Chapter 6: Bathhouse Confessions
Her lips were soft, restless things against his skin. They brushed the line of his jaw, the pulse point below his ear, the salt-damp hollow of his throat. Each touch was a whisper of gratitude, a disoriented mapping. He held still, letting her explore the terrain of him, his hands resting loosely on her hips.
Her movements slowed. She went very still, her forehead pressed to his temple. Then she shifted, just slightly, and a soft, confused sound escaped her.
“You didn’t…” she murmured, her voice thick and sleepy. Her hips pressed down, a tentative experimental roll, and she felt the rigid, unmistakable proof of his arousal still straining against her. “Luca. You didn’t finish.”
He let out a breath that was almost a laugh, but softer, rougher. “This wasn’t about me, principessa.”
She pulled back just enough to look at him. Her eyes were hazy, satiated, but now swimming with a dawning, bewildered comprehension. She searched his face, looking for artifice, for resentment. She found only a deep, quiet certainty that made her breath catch.
“That’s not fair,” she whispered.
“Fair’s got nothing to do with it.” He smoothed a curl back from her damp forehead. “You needed an exit ramp. I provided one. My job’s done.”
“But you’re—”
“—fine,” he finished, his tone leaving no room for argument. He gave her hips a light squeeze. “More than fine. Now, are you done using me as your personal stress-relief device, or do you need another go?”
A faint, real smile touched her lips, there and gone like a shadow. She shook her head, the fight gone out of her, replaced by a heavy, grateful exhaustion. She slumped against him, her weight a welcome burden.
He held her there as the morning solidified around them. The city’s murmur grew more distinct, the scent of the sea lifting on the warm air. He felt the precise moment she drifted into a true, dreamless doze, her breath evening out against his neck.
He waited another ten minutes, until his own body had grudgingly settled, before he moved. He stood, lifting her with him. She mumbled a protest, her arms tightening around his neck.
“Bathtub,” he said, carrying her back inside through the wall of glass doors. “You’re sticky and I’ve got crumbs on my ass from your breakfast.”
That earned a faint, sleepy giggle against his collarbone.
He took her straight to the master bath, setting her on her feet but keeping an arm around her as he reached into the enormous marble tub to start the water. He adjusted the temperature until it ran hot and steaming, then began pouring in oils from the line of expensive bottles on the ledge—sandalwood, lavender, something that smelled of clean linen. He found a half-used jar of bath foam under the sink and dumped the whole thing under the stream. A mountain of white, fragrant bubbles began to rise.
“Okay, off,” he said, his fingers finding the buttons of his shirt she still wore.
She was pliant, sleepy, letting him undress her. He peeled the shirt away, then helped her step out of the stolen sweatpants and her underwear. He tried not to look, to give her that modesty, but his gaze caught anyway—the elegant line of her back, the curve of her hip, the olive skin glowing in the bathroom’s soft light. He looked away, focusing on testing the water with his elbow.
“In you go.”
She stepped over the high rim and sank into the cloud of bubbles with a profound, shuddering sigh. The water came up to her chin, foam clinging to her hair and shoulders. She closed her eyes, her head resting back against the sloping marble.
He busied himself, lighting a few pillar candles on the wide ledge of the tub. The electric lights were off; the room flickered with warm, dancing flames. He fetched a fresh towel, a glass of water for the ledge, folded a washcloth.
When he turned to leave, her eyes snapped open.
“Where are you going?”
“To make a call. Let the team know I’m offline today.”
“No.” The word was quiet but absolute. She uncurled one arm from the foam, her hand reaching for him, water sluicing down her skin. “Stay. Please.”
He paused in the doorway. “Aya, you’re in the bath.”
“I know where I am.” Her voice gained a thread of the old, familiar stubbornness, but it was laced with a vulnerability that pinned him to the spot. “Stay. Talk to me. Or don’t talk. Just… be here.”
He saw the faint tension returning to her shoulders, the way her eyes, still puffy from crying, begged him not to make her be alone with the silence and the water. The ‘noise’ she feared was waiting.
He let out a long breath. “Alright. Move up.”
A spark of surprised relief lit her face. She shifted forward, making space at the wider end of the tub. He stripped off his t-shirt, tossed it on the floor. His hands went to the waistband of his boxer briefs, then hesitated. He looked at her—her face turned toward him, open and trusting, but her eyes still holding the ghost of the wreck she’d been hours before.
This wasn’t the time. She was clean, she was safe, but she was raw. She was seeking anchor, not invitation.
He left the briefs on and stepped into the tub, sinking into the hot water opposite her. The bubbles surged around them. He stretched his legs out; his feet bumped gently against her thighs under the opaque water. She immediately shifted, turning and settling her back against his chest, fitting herself into the vee of his legs. She rested her head back on his shoulder, her damp curls tickling his jaw.
