5. Shira

CHAPTER FIVE

Shira

Out of the shower, I stand at the bathroom mirror that, despite the fan, still bears traces of steam. If I go back to the bedroom, Blake will see me as Felix had: barefaced, hair in wet disarray.

I don't have much of a choice. All my makeup is in my suitcase. Rookie mistake .

So I rub myself down with lotion, apply toner, facial oil, moisturizer, under-eye cream. I finger-comb my wet hair and spritz it with some leave-in conditioner.

You're sure you're his type? Felix said it to get under my skin. At least it's well-moisturized skin. I could've called him an asshole, but that might've only proved Felix's point: I'm not Blake's type, but I'm trying.

When I'm done, I realize I also forgot clothes to wear back to the bedroom. Double rookie mistake. So I wrap myself in a white bath towel, tucking it tightly beneath my arm. As short as I am, it barely comes to my upper thigh. I've been way more naked in public—or the relative public of the club—plenty more times than this. Funny how terrycloth makes me feel barer than lace.

Here goes nothing. I crack the door and peer out into the hallway. No Felix. This should be as simple as making it the fifteen or so feet back to the bedroom.

I walk on tiptoes, like I'm a kid sneaking around after dark. When I get to the doorway, Blake's back is to the open door, his shoulders tense by his ears with his phone tucked between his jaw and neck. He's issuing a rapid set of uh-huhs like he's annoyed with whoever it is on the other line and trying to hide it.

I haven't asked who he's talking to when he gets calls like this: who in his life has the power to transform all his Southern politeness into a series of Felix-like grunts.

"Sure, of course." Blake's left shoulder, the one he's been rolling all day, tics up toward his ear.

Whoever he's talking with, he deserves privacy, or at least to know I'm listening. So I knock softly on the doorframe.

Raising my arm causes the towel to slip—minutely, but just enough that I catch it as Blake turns around. "Hey, don't let me keep you any longer," he says into the phone. Another few uh-huh s and then he taps the phone screen, hanging up.

"You didn't have to get off the phone," I say.

Blake's eyes trace their way over my towel. "No way I can keep talking to my brother with you looking like that."

His brother . Huh. I assumed a former teammate, maybe, or an old friend. Not family.

It also takes a second for the compliment to register. I drift from the hallway into the bedroom, pulling the door shut behind me, then seat myself on the bed.

Blake's still clutching his phone. His shoulders aren't all the way relaxed.

"I can't kiss you from over there," I tease.

He puts his phone down, eases over, stands between my parted thighs.

At this point, this towel is being held up by habit—I could adjust it. Or I could let it slip. I loosen the pressure from my underarm and the fabric begins to descend.

"Are the towels not big enough?" As if Blake might leave that as part of a negative review.

I pick his hand up and place it on my shoulder. "You tell me."

For a second, I think he's gonna pull back. I am a literal professional at getting men to touch me—except the one man who seemingly won't. Finally, Blake traces his fingers over my neck, down the line of my arm. A drag of his fingertips, each tipped in a callus. Slowly, like I'm precious to him. Fuck, he's so sweet. Fuck, I'm so lying to him .

Still, tension lingers in his jaw and shoulders. "Everything okay?" I ask.

Something in the question makes him deflate. He withdraws his hand. I silently curse myself for prying…until he sits next to me on the bed and kisses my hair.

"I probably taste like leave-in conditioner," I say.

Blake laughs and then his expression grows more serious. He draws a few breaths in the quiet of the room, then swallows audibly like he's shoving something down. "Family, you know?"

I do know, but not the way he means. "You need me to fight someone on your behalf?"

That gets him to laugh. "Appreciate the offer. My parents don't love that I signed in Boston. It's too far."

Oh, this isn't rejection—it's the opposite. He has people. Unlike my family, who live all of five miles away from my current apartment, a distance that's not that far until you have to travel it. And whose fault is that?

