Page 16 of Replacement
“What?” I prompt.
“Aren’t you going to scratch it?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Feeling like a fool, I lift my foot out of the water and bend my knee until I can reach my ankle, scratching the wet skin for a minute even though it wasn’t remotely itchy.
He’s watching me the whole time, his head cocked, his mouth tilted up very slightly in a glimmer of a bemused smile.
“You shouldn’t laugh at me,” I tell him as I sink my leg and foot back into the water.
“Was I laughing?”
“It looked like you secretly were.”
His mouth twitches up for real. Brief but unmistakable.
I feel like smiling too, but instead, I put on Amber’s pout. “You’re doing it again.”
“Maybe I am.”
Okay. This has to stop. I’m about to melt into goo for absolutely no reason. I’m simply not the gooey type, and there’s no way I can let down my guard. So I clear my throat and say, “Can you do me a big favor?”
“Sure.” He puts the hand towel down next to the sink.
“Can you get me a glass of wine? I think there’s half a bottle of white in the refrigerator. I’m not ready to get out of the tub yet.”
“Of course.” He looks surprised but not annoyed or impatient. He doesn’t appear to think I’m asking for anything unreasonable.
I don’t actually need a glass of wine. I just need a break from him for a minute.
I use it to remind myself of who I am and what I’m doing here, so the warmth in my chest has been properly contained when William returns to the bathroom.
He’s got two glasses of wine in his hands. He hands me one and then sits on the bench against the wall next to the tub and takes a sip of the other glass.
So kill me. I get a little thrill that he’s stayed.
“You look tired,” I tell him since one of us needs to say something.
He does look tired. Exhausted. His white shirt is wrinkled and slightly damp in the middle of the back. There are shadows under his eyes, and he needs to shave, although I’m sure he shaved this morning.
His hair is way too long. It’s styled in what’s clearly supposed to be a short cut, but he’s gone too long between trims. He’s got a lot of it—a warm, medium brown with only a few threads of gray sprinkled in—and it doesn’t lie neatly. It kinks up in odd places.
I like it. I really want to reach over and smooth it down.
“I am tired,” he says, slightly hoarse.
“Well, that’s your own fault. You work at least fifteen hours every day. It’s not good for you.”
He makes a faint huff, his eyes slanting over toward me in discreet scrutiny.
“I’m serious. You’re never going to not be tired unless you cut back a little and get some real rest and maybe even do something for fun.”
“I can’t cut back right now. Too much going on.”
“What’s going on?” I’m filled with that annoyed impatience over his work schedule again. When I suddenly remember this might be something I’m already supposed to know, I add, “I mean, is it anything new?”
He doesn’t appear to find anything strange about the question. “We’re doing a lot of reorganization of the Worthing holdings. It’s a ton of work.”
“Oh.” I frown. “What kind of reorganization?”