He wrapped his arms around her, his hands coming to rest on her stomach. The foam covered everything, a decent, fragrant barrier. He was intensely aware of every inch of her pressed against him, of the heat of the water, of the sheer intimacy of the moment. But it was calm. It was quiet.
For a long time, they just breathed. The candles crackled softly.
“I used to take baths like this with my mother,” she said quietly, her voice echoing slightly in the tiled room. “When I was small. In Paris. She’d put in rose oil. The whole apartment would smell of it.”
He didn’t say anything, just tightened his arms a fraction, listening.
“She’d tell me stories about constellations. How they were patterns to help people find their way home.” Aya traced a meaningless shape in the bubbles on his forearm. “I haven’t thought of that in years.”
“What made you think of it now?”
“The candles. The dark. The feeling of… being held up. Weightless.” She was quiet for a moment. “I don’t feel like I’m finding my way home, Luca. I feel like I forgot where home is.”
The confession hung in the steam-filled air. It was the core of it, he realized. The brilliant logistics mind that could coordinate his life across three continents couldn’t plot a course back to her own center.
“Then don’t look for home,” he said, his voice a low rumble in her ear. “Look for the next star. Just the next one. Follow that.”
“What’s my next star?”
“Finishing this bath without turning into a prune. That’s the mission.”
She elbowed him gently, a ghost of her old spirit. “I’m being serious.”
“So am I. One thing at a time.” He reached for the washcloth, soaked it, and squeezed warm water over her shoulders. “Star one: bath. Star two: real clothes. Star three: maybe watching a terrible movie and insulting the acting. We’ll find star four when we get there.”
She caught his hand, lacing her fingers through his under the water. Her grip was strong. “You make it sound simple.”
“It’s not. But the process is. You just keep moving toward the next point of light. However small.”
She turned her head, her cheek resting against his. Her eyes were closed. “You’re my next star, aren’t you?”
The words stopped his heart for a full beat. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “I’m your north star, Aya. Always have been. You just finally looked up and saw me.”
A single tear escaped the corner of her eye, tracing a clean line through the residue of salt and city grit. It wasn’t a sad tear. It was one of recognition.
They stayed until the water began to cool and the bubbles dissolved into a greasy film. He washed her hair with meticulous, gentle care, his fingers massaging her scalp until she was practically purring. He rinsed her, lifting a jug of clean water to pour over her crown.
When they finally climbed out, pruned and steaming, he wrapped her in a towel so large it swallowed her. He dried her off with a rough, tender efficiency, then did the same for himself, swapping his wet briefs for a fresh pair of sweatpants.
He found her standing in the middle of his walk-in closet, wrapped in the towel, staring blankly at rows of his clothes. The overwhelmed look was threatening to return.
“Eyes on me,” he said, stepping in front of her. He went to a drawer she knew well—the one where he kept the soft, stolen things. The hoodies and t-shirts she’d accrued over the years and never returned. He pulled out an old, faded Harvard shirt and a pair of his softest cotton shorts. “Here. These. That’s your uniform for today.”
She dressed while he turned away, pulling on the clothes. The shirt hung to her mid-thigh. She rolled the shorts at the waist.
He led her back to the living room, to the vast, cream-colored sofa. He pushed her down into the corner, tucked a blanket around her, and put the remote in her hand.
“Your kingdom. Pick your poison.”
She scrolled, landed on a dubbed action movie from the early 2000s with famously bad special effects. She turned the volume low. He disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two bowls of ice cream.
They ate in silence, watching a helicopter explode in visibly pixelated flames. She pointed a spoon at the screen. “The physics of that rotor detachment are an insult to Newton.”
“He’s rolling in his grave,” Luca agreed solemnly.
“The lead actor is pronouncing ‘nuclear’ like ‘nukular’.”
“A war crime.”
A small, real smile played on her lips. She scooped up a melting chunk of chocolate. “This is good.”
“The ice cream or the atrocious film?”
“Both.”
He watched her instead of the screen. The tightness around her eyes had eased. The hollows seemed less pronounced. She was here, with him, making pedantic comments about bad cinema. It was a fragile peace, but it was peace.
As the credits rolled, she set her empty bowl on the floor and shifted, tucking her legs under her and leaning into his side. He put his arm around her.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For the ice cream?”
“For the bath. For the shirt. For… for not finishing.” She said the last part so quietly he almost missed it.
He pressed a kiss to her hair. “Any time, principessa.”
She was quiet for so long he thought she’d fallen asleep. Then she spoke, her words a soft puff of air against his chest. “I want to. Someday. When it’s about you, too. I want to be that for you.”
The promise in her words, the conscious offering, hit him with more force than any physical release ever could. It wasn’t a contract. It was a star, newly charted, hanging in the space between them.
He just held her tighter, his answer in the steady, grateful beat of his heart against her ear. The noise was quiet. The harbor lights began to glitter through the windows as dusk fell, one by one, each a small point of light in the growing dark.