I should tell him that, just to get it out of the way. Fear pricks across my skin. You ever make such a mess of things you don't know how to clean it up? But I can't ask him that, not without admitting that I've been on my own for years. He'll want to know how I've supported myself, and I can avoid and omit but I don't want to outright lie as if I'm ashamed. So I settle for, "My parents and I aren't close."

"I wish I was a little less close to mine, to be honest."

"Overbearing?"

He huffs a laugh. "You ever get in a situation where you're doing what you know is right but no one in your life seems to think about it that way?"

Fuck, do I ever. "Yeah, I might." I tip my head on his shoulder and listen as he sucks in several long breaths. Some things are easier to say without words.

"Thank you." Blake's voice is steadier than it was. "It's good you saved me from sticking my foot in my mouth about your parents—I was gonna ask when I could meet 'em."

My forehead scrunches. "Why?"

Blake's forehead also scrunches. "I guess things work differently up north. Too bad, though—I was looking forward to telling them what an amazing daughter they have."

Amazing . People have called me a lot of words over the years—some fawning, some derogatory—but never amazing . A word I savor—how our life could be together: I could get my degree, maybe work at a job where no one spits on the floor. Once I'm done with my gen eds, I'll have to decide on a major. Strippers on TikTok call themselves accountants . Maybe that's what I'll be.

Six years ago I would have rejected that for being too safe. Didn't I want to dream bigger? Now I know security is something hard won. Blake's surprised me, sure, but only in good ways, and that feels amazing for the first time in a very long time.

Then noises intrude through the bedroom wall. Felix must be rattling around in the next room. A reminder that my relationship with Blake hinges on two words: s trip club . If Felix says those, it's all over.

My voice goes dry in my throat. " Amazing is an overstatement."

"So amazing and modest." Blake kisses my cheek. This time he doesn't pull away. His palm cups my jaw.

I let the towel fall another inch. Then another. This isn't a hint. Hell, it's a damn siren.

He strokes his fingers up my arm. "Shira…" It comes out breathy. Then he kisses me long and slow and thorough. Up close, his eyes are hooded and blue. He kisses me again, more urgently, as if we're making up for lost time.

Finally… I sweep my tongue in his mouth, reach for his hands to cup them around my body. His groan works its way through his chest. Somehow after hours in the car his hair still looks perfect. I can't resist; I run my fingers through it to mess it up.

He grins at me, easy, and I reach for the hem of his shirt, pull it upward to reveal the lean cut of his abs. Fuck, everything about him is perfect, even the shape of his bellybutton and the splash of freckles he has along one rib.

But then he shakes his head, eases my hands away from his torso, placing them atop my knees. "Listen," he says, "it's been a long, stressful day. I should shower. I'm sure I smell as bad as you don't."

I should not—will not—pout. He's already more than I could ask for. "In that case, get your ass moving." I swat his hip playfully.

Blake laughs. "You're a firecracker."

"A firecracker?"

"In Atlanta, the team would always pop 'em off when we'd win. You're who I want to see at the end of the night." And he kisses my cheek again before he heads toward the bathroom.

A firecracker . Something bright but fleeting.

Or something that I can enjoy for as long as it lasts.

The mature thing to do would be to ask him what's going on. I've been told I can be overly direct . I've spent the past month trying to soften my edges: to be the kind of girlfriend—or potential girlfriend—who Blake can see in his life long-term. If that means waiting, I can be patient. Still, I should ask. Tomorrow .

The immature thing is what I actually do: stomp my feet and let out a tiny noise of frustration. Quietly. Or quietly for me.

From the next room, the rattling stops. "Everything good over there?" Felix says through the wall.

"Yep," I lie, "everything's fine."

Blake apparently takes the world's longest showers. I have time to dry my hair, to put on a rudimentary amount of makeup.

There's no way I can stand real clothes, so I tug on a pair of exercise tights and a cropped oversized T-shirt with a neckline wide enough it slides off my shoulder. Dance rehearsal gear. All that's missing is a leotard. And a real dance career .

Despite the shower, I'm stiff. At least I can get a deep stretch if I can't get a deep… I cut myself off from that thought.

