She turned and looked me over. “I’m sorry, Princess. Did I interrupt your hot soak?”
“I just got in,” I said with a grumble.
She sniffed. “Smells like your soap to me. I’d say you were in there longer than a little while.”
“Okay, Sherlock,” I said with a shake of my head. “Shouldn't you be asleep? We all had a week.”
“And the next couple probably aren’t going to be much better,” she said with a snort. “Spring Semester is about to end for a lot of colleges, and you know what that means.”
It used to mean drunken college kids deciding to try their hand at roughing it. Nowadays it meant stoned college kidsdeciding to get away from it all…by roughing it. Different intoxicants, same lack of brain cells and basic survival skills.
“Even more reason for you to go the fuck to bed,” I told her, eyeing the bottle sitting on my desk that hadn’t been there earlier. “Oh God, no. Not tonight, Cait, fuck me, I just want to go to bed after this shower.”
“Gee, I couldn’t tell,” she said with a snort, looking me over. “Are you…okay?”
“Other than standing here instead of in my shower where I was warm and comfortable? Yeah, I’m fucking glorious.”
Cait eyed me further. “No, I mean…are you? You’ve been…different lately.”
“Are we just going to pretend like I haven’t been having a hell of a time?” I asked wryly.
“Not what I meant,” she said, and I blinked when she approached. She peered up at me. “Even with everything going on between you and Mona, you’ve been…different.”
“No, I haven’t,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie. I couldn’t think of one thing I’d done any differently than I usually did. Well, except for Colin, but I knew for a fact that was a change no one but he and I knew about.
“Mmm, but you have,” she said, and I was really glad I was still covered in water because the sharpness of her gaze was making me nervous enough that I was afraid I’d start dripping sweat. “I haven’t been able to put my finger on what just yet, but you’ve been…different.”
“You’re being vague and making no sense,” I told her, stepping back. “The fuck are you doing?”
“Hmmm,” she hummed and looked around the cabin as if the answer was hanging in the air, waiting to be discovered by her sharp eyes.
Which, of course, was when I realized there was a pair of boots by the door that definitely weren’t mine, because minewere next to the desk. Colin’s boots could easily be missed, but not when she was looking around like she was trying to find anything out of place. It wasn’t as if he wore distinctive boots; they were brown and dirty like the rest of our boots, but they were smaller than mine, and she would know that at a glance.
“Cait,” I said, stopping her before she actually started nosing around. “Can we do this another time? I seriously just want to finish my shower and go the fuck to sleep.”
“Hmm,” she turned to me. “You’re hiding something, which is weird for you. You don’t hide shit from me, not normally.”
“I’m not,” I said, because Colin wasn’t a something. He was a someone…a very naked someone who was probably growing more tense the longer Cait stayed in my cabin. Not that I would blame him, I wasn’t thrilled about her still being here either.
“Liar,” she said, tapping her jaw thoughtfully.
“Cait?”
“Fine, fine. I’ll figure it out at some point. Keep your little secret; it won’t stay hidden for long.”
I glared at her. “Good night, Cait.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t open that bottle until I’m here, got it? I want to see your face when you drink it.”
“That’s…terrifying,” I admitted as she walked back to the door and I picked up the bottle. “Blueberry whiskey? I…eww.”
“It’s either going to be wonderful or awful, and I want to be here when you figure out which one it is,” she said, opening the door and pausing when the door swung wide and thumped into Colin’s boots. “Jesus, you just let everything sit where it drops. And you complain about the rest of the guys here.”
“I wasn’t expecting company,” I said, as my heart hammered when she turned around. I couldn’t be sure because it happened too quickly for me to see, but I’d swear her eyes darted to wheremyboots sat neatly next to the desk. It was so quick, Icouldn’t be sure she'd even registered what she’d seen, let alone connected the dots.
“Yeah, yeah. Good night. At least stop by my office tomorrow morning and have coffee with me,” she said with a shake of her head and closed the door. It was dim enough in the cabin that I could clearly see the flashlight she’d brought with her, the beam bobbing down the path back toward the main building. It wasn’t until I was sure I couldn’t see it anymore that I walked back to the bathroom and opened the door.
I snorted when I stared at Colin, who was standing under the water, his arms tucked protectively over his naked body, concealing his groin. “You look like you’re about to be sent to time-out.”