Good Girl (Love Unexpectedly 2)

It also looks like maybe I made a very big mistake.

Jenny

Generally speaking, taking a bubble bath isn’t my first choice for how to spend a swampy summer evening.

But after my fight with Noah, I feel off and a little bit dirty, and for once not a single note of lyric comes forward, so I find myself filling up the tub and dumping in some of my favorite lime-blossom-scented bath gel.

Dolly trots into the bathroom to join me just as I step into the steamy water, her new penguin toy in her mouth. She curls up on the bath mat.

The company’s nice, even if the monotonous squeak of her toy isn’t.

“So, Noah’s an ass,” I tell Dolly.

Squeak.

“I know, right? We knew this. I just…I thought maybe there was a good guy under all that cranky arrogance.”

Squeak.

“No, no, you’re right,” I say, lifting a leg out of the water and watching as the soapy water slides off my calf. “Sometimes a jerk really is just a jerk. But on the plus side, maybe you can have the second steak.”

Squeak, squeak.

“Yes, you do have to share it with Ranger,” I say. “It’s too big for you to eat by yourself, and it’s not his fault he’s got a grumpy master.”

Squeak, squeak. Squeeeeeeeeak.

Dolly apparently tires of our conversation, because she hops to her paws and dashes from the bathroom, thrashing the penguin as she goes.

“Good talk,” I mutter.

I rest my head on the back of the tub as I contemplate my failed seduction. And that’s not even the right word. I just wanted to talk to the guy.

But right when I’d just begun to think that any guy who spends all day building a porch swing has to have a heart in there somewhere, he had to go and ruin it all with a crass, cruel comment.

Your cocktail’s almost as good as your blow job.

That’s twice now he’s managed to make me feel…dirty.

There won’t be another time. For anything.

I deserve far better than the

likes of Noah Maxwell. If Preston Walcott does want to sell the house, his handyman will be the first to go. I’ll find someone old and ugly and kind to watch the place while I’m gone.

I stay in the bath for a good long while. The water grows cold, which is just as well given that the outside temperature is still in the eighties, humidity batting a thousand.

Only when my stomach growls low and angry with hunger do I get out. I put on the same dress as before, but only because it’s comfortable. Not because I care any longer about the fact that it makes my boobs look perky. In fact, I don’t bother to put on the cute pink bra I was wearing earlier.

It’s not like it’d be getting any admirers.

I open my bedroom door and head toward the stairs, Dolly trotting along beside me, penguin in tow.

I’m halfway down the stairs when my nose registers the smell of something cooking.

I sniff again, frowning when I realize it’s the potatoes I bought, planning to bake them for me and Noah later.

Is he seriously helping himself to the food I bought? It’s ballsy, even for him. Not that we haven’t shared groceries, but usually he cooks at his place.