Out in the kitchen-slash-living room, something smells like it's been cooking. The oven yields a pan of bake-from-frozen mac and cheese—decorated with additional black pepper—along with a sleeve of garlic bread. A salad sits on the counter in a plastic bowl.

Blake must have made it while I was in the shower. Huh . I was expecting a few things thrown casually on a sheet tray, not an actual meal.

No matter how hungry I am, stretching before eating is always better than eating before stretching. I commandeer a chair from the kitchen table to use as a makeshift living room barre. Go through my warmups: toe bounces, heel lifts, shoulder rolls.

My mind wanders. Do the same movement enough times and you fall into autopilot.

Don't think about Felix. I fold forward, lengthen my spine. Don't let myself dwell on how I'm not thinking about him with my ass up in the air.

Don't think about Blake . I send my arms toward the ceiling, infusing space between my ribs and vertebrae. Grasping for an invisible something just slightly out of reach.

Normally, at home, I'd follow this with a series of splits, but doing those in the relative public of the living room can feel…personal.

The water's still running in the bathroom. Felix is somewhere. I don't care. Fuck it. I drove for seven hours. I'm going to do some splits.

I start with seated ones: side splits that got a flurry of tips when I did them on the pole. The way Felix saw me. The way Blake will never— can never —see me.

I really need to get this whole situation off my mind. Standing splits require more stability than a chair, so I position myself in the doorway between the living room and the hallway that leads to the bedrooms.

I go into a straddle split, one leg planted, my heel against the wall above my head, using my body weight to deepen the stretch. It's almost, almost enough. I lean myself deeper into it, chasing sensation, when heat prickles up my neck as if I'm being watched.

Blake's still in the shower. Which only leaves Felix.

"If you're going to stand there," I call up the hallway, "at least come help."

Felix snorts as if he's surprised at being caught, then lumbers toward me. "Help?"

"Hold my ankle so I can stretch out." As soon as I say it, my cheeks go hot. The water's still running but Blake could be done at any moment.

Whatever. I'm just asking for thirty seconds of help. There's nothing inappropriate about this. If I take it back now, Felix will know I consider this more than just asking a friend—not even a friend, an acquaintance—to offer a literal hand.

So I position myself standing with my back pressed to the wall and lift my leg in offering. "Hold my ankle so I can—" I trace my toe through the air in a gentle arc, ending with my foot by my ear, before easing my leg back down. "That work?"

Felix's throat bobs from beneath the forest of his beard. "Yeah."

I raise my leg. Felix grasps it, right at the hem of my leggings, fingers bright points of contact on my skin. I'm about to tell him to start lifting when his thumb brushes the scar at my ankle, still shiny from being so recently healed.

"How'd this happen?" he asks, low.

Fuck, this was probably an unavoidable conversation. "I had ankle surgery."

"How'd you hurt it?" he asks. Most people don't even bother inquiring. They take two unrelated facts—stripper, ankle injury—and connect them. Felix doesn't. For that alone, he deserves the truth.

"Tripped in the club parking lot in the dark."

"You were walking alone in the parking lot at night?"

"Yeah, they let women do that now," I say sarcastically. "It's just one of those things that happens. I was rushing and caught one of those damn potholes at a bad angle. So: surgery."

"Why were you rushing?"

He's still holding my ankle. I could just tell him to drop it and the subject. "I thought one of the customers might have been following me."

Felix grunts at that. No, not a grunt. An actual growl. "Were they?"

"I don't know." Which is true. One minute I was speed-walking. The next I was on the jagged asphalt holding my ankle. If I was being followed, I probably scared them off by screaming fuck and immediately calling the house manager to get someone to take me to the ER. "If he was, he left me there."

Felix's hand, the one not holding my ankle, curls into a fist like he might go fight that customer on my behalf. "When was this?"

"Last June."

"When in June?"

"You know what day."

He makes a noise, a single Fuck. His thumb strokes my ankle, tracing the line of my scar. "What'd you tell Forsyth about this?"

"The truth—that I hurt it tripping in a parking lot."

"So the Shira truth."

