“I can give you a shirt to sleep in if you want.”
Going to see a hot tub and sleeping in one of his shirts later? I was starting to really like visiting his house. “Okay.” I stepped into the bathroom, closing the door and throwing the lock.
I pushed my back to the door, taking a deep breath. I was excited to explore, but part of me was feeling nervous again. I’d be out of reach of North’s eyes. Did I want to get so close to Silas again? I hated to admit that I did, and at the same time I couldn’t help but feel like maybe North was mad at me for being so close with Silas. He didn’t sound mad about that before. He said to tell Silas to back off if I was uncomfortable. The confusi
on of everyone being so unclear was worst. What did they want me to do?
I fished out a tighter tank top and a pair of dark blue cotton shorts. I blushed when I realized the shorts were from Victoria’s Secret and had the word Angel scrawled across the hips. I hurriedly got dressed in them, dropping the lower hem of the tank top down to cover the word. It felt a little awkward to wear them around Silas when he called me angel in Greek. It felt like encouraging something I wasn’t sure I was ready to think about.
When I finished, I stuffed the clothes I’d worn back into my bag, slung it over my shoulder, and opened the door. I stopped, looking up one hallway and down the other back toward the living room. Where did he go? I stood alone in the hallway, waiting, listening. Thumping from a stereo sounded below my feet. A car engine started up somewhere close by. There were so many new noises, and I felt the encroachment of other people being around us. I wondered how Silas listened out for trouble.
But then I remembered not everyone needed to. I’d spent years listening to the sounds of my own house to figure out when it was safe to emerge from my room unnoticed. Normal people didn’t have to do that.
A door opened down the second hallway and Silas popped into view. He was barefoot and wore familiar dark blue swim shorts and a Red Sox t-shirt. He spotted me in the hallway, curled his fingers at me. “Come put your bag in here,” he said.
I padded down to him, the carpet smooth against my feet. He held out a hand for my bag. I passed it over, and he dropped it just inside the door. It was a bedroom, and I caught a glimpse of a massive bed in the middle before Silas nudged me back down the hallway.
He headed back to the living room, picking up both of our cell phones to hold in his hand. He disappeared behind a side door and came back with two large towels, picked up his house keys and shooed me out to the front door.
The crisp air cut into my skin in the shadow of the overhang. When he locked the door, he grabbed my hand and we walked together to the parking lot.
“Do you like living here?” I asked him as he led me between two buildings and around a pond. Now that we were in the sun, it warmed my body enough to almost enjoy the weather. I couldn’t believe it was almost November and I could walk around in shorts. “I mean in these apartments?”
“It’s okay,” he said, shifting his hand until his palm met mine in a more substantial grip. “South Carolina isn’t bad. I like the weather. Charleston is nice, but it isn’t Greece.”
“Do you miss Greece?”
He flashed a smile at me, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “Not today.”
I stared at some Halloween decorations along a few of the porches. I wondered if Greece had Halloween. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live a million miles away. I’d moved here, but besides the weather and a beach nearby, it was at least the same language and culture. “But you do sometimes?”
“Do you miss Illinois?”
“No.” I felt that was an honest answer. Why would I miss a place where I didn’t have friends and didn’t ever go anywhere to see things?
He tilted his head at me, raising an eyebrow. “I mean besides living with your crazy parents? Wasn’t there something you liked about it?”
It took me a moment to respond. “The snow, perhaps. I know it doesn’t really snow here, right?”
“I’ve never seen snow,” he admitted. “Not in person.”
I popped my mouth open, but I didn’t realize that perhaps some of the boys, if they’d never been out of South Carolina, they might not have ever seen snow, either. “It doesn’t snow in Greece?”
“Not on the islands where I’m from.”
I followed Silas into one of the large buildings near the front office that we had seen when driving in. There was a collection of exercise equipment to the right, reflected in the mirrors hanging from the walls. To the left were a few sauna rooms, a small hallway to restrooms and changing rooms. Further down was a sunroom area, where a large octagon hot tub sat in the middle.
The room was steamy and heady with pool chemicals. The tub looked clean, with clear aqua water. There were a couple of lounge chairs surrounding the tub under the sunlight streaming in from the windows. A large flat television hung up on one wall, turned to a news station, though the sound was muted.
“Who watches the news while they sit in a hot tub?” Silas asked, dropping the towels onto one of the chairs which he dragged close to the edge of the hot tub. He studied the television and then scanned the area as if looking for a remote.
I was drawn to the water, too curious for my own good. I crept up to the edge, touching the water with a toe. I yanked back quickly. The water was exceptionally warm. Since the room was hot, too, it seemed like a silly idea to slip into equally warm water. I wasn’t sure I was going to understand hot tubs.
