He ran her a bath, washed her face, and asked — very gently — whether anyone would come looking. She said no, and he was relieved
The bathroom tile was cold under his bare feet because he had left his shoes in the bedroom.
He ran the water and tested it with his wrist, not his elbow. His mother had always used her wrist. Warm but not hot, because a drugged body regulates temperature poorly and crashing blood pressure would be dangerous. Gap year as a nursing assistant. His brain was producing every piece of caretaking data he’d ever accumulated in a precise cascade, and the data was not an alibi.
Alibis were for men who didn’t know what they were doing. The data was how you did it right.
Competence was the product. Competence was what she would remember. Not the sex. Not the sound of the headboard. The bath. The temperature. The salt. The cloth on her face. The steady, unhurried, impossibly attentive hands of a man who knew how to take care of a body, and who would always know.
Epsom salt. Lavender oil. Ethan kept a bottle on the counter. Of course he did.
He adjusted, tested, then turned the tap off. He looked in the mirror above the sink.
A man in an unbuttoned dress shirt with his sleeves rolled. A red mark on his collarbone where she had gripped him. Hair slightly disheveled. A face that looked—
Fine.
His face looked like a man who had gone grocery shopping, dealt with a household issue, and was running a bath for a houseguest. There was nothing on his face to suggest what had happened in the next room.
Alex stared at his reflection for four seconds and felt the load settle. A wall accepting the weight it carried.
I look normal.
I look like the responsible one.
Because I am.