"Yes," I snap. "The Shira truth. I did hurt it tripping in a parking lot. I did spend months in a walking boot and going to PT. Even now I have to be careful with it." And everything cost a fortune, I don't add. I have health insurance—bad health insurance. Which means I also have a high deductible and a drained bank account.

"You could've let me know." His voice has a flavor to it that's not quite anger, something closer to indignation. "Friends tell each other when shit happens."

I blink. "Sorry?" Sorry I didn't call you. Sorry I didn't know we were friends like that. "What would you have done?"

"Sent you money, for starters."

Someplace just under my sternum starts to ache—that I needed money but didn't want the pity that came with it. "I was fine on my own," I say coolly.

He shakes his head as if he knows I'm lying. "You know you don't have to do everything by yourself, right?"

Except I do . "What, you would have brought me flowers?"

"Maybe." He smiles. "I could've, I don't know, gotten your groceries delivered, driven you around in something other than that death-mobile you call a car. It's not that far from Boston to Worcester."

That ache flares again. He's offering friend stuff —things my actual friends did for the first few weeks, until I felt like a burden asking for more. I thought Felix just didn't like Blake, but this sounds closer to betrayal: that he thought we were friends and we weren't. Or I didn't treat him like one.

"I moved to Boston," I add. "No more club. There were more options for picking up shift work around the holidays."

He blinks at that. "You were in Boston? And you knew I was in Boston?"

And still didn't call you. "Next time I break an ankle, I'll know who to ask for a favor."

Felix practically growls. "Yes."

That yes catches me off guard—the yes I almost said back in June. "Just like that? I call you and you come running?"

"Last time we saw each other," Felix says, "I thought I made myself pretty clear. What's changed?"

Everything. Starting with Blake. Distantly, from the other room or possibly an entire universe away, the shower's still running. He might come out at any minute. My heart quickens. Felix's hand tightens around my ankle. I want you to let me go . But that's a lie I can't bring myself to tell.

"Okay, if you're so eager to be helpful…" I lift my foot higher.

"I'll need to—" Felix mimes stepping toward me. "We'll have to be close to do this."

Closer than just friends. "Yeah," I breathe. "C'mon."

Felix does, inching toward me until his chest almost brushes mine. Heat pours off him. His arms strain against the sleeves of his green Monsters shirt as he lifts my leg.

"You can press a little harder," I say. "I like it nice and deep."

His eyebrows go up. A smirk plays at the edge of his lips.

"Fuck, I didn't mean it like that."

"Sure," he deadpans.

I tap a hand against his chest. "For real, I didn't."

"Then move your hand."

I stare down at my palm where it's resting on his pec. Blake respects me too much to sleep with me. What do you think I should do about that? Nothing I can say. So I lift my hand finger by finger, tuck my palm in the safety of my side. "Push my ankle. I can handle it."

That gets his smile. "I'd never think you couldn't." But he does as he's told, lifting my leg. Warmth rolls off him, warmth and that smell: soap, grass. Summer. It's hard to look directly at him, the way it is at the August sun.

Or it's not hard—it's too easy, especially knowing I shouldn't.

My eyelids slide shut. My head tilts back. Think elongating thoughts and not about the man between your legs . I breathe away my urge to giggle. That little puff of air makes my muscles lengthen. My hamstring unknits slowly, then all at once.

A noise pours out of me before I can stop it. Not just a noise. A moan , deep with relief. I know what it sounds like and I can't stop it.

From the gravel in Felix's voice, he knows it too. "Jesus Christ, Melody."

"Hey." I grab his chin, his beard soft against my fingers. "It's Shira."

"Shira," he says, low. He leans in until we're breathing the same air. Until his beard brushes along the suddenly sensitized skin on my neck. It's not a kiss—just the memory of one, how everything in my life has been a tangle ever since.

We shouldn't.

No, we can't . "Put me down," I order.

Instantly, Felix releases my leg and I lower it to the floor. "Did I hurt you?" he asks.

I shake my head. "Just stretched enough."

"Do you want to do the other leg?"

