“I get that, but what I want to know is—how many bottles of the shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand wash, and the lotion did you buy?”
“Two,” I mumbled, holding my hand out for the bottles he was holding. “Now, can I have those so I can have a shower in my bathroom, please?”
Looking satisfied that he had the answer now, he passed them over to me. Not hanging around, I spun on my heel and walked quickly down the hallway to my bathroom. It was just as I was closing the door to it that I heard him spit out a curse and clip, “They cost how much?”
It wasn’t the price of the product that was the biggest issue. It was the price of the shipping from there to here that’d been the killer. I didn’t tell him that, though. No, I stripped and jumped in the shower to wash the day off, relaxing when the scent of the products hit me.
This was why I didn’t regret ordering them, even if I’d done it inadvertently in my sleep. They did wondrous things to my hair, and my God, they smelled so good. I could have the shittiest day possible, and the second I smelled them, instant stress relief.
Everyone had different ways of relaxing after their day, and mine just happened to be with imported, heavenly-smelling hair and body products. I couldn’t drink because I was a single mom responsible for a little child, and I didn’t smoke or have any other vices, so this was as risqué as it got.
Thinking about it like that, I upgraded my earlier assessment of myself.
I was a boring, dirty little hooker, loser.
But at least I smelled good, right?
I was still going through the emotional seesaw of all that was Bond almost an hour later.
So far, what I’d come up with was the following:
I had a kid—he and the kid got along.
He was a party animal—he’d also shown me he could be serious and caring.
The way we’d first met properly—where I’d also been a bitch when I wasn’t one all of the time.
I’d made a pact with myself that I wouldn’t have a relationship until Nemi was eighteen—she liked the guy, and he seemed to genuinely like her. I liked him, too.
He had a reputation as a player who didn’t take anything seriously—he was committed to his job, and he’d shown he wasn’t what I’d assumed Bond was in the beginning.
The whole thing was becoming tedious, and it was for that reason that I’d never go to anyone else about it, too. Who wanted to listen to the whole “oh, but he does this.” “Oh, did I tell you he did xyz?” “Do you think he likes me?” “What does this mean?” I didn’t even want to go through it repeatedly with myself, yet here I was, thinking like a thirteen-year-old instead of a thirty-one-year-old.
Grow the shit up, Heidi.
Admittedly I took long showers, and then I took my time getting ready while I moisturized and went through my nighttime routine with face products, too. Still, the mental bullshit had made me take even longer than usual getting dressed while I agonized over it all again.
That’s why I couldn’t blame Bond for assuming I’d have clothes on instead of just a towel that I’d undone to put the moisturizer on when he opened the door to ask a question. He may even have knocked, I was too distracted to remember.
“How much of this stuff should Nemi drink so I know she’s getting en—“ he asked as he inspected the bottle in his hand, then stopped when he saw my state of dishabille. “Christ.”
Much like I’d done when I’d walked in on him, his eyes skimmed over me, taking in everything he could.
That’s when it really and truly registered that I was sitting there, naked, with Bond Klein looking at me.
“Shit, sorry,” I squeaked, reaching for the towel and yanking it up my body to cover my chest. “Um, just make sure Nemi drinks as much of it as possible. Was she sick again?”
How I managed to make sense, I don’t know. I was doing everything I could to seem like I wasn’t about to go up in flames with embarrassment on the outside, while on the inside, I was dying slowly in the corner of shame.
Had that been disgust in his eyes, or was he okay with what he saw? I mean, I had what Mom called a classic hourglass figure, with a little bit of extra sand in the junk region and the middle of it. Almost like there’d been a blockage in the hourglass, and some of the sand had pooled slightly. Yeah, that was an excellent way to describe it.
Rubbing his chin with his free hand, he nodded slowly. “As much as she can,” he repeated. “Yeah, I can do that.”