tennessee

But right now, there was something softer there.

“You’re nervous,” he said finally.

“Had a pretty fucked up evening,” I said.

“You know what? Stand up. Come with me.”

He stood up, reaching a hand down for me. I ignored it, standing up without grabbing his hand.

My resistance made him smile a little, and my chest stirred with satisfaction.

He walked a few steps over toward the door that led to the attached bathroom. It was small but just as clean and peaceful as the rest of the place, with a little frosted window that let in the last of the evening light. There was a glass-walled shower at the edge of the bathroom and Gray went over, turning on the spray of the shower.

“Strip.”

“Always telling me what to do,” I mumbled, but I was already taking off my clothes.

The truth was that a hot shower sounded like absolute fucking heaven to me right now.

I didn’t bother hiding that I was staring at Gray as he stripped down, too.

He turned to get in the shower and I let my gaze linger on the back of his thighs, his perfect fucking ass, and the dips and curves of his back.

“Wait. The panther isn’t your only tattoo,” I said.

He had a small one right at the top of his spine. A feather, falling through air, only a couple of inches across. It was just as beautiful as his other one, but very different, with thinner lines and a more graceful art style in comparison to the thick, bold style of the panther on his arm.

“Got this one just six months ago,” he told me. I stepped into the shower behind him.

“Any special reason?”

He turned toward me, the water falling over him and wetting his hair. “When I found out my mom died.”

He may as well have just dropped a brick on my heart.

I blinked.

“What?”

He nodded, turning into the water as it coated his skin. “Was a long time coming. She certainly wasn’t well.”

“Christ, Gray. I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.”

For fuck’s sake.

His mother had died only six months ago, and he hadn’t mentioned anything about it.

Even if he wasn’t close to her anymore, I couldn’t imagine the complex grief he must have been feeling, in the background, all the time.

“You want vanilla santal or rosemary eucalyptus?” he said, tapping on the bottles of body wash on the little ledge in the shower.

I blinked, trying to come back into reality. “Um. Rosemary, I guess.”

He was already back to talking about body wash and I was reeling from what he’d just told me.

I wanted to comfort him, but I had no idea how to do that for someone like him.