Say It Ain't So (SWAT Generation 2.0 9)

“If you’re asking me if I want to join you in the shower, the answer is yes,” I said.

Her mouth fell open and she stared at me. “I was going to ask you if you wanted to sleep in my room.” Her cheeks were bright red. “But, if you want, you can totally take a shower with me.”

I stared straight into her eyes as I said, “If you’re not ready yet, then I can wait.”

Her eyes were full of mischief as she said, “I’ve done nothing but think about you and your body and how you made me feel for weeks now. So you taking a shower with me sounds like the next best thing to heaven.”

“You don’t think we should take this slow?” I asked, trying to hide my excitement.

She tilted her head. “We haven’t taken it slow so far. Why start now?”

She gestured toward her bedroom. “Let’s go.”

I frowned. “I need to go grab some clothes.”

She twisted her hand in her shirt. “Do you want me to come with you?” she asked.

I shrugged. “You haven’t seen the work yet that they did while you were gone, have you?”

Her eyes went lighter as she said, “No.”

“Then let’s go.” I held out my hand. “And don’t point out that my place is a mess. I haven’t felt much like cleaning it lately.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’ll save the lecturing for next time.”

And that was exactly what she did.

When we got to my place, I showed her the kitchen. And when she was busy checking out the work that the contractors had done while she was gone, I went to the laundry room and grabbed a pair of sweats to change into after the shower, and my uniform for the next day.

Then I said, “Hey, there’s a pile of socks on the counter. Can you find me two that match?”

I got a muffled ‘yes’ as I searched for a clean pair of underwear.

In the end, I decided it’d be easier to fold my clothes that’d been sitting there a week than it would to just go through them one by one.

When I finally found a pair, it was at the bottom, and I only had one more thing to fold.

I left that pair of pants in the bottom of my laundry basket for next time and headed back out to the kitchen to find her separating all of my socks out.

And when I said there was a pile, there was a massive, probably not going to find a match for them all, pile. A pile that was easily the size of the full toilet paper pack that I’d gotten from Sam’s the day before that was sitting next to it.

“Ummm,” I said as I looked at the mountain of socks she’d already matched. “I didn’t mean for you to do that.”

She flashed a grin at me. “Do you have a thing against doing socks?”

I shrugged. “I have a thing against all things housework in general,” I admitted. “Socks. Folding clothes. Cleaning toilets. Pretty much anything that requires time from me on my days off, I don’t like to do it. At least when it comes to chores. Now, I’ll do like repair shit.” I gestured toward the new paint on the wall. “That’s actually fun. I like making myself useful that way. But this?” I gestured to the kitchen sink that had three days’ worth of dishes in it, then to the socks, followed by the large pile of laundry on the floor. “This sucks.”

She snickered as she put another pair of socks together.

“I have Aurora come over and clean for me,” she said. “I was going to hire it out, but then when she found out how much I was willing to pay the cleaning lady, she said she’d do it for half the price if I took her to lunch afterward.”

“I need an Aurora,” I teased as I picked up a pair of socks. “Are you ready to head back?”

She nodded as she eyed me curiously. “I’m ready.”Chapter 12

The sun is high and so am I.

-Coffee Cup

Hastings

“I’m beat,” Sammy said as he tugged his shirt off over his head and tossed it on the floor next to his feet. “How about you?”

My mouth went dry as the expanse of his chest was revealed.

“Okay.” I paused. “You got a new tattoo.”

He turned sideways slightly and lifted his arm, allowing me to see the full thing.

“Oh, wow,” I breathed as I ran my fingers along his rib cage. “It’s exquisite.”

It was a Viking shield.

It was cool as hell and very wonderfully done.

“Thanks,” he said. “It took about twelve hours straight work to do. I… I had a lot of time to kill while you were gone.”

I immediately felt like utter shit. Again.

“I really am sorry.” I sighed. “I… I just felt like… I was doing you a favor.”