Silas managed to find buttons on the side of the TV and switched to a football game. Satisfied, he crossed back to me, hiking the shirt up over his body and dropping it onto the chair next to our towels. His broad shoulders and the muscles of his chest and stomach flexed in a way that sent a ripple of tingles through my spine. Greek gods couldn’t have been designed any better.
He stared back at me, cocking his head to one side with an eyebrow going up. “What are you waiting for?” he asked.
“You,” I said.
He flashed a smile and dropped his keys and our phones by the edge near the pool. He crouched down, slipped his feet in and inched down until he was sitting inside, the water went up to just under his chest. “Come on.”
I was hoping he’d say it was too hot. I sucked in a breath, slid my foot in, resisting the urge to pull out because it felt too warm. Maybe it was because we’d walked in here from the chiller air outside. It was like stepping into a hot shower and your body is still chilled. My body tingled at the temperature change. I managed to stand on the seating area before I wimped out. “It’s hot.”
“Hot tub,” he said. He curled his fingers at me. “Come on, you’ll get used to it.”
I huffed, slowly lowering myself until I was on my knees on the seat. It felt like the lower I got down, the warmer the water was. Silas reached a hand out and I took it, letting him pull me over in the water until I was next to him. With my butt on the seat, the water was up to my chest. I let my feet rise up so I wasn’t touching the bottom because it was too hot down there for me.
He grinned, and swung his head around. “Okay, there’s a button here somewhere.”
“What does the button do?”
“You’ll see,” he said, but focused on a spot on the wall across the room. Silas stood up, moved across the tub and got out on the other side, dashed for the button, pushed it and started back.
The tub started whirling to life around me, and a jet started spraying me in the back under the water. I moved out of its way. The water started swirling around, making a slight whirlpool effect.
Silas jumped back in, crossing over until he was next to me. “See? Nice.”
Now that I was in, it did feel good. The jets were interesting. Silas put an arm around my shoulders, and I could sit back, my head resting on him. We cuddled together in the water, watching the muted images of the football game. This was different, but what I expected of Silas. There wasn’t the intensity like we were when we’d sat on his couch. Was it because anyone could walk in at any moment? Did North say something to him that made him back off?
But here I was next to him, my head on his arm and my thigh brushing his. Maybe it wasn’t Silas throwing signals at me that he wanted to kiss me. Maybe it was in my head because I was nervous being in his house for the first time. I’d been in his lap before. He’d been close to me. I wasn’t scared until I was here at his house.
But then why did North feel he needed to spy on us and zap Silas?
One of our phones started to rattle against the concrete behind us. Silas turned to check over my head at them. “It’s yours, Sang.”
I puffed out a breath. “If it’s North, I’m tempted not
to answer.” I turned to hang over the edge and grab my phone. I leaned against the wall, reading the name.
I pushed the button. “Luke?”
“Why is North yelling at me?”
“I don’t know,” I said, while at the same time feeling Silas’s hands on my back, doing something to the shirt I was wearing. The material was sticking to my body, so I thought at first he was straightening it. When I looked back, he was staring at my butt. I reached around, trying to cover the word scrawled across my hips, but he patted my hand away, pulling the shirt up higher over my waist as his fingertip trailed over the lettering.
“Well,” Luke said, distracting me from Silas, “it’s something about you. He said you were mad at him and hung up on him. He just snapped at me for not tying my shoes.”
I made a number of surprise, how-dare-he noises into the phone. It was unfair of North, who started this, to be yelling at Luke. “Tell him to stop.”
“What?”
“Tell North I said don’t yell at you.”
There was a shuffling noise on the phone. Luke’s voice was muffled as he started talking to North.
Silas’s palm fell onto the small of my back. I turned around and his hand remained on me as I looked up at him. He was grinning proudly, and mouthed, “Love the shorts.”
I gulped back my heart, trying to focus.
“North just threw a mug at me for calling you about it.”
“Would you give him the phone, please?”
“He doesn’t want it.”
Who was ignoring who now? I eyeballed Silas, who was tilting his head down at me curiously. “I think it’s time to zap him,” I said.
Silas lifted a brow. “Are you sure?”
What other choice did I have? I nodded. “Maybe it’ll calm him down.” It was a strange idea, but North needed someone to fight back with, and if he wouldn’t fight now, then he needed a little nudge. If it wasn’t supposed to hurt that much, then maybe it could work.
Silas grunted, turned to get his phone and pushed at the screen. “I have you for less than an hour and we’re already in the middle of shit.” He found North’s app, pushed it to open the screen, revealing four different colored squares. He pointed to the green one. “You want to do it?”