crystal clear glass box and I was stark naked. "Oh, shit," she murmured, angling her body away from me. That would've been helpful if she hadn't turned toward the mirror and found another eyeful of my bare ass and the hand still curled around my dick. "Oh my god. Okay. You're fine. I'll leave. Sorry about"—she clapped a hand over her eyes—"oh my god, everything."
"Don't," I barked, suddenly bothered. Why did she keep running? Where did she think she was going when she clearly belonged here?
Her hand still pressed to her eyes, she said, "I am sorry about barging in here. I heard noises and I thought you might've slipped and I—I'm sorry."
"Don't be," I replied.
"Well, I am," she said, laughing. Her cheeks were red. She looked adorable. "You're not going to change that."
I bent, grabbing the soap. "What can I change?"
Her gaze still averted, she said, "I don't need you to change anything, Ash. I'm good." After a pause, she added, "I need to stop barreling into disaster. That's what I need and it's not something you can do for me."
I watched her as I ran the bar over my body. "What kind of disaster?"
"It's nothing. I shouldn't have mentioned it," she said.
"But you did," I said, leaning into the shower spray. "And you're here, making sure I don't fall on my ass, so you should tell me. Maybe I can help you."
"Yeah, that's the thing," she said, laughing. "I'm good at fixing. I don't like to be fixed."
"Is that what you're doing to me?" I asked. "Fixing me?"
She shot a glance at me, careful to stay well above the waist. "And if I am?"
"Then it's only fair I do the same for you," I replied.
"I can't see how that's accurate."
"You can't—what?" I snatched the shampoo off the floor. "Of course it's accurate."
She shook her head in the same, tight way I did when people couldn't understand simple math. "It's not symmetrical," she said. "You're you, I'm me, we're different people and the things we have in need of fixing are different too. Based on this alone, it's obviously not symmetrical and therefore this idea of fairness—that you do something for me because I'm doing something for you—will always be misaligned."
"I mean, well, no, no, that's not right," I stammered.
"It's absolutely right." She shifted, facing me. "You need me to run your office because there is—shockingly—a limit to the number of jobs you can do at once. I need"—she ran a hand through her hair as she shook her head and glanced away—"I need a job. And a place to stay. And some time to figure out all the important things I should've figured out years ago, while you find someone who gives a shit about accounting."
She dragged her gaze back to me, still avoiding the fact my cock was behaving like a puppy who'd heard the word "walk."
"Sounds proportional to me." I ducked my head under the water to rinse away the shampoo and skip out on her protests. When I emerged, I said, "And listen, if you need help, you should tell me that."
"It's not proportional." She turned in a circle before opening the narrow closet beside the shower and plucking a towel from the shelf. "It stopped being proportional a long time ago."
I wasn't convinced I agreed with that. Not the way she told it.
"Why does it need to be?" I asked, turning off the water.
Zelda held the towel open for me and I stepped into her waiting arms. "This is such a bizarre conversation," she said, forcing a laugh.
"All of our conversations are bizarre, Zelda." I closed my good arm around her shoulder and pressed my lips to the crown of her head. There was no way she couldn't feel the ridge of my shaft between us, just as there was no way I mistook her wiggling against—and not away from—it. "I see no reason to change that mandate now but I would like to know why you're hell-bent on—what is it?—symmetry."
She dropped her head to my chest. "Because I don't like getting caught in situations where everything is asymmetrical and I'm the one bending and scrunching and giving away everything to fit into my tiny slice."
Steam and heat filled the room but cold snaked over my shoulders. "Who put you in that tiny slice?" She started to shake her head but I tilted her chin up to meet my gaze. "Zelda, love, you will tell me right now who did that to you."