Page 77 of High Water

“No! I already—I’ve got Fallon’s stuff set up in there already, and she’s particular about it. She’ll know you were in there, and then she’ll have questions.”

“I can clean up after.”

“She’s sensitive to certain scents. Your body wash or cologne might bother her, and it lingers. And she has a heightened sense of smell in general, so…”

“You don’t like my cologne?”

“I didn’t say that. I just meant that it’s… I can smell it even when you’re not around if you’ve been in a room, and she might too. Then we’d have to explain all that. I’d rather not. You can use the master. We’ll have to learn to share. We might as well start now.”

As a man who’s lived alone for over a decade, despite some time in communal housing with other people accustomed to not having anything their way, this is going to be an adjustment. But I’m willing to learn.

“So master shower, but not master bed?”

“I’m not sure what to do about the bed. In the house, there’s room for an extra daybed, but here I don’t think we have room. And there isn’t one. Unless we can get one tonight, she’ll notice we put one in. So… I think we just have to make it work. It’s a king-size bed, though, so there’s plenty of room for a pillow wall.”

“And what happens when she walks in and sees her parents playing pillow fortress?” I look at Aspen skeptically.

“Well, we could lock the door. I think that’s a possibility. But if we forget, we could imply it’s something she doesn’t want to ask about. Then she stops asking and never asks again because she thinks it’s some weird sex thing and doesn’t want to know that about her parents?”

“How much time have you spent thinking about this?” I try not to smile. I’m amused and concerned all in one fell swoop, and I don’t want to react incorrectly and make this any more awkward than it is. I do my best to keep my face neutral.

“Not that much.” She tries to look innocent but fails. “Okay, maybe a little bit. I’m just trying to be prepared. I want her to be happy here. It’s another change, and you know, I worry.” Her eyes hit the floor. “I don’t want you to be unhappy either. I don’t know what your preference is.”

“I’ve told you my preference.”

“You haven’t told me where you want to sleep here.”

“In my bed, with my wife. If she feels safer with a pillow wall between us, then so be it. Although I feel like I can be trusted to be a man of my word when I say I won’t touch her.”

“Well, clearly I can’t be trusted.”

I guess she’s taking the blame for last night seriously.

“I can lock the whiskey away if you need me to.”

She narrows her eyes at me.

“I’m just trying to help.” I hold my hands up, palms out, as I take a slow step back.

“You left me with good whiskey and handwritten letters. From a much younger version of yourself. One who was pretty damn explicit in his thoughts.”

“Oh, I promise you the grown-up version is worse; he just hasn’t been putting pen to paper.” I flash her a grin, and she scowls in return.

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Flirt. This is a flirt-free zone.”

“This room or the whole house?”

“The whole thing. We can’t be flirting around each other in private. It’s too dangerous.”

I suppress a grin.

“So how are we supposed to be with each other?”

“I don’t know. Professional and polite?”