Chapter 5: Bath Water

I came off a twelve-hour night shift on Wednesday with a sore back and the smell of the unit in my hair.

Twice since Sunday he had come to my door at three in the morning and gone back to his own bed by four.

I had hated both times when he walked away, and I had told myself I was following my own rules.

The apartment door was unlocked.

Steam was coming out from under the bathroom door, and I could hear running water.

I stopped in the hall.

His bedroom door was open, as it always was when he was awake.

He had a mattress on the floor, a drafting table for his shop plans, and a desk against the wall.

On the desk lay the thick manila envelope his father had given him.

THANKSGIVING. DO NOT OPEN. DAD.

He had set it square in the middle, with a coffee mug on one corner to hold it flat.

"It's a ring," I told it, quietly, and went on down the hall.

The bathroom door swung open before I got to it.

Jakob stood there with his sleeves rolled to the elbow and his hands wet.

"You've been on your feet twelve hours," he said.

Behind him, the old clawfoot tub was full to the lip, and a bar of my mother's goat-milk soap sat on the rim.

"You ran me a bath."

"It was that or the couch."

"Rule two," I said, and my voice was not steady.

"It's a bath, Saldana. It isn't a bed."

I looked at the water, and then at him.

"Get in the tub, Kothmann," I said.

He blinked.

"I'm saying you can't wash my hair from the outside."

He started to unbutton his shirt.

I undressed in front of him slowly, in the white light of the bathroom.

My scrub top came off first, then the pants, then everything else, while he stood in his jeans and watched.

He did not touch me.

His hands hung at his sides, and the muscle in his jaw jumped.

"In," I said.

He took off his jeans and stepped into the tub.

The water rose on every side of him.

He sat down at the faucet end, with his knees standing up out of the water.

I stepped over the rim, and he took my hand and steadied me.

I sat down between his thighs and leaned back against his chest.

Hot water closed around my shoulders, and I let my head fall back on his collarbone.

I heard myself make a sound I had not made in a week.

"Okay?" he asked into my hair.

"Don't stop."

He took the plastic cup from the rim and poured water over my head.

His hands were enormous, and he washed my hair with the whole of them.

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