My hand was just about on the door handle when the door was suddenly ripped away from me and a towel-wrapped Sophie came bursting into the room. Her eyes wandered over my naked body, stopping on my hardened cock. Her cheeks flushed and a small smile came to her lips, which quickly vanished when she saw me looking at her. "Good morning," she murmured.
"Good morning. You're up early this morning."
"Every morning. Where were you going?"
I smiled. "Well, since I woke up in a cold empty bed, I thought I would come in and surprise you, maybe have a little fun in the shower," I said, raising my eyebrows at her and tugging at the knot in the front of the towel, trying to pull her closer, or better yet make her lose that towel she was now clutching tightly.
She stepped back out of my reach. "In the shower?" She scrunched up her nose in this cute way I had never seen her do before, or perhaps had never noticed, at my suggestion.
I did my best to suppress the laugh that threatened to erupt at her comment. "Come on, have you seriously never done it in the shower before? Shower sex is fantastic."
She shook her head as her cheeks flushed and her gaze hit the floor in embarrassment. She let out a sigh and walked over to her closet and began sifting through the clothes that hung there.
"Wait, you're serious? You've never done it in the shower?"
"You should get dressed, in case you forgot today is Jenna's birthday. We have plans with her and Matt tonight, and I still need to grab a gift for her."
"Come on, Soph, I didn't mean to upset you." I frowned and watched as Sophie clutched the towel tighter to her body. She ignored me by starting to search through her closet. I hadn't meant to upset her. Hell, I wanted to throw her over my shoulder, take her in that bathroom, and make her forget about anything and everything she felt she needed to do today. I was about to grab her waist and pull her into me when she looked over her shoulder in my direction.
"Didn't you hear me? Are you going to get ready or are you going to stand there all day and stare at me?"
The smile fell from my face when I realized she was serious and I made no further attempts to talk about the subject. Instead, I grabbed my bag that sat on the floor at the bottom of the bed and went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind me.
* * *
We had spent most of the afternoon at the mall looking for a gift for Jenna. No matter what I had suggested, Sophie flat out turned it down. I was beginning to get very irritated when she finally decided on a gift basket from one of Jenna's favorite stores and a couple movie passes. As the day had gone on, the tension between us mounted, and Sophie seemed to be more on edge than she had been earlier that morning.
I had been instructed to be ready by five, and I stood looking over my reflection in the hallway mirror fifteen minutes early while I waited on Sophie. I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt and straightened my collar as Sophie came out from the bedroom. "You just about ready?" I questioned, glancing at my watch.
"Are you sure we shouldn't just drive our own separate vehicles?" Sophie asked as she grabbed her shoes from the closet and slipped them onto her feet.
"It's fine. If they ask, which I'm sure they won't, but if they do, I picked you up because your car wouldn't start." I shrugged. "They won't think anything of it because I am closer to you than they are. It would make perfect sense that you called me and not them."
"All right, if you say so, but I think it would just be easier to go separately," she bit out, slipping into her coat.
“Why? I’m just coming back here tonight anyways.”
You could cut the tension with a knife as we drove in silence to the restaurant. Sophie sat fiddling with the ribbon on the gift bag, as she looked out the window, completely ignoring me. I knew those two things combined meant she was pissed off with me, but I still tried to calm the situation. "You can put the radio on if you like," I offered, pulling out onto the main road. I'd had all the silence I could handle.
"No, it's okay." Sophie shrugged, not once looking my way. “I have a headache.”
“Sure, okay a headache, right,” I mumbled under my breath. That comment had gotten me a stern look from Sophie, who went right back to looking out the window when I’d glanced at her.
She had been acting like this all day for absolutely no reason, and I was beyond irritated by her cold shoulder. We had never treated one another this way. I pulled up to the stoplight and turned to watch her. She sat there still twirling that stupid ribbon around her finger, ignoring me as if I weren’t even there. "Is everything all right?"
"Yes, of course. Why would you ask that?"
I let out a deep breath and prayed I wasn't starting a major argument with my best friend before heading into a birthday celebration for another one of our friends. "Soph, you've barely looked at me since this morning. So you can say what you want, but I'm not an idiot."
"Let me guess, you've been with enough women to know when one is upset with you." She let out a breath, rolled her eyes, and pointed to the sign coming up on our right to show me that we were almost there. I pulled into the parking lot and into the first spot and cut the engine.
"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"
"Just drop it. We are late. Now are you sure you don't want me to go in first? You know how I always arrive before you. If they ask, I'll just tell them that I parked around back."
I blew out a frustrated breath. "Sophie, it’s fine," I said as I unbuckled my belt. This was exactly like Sophie, worried about everything. At this point, I didn't care what Matt or Jenna thought. What I cared about and was more concerned with was what she had meant by that snarky little comment. I took one look at her worried face, rolled my eyes, and took her hand in mine. "They aren't going to think anything of it. Just relax," I said, bringing the back of her hand to my lips and kissing her. "Why are you so worried?"
"I'm not worried about anything," she murmured, hiding her eyes from me. Instead of taking two minutes to talk to me, she grabbed the gift bag and her purse from the floor and got out of the car.