Three Days in Town, and the Barista Already Knew My Order novel · Chapter 10 of 24
Chapter 10: The Tub
The first hard frost came on a Wednesday, and he arrived at my back door at half past three with ice in his eyebrows.
He had been up since four that morning, baking.
I saw it in his face before he said a word.
His eyes were red-rimmed and his shoulders had a stoop in them.
There was flour in the creases of his knuckles that he had not got out.
"You look terrible," I said.
"Thank you."
"Come in. Leave your boots."
I had the bath running upstairs.
I had planned it for two days, ever since he fell asleep in my kitchen chair in the middle of a sentence.
The clawfoot tub stood in the middle of the bathroom on its four iron feet.
It was old and deep and long enough for two.
Steam filled the room.
I had put a lit candle on the sill and a folded towel on the stool, and I had left the radiator on full.
He stood in the doorway.
"You ran me a bath," he said.
"I ran us one. Clothes."
He undressed slowly, stiff in the joints, and left everything in a heap by the door.
Then he stood naked on the cold tile.
I looked at him in the candlelight, at the long bones of him and the old oven burns.
A soft dark line of hair ran down his belly.
"In," I said.
He stepped over the rim and sank into the water with a groan so deep that I laughed.
"Forward," I said. "Make room."
I undressed and got in behind him.
The water slopped up the sides.
I settled with my knees on either side of his ribs and drew him back against my chest.
His shoulder blades pressed my breasts and the whole warm length of his back lay against my stomach.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of Three Days in Town, and the Barista Already Knew My Order are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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