Yes . Yes, and I shouldn't. Yes, and I should put as much distance between Felix and me as possible. Yes, and we have at least another two days of driving before I can do that. "I'm good," I lie.

"Right." He doesn't step back.

"Right." There's no way for me to move without sliding awkwardly along the wall. I could just tell him to back up. The words are somewhere, stuck in my throat.

"Would you…" Felix begins. His eyes cast toward the floorboards like he's nervous to ask me.

From up the hall, the water finally, finally shuts off. Noises come through the bathroom door: Blake singing. He has a rich singing voice, deeper than his speaking one, like he might have once sung in a church choir. He's too good for this world—certainly too good for me.

"Sure, yes, okay," I say to the question Felix hasn't finished asking.

Felix's smile goes mischievous. "So you'll help me."

From the tilt of his voice on help , I'm going to regret this. "Yes, yes, whatever." Just hurry up and get out of the damn hallway. There's no possible way Blake could take as long drying off.

"…trim my beard?" Felix finishes.

I blink like I misheard him. "Do what?"

"I need to trim my beard. It's easier with someone helping me."

I search the request for an ulterior motive. Is this an excuse to get me closer to him? To take some kind of weird shot at Blake? "Just wait until we get to Florida."

"This"—he drags his hand down his face—"is gonna be unworkable once we hit anyplace with real humidity. I was gonna get it cut today after we flew down. But I don't want to show up looking like I'm not taking spring training seriously."

It's the second time Felix has managed to surprise me in less than five minutes. He's worried about what the team thinks of him. Because Blake's taking his job .

Guilt surges through me. A friend would help him out. "Did you want to do that right now?"

Felix grins as if he's won something. "I was thinking tomorrow. You know how to use clippers, right?"

"Nope." I make sure to pop the p . "But how hard could it be? You do it."

He laughs. "Yeah, I do it badly."

"I could probably do it badly too then."

That gets another rumbling laugh. At last, Felix steps back—just in time for Blake to emerge from the bathroom, a towel slung low on his waist. Lines of water trace their way down the cuts of his abs. He's still humming, but he stops short when he sees us laughing in the hallway.

"You get something to eat?" Blake asks.

Right, the food he took the time to make. My stomach rumbles my response. I laugh, a little embarrassed. "I was waiting for you." Which isn't the entire truth, but he doesn't need to know that.

Blake turns toward Felix. "There's enough for everyone."

"Thanks," Felix says. Then he smirks.

Oh no. What now?

"I was just asking Shira for a favor," Felix continues.

Blake's jaw goes tense. "What exactly is Shira helping with?"

"I just need to trim my beard. Mostly I need someone to work the clippers."

"Fine." Blake smiles the hardened version of his grin. "Happy to lend you a hand."

Not what I was expecting.

Not what Felix was expecting either from the line pinching his forehead. "You secretly a barber?"

"My brother and I used to cut our own hair sometimes."

"Is there anything you can't do?" Felix asks. It doesn't quite sound like a compliment.

"Of course." Though Blake doesn't elaborate. He might be a few inches shorter than Felix, but he's not small. Now he draws himself up to his full height—or as tall as he can without the towel slipping. Much .

"That towel a little small?" I tease.

Blake manages to go a faint pink. His hands grip the line of the terrycloth more tightly. "I should change."

"Not on my account," I say, mostly to watch him go even pinker. Fuck, he's perfect . Every smooth plate of muscle, every perfectly placed strand of chest hair. If Felix weren't here…

But Felix is here and he's studying Blake with an expression I can't read. Resentment? Jealousy? Something else that makes his gaze sweep appraisingly up Blake's torso. Huh .

Blake's flush deepens. He adjusts the towel, gripping it at his waist, as if he knows he's being checked out. As if he doesn't mind entirely. Double huh. After a minute, he clears his throat. "Go on and eat before it gets cold."

"You not coming?" Felix asks.

"I need a minute. Wouldn't want to make Shira go hungry."

"No…" Felix drags the word out, like an insinuation. Like a promise. "Wouldn't want that at all."