Going the Distance (17 page)

“I don’t want to get my hair wet.”

“That’s a byproduct of standing in the water.” He gripped her waist and guided her in. He didn’t have a tub, just a tile-enclosed shower with a heavy glass door. He leaned against the open door and watched her wince as the lukewarm water hit her head. She shivered, eyes closed, and wrapped her arms around herself, but didn’t move.

“Why am I in here?” she asked after a moment.

He ran a hand over his mouth and tried not to smile. “Because you smell bad.”

Her eyes flew open. “I do not!” She sniffed her armpit. “I do?”

“It’s not your fault. Wash your hair.” He reached in to pick up the bottle of shampoo, then opened it and squeezed some into her palm.

“What kind of shampoo is this?”

He looked at the bottle. It was written in Chinese. “I don’t know.”

“It’s going to make my hair dry.”

Jarek had no idea what that might mean. “Just use it.” Watching her lather up that long blond hair, tits thrust out, nipples hard in the cool water, was almost his undoing. He’d told her he’d make her do anything if he sang in the bar, and it turned out “anything” was take a shower. Solo. While he watched, unable to do anything about his raging hard-on. What. The. Fuck.

She rinsed out the shampoo, bubbles coursing down her body and circling the drain.

“Now soap up.” He put the bar of soap in her hand and she stared at it in disgust.

“Do you have any shower gel?”

“No. I don’t know what that is.”

“You have to know what it is. It’s important.” She lurched forward and he reached in to catch her, soaking his button-up shirt in the process.

“Hold on to the wall and wash up. Why is it important to know about shower gel?”

She used one hand to rub the soap over herself haphazardly, and ticked up fingers on the hand resting against the tiled wall. “It smells good. It makes your skin soft. You can use a loofah.”

She started to tilt and he caught her again. “Pay attention to what you’re doing,” he ordered.

“I am.” She swatted at him and he sighed and stepped into the shower, fully clothed, his socks acting like sponges.

“Just hold the wall.” He lathered his hands and soaped her slippery body, avoiding her upper thighs, her ass, her tits. This was the worst night of his life. Pure temptation under his hands, permission to do anything he wanted, and she was drunk off her ass. The restaurant had been filled with smoke, drinks had been spilled, and someone had thrown up. She smelled like all of it, and her lower legs were splattered with something he’d rather not think about.

He scrubbed her calves and resisted the urge to press his lips to the lean expanse of thigh an inch away from his face. He’d done a lot of things to people who didn’t want them, but he wouldn’t do a damn thing to Olivia tonight. He didn’t want to dwell on the thought. Didn’t want to know when he’d become a decent man.

“I’m really sleepy.” She put her hands on his shoulders for balance, and jerked. “You’re wearing your shirt!”

“Yeah. Turn around.” He finished with the soap, then rose and unhooked the showerhead, spraying her down.

“That tickles!” She stumbled back and he wrapped an arm around her stomach, her breasts resting on his forearm.

“Try to stand up.”

“You try to stand up.” But the words were soft and slurred as she started to drift off.

“Don’t fall asleep yet.”

“You don’t fall asleep…”

“Okay. Shut up. Let’s get out.” Jarek shut off the water and propped her up, toweling her off as best he could, wringing a shocking amount of water out of her long hair and still not making a dent.

She slumped against him and he sighed and scooped her up, feeling the long muscles in her thighs under his fingers, her shuddering breath on his damp shirt. He carried her into the bedroom, peeled back the covers, and lay her in his bed, keeping his eyes averted as he hastily covered her up. He wasn’t sure how long this gentlemanly behavior could be maintained, and he wasn’t going to press his luck.

Olivia flopped onto her stomach, mouth slightly open. He pushed the wet hair back from her face and went into the bathroom to strip, leaving his soaked clothes on the shower floor before pulling on dry boxers and willing his dick to behave. It felt weird to think about masturbating in the bathroom with her passed out in his bed, so he went into the kitchen for a glass of water, thinking about anything he could to avoid thinking about her. All that came to mind, however, were myriad filthy thoughts about the “anything” he didn’t get to do tonight, and in the end he crawled into bed and stayed on the far side of the mattress with the pillow over his face and tried to forget she was there.

J
AREK
L
EANED
B
ACK
in his chair and sipped his beer, listening to the chatter around him. It was the night before he and Olivia would head to Beijing, and they were having dinner with Brant, Dale, and Ritchie at a small restaurant near the construction site. The round table was covered with plates of sliced meat and vegetables, steamed rice, and buns served with condensed milk for dipping.

Olivia had left to find a bathroom, so he collected an assortment of food for her before the guys could eat it all, plucking out the green peppers and adding them to his own bowl.

“What are you doing?” Brant demanded.

Jarek looked up from his task. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yeah. Leave the girl’s food alone.”

“I’m saving her some,” he snapped. “At the rate you guys eat, there’ll be nothing left when she gets back.”

Dale squinted at him. “Dude. You’re
eating
her food.”

“She hates green peppers. I was going to get them anyway.” The men exchanged looks and Jarek felt something inside him clench instinctively. Nothing good could come of his friends teaming up. “What?”

“Nothing.” Brant shrugged, way too casual, and polished off his beer. He slanted a look at Dale, who was also the picture of innocence. Even Ritchie, who was supposed to be on his side, was trying not to smile.

Jarek knew he shouldn’t ask, but couldn’t help himself. “What?” he demanded again.

“You’re in love with her,” Brant answered promptly.

Everything that was clenched unclenched in a loose wave of nausea. Everything, that is, except his fist, which gripped the bottle so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Shut the fuck up,” he uttered, voice low. “I’m not—” Jarek glanced around to make sure Olivia wasn’t within earshot. He wasn’t about to have a repeat of the “she’s not my girlfriend” debacle. “We’re not in love.”

“You’re eating her green peppers, man. That’s love.” Dale’s nod was absolute.

“It’s called not wasting food.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Ritchie offered helpfully. “Olivia’s beautiful. And she’s smart and good with kids. Why wouldn’t you love her?”

“I don’t—” Another wary look over his shoulder. “I don’t love her. Stop using that word.”

Brant frowned. “Which word? Love?”

“Pepper?” Dale guessed. “Which is synonymous with love?”

Jarek closed his eyes and willed himself to calm down. His heart was racing. He didn’t want Olivia to overhear this stupid conversation. It was the last thing he needed. Then he’d have to tell her the guys were joking, he didn’t love her, and hurt her feelings. He liked her, sure. Loved things about her, yeah, absolutely. She had fantastic breasts. He really loved those. And her legs went on for miles, long and lean and perfect. So he loved those, too. And her hair, the softest thing he’d ever felt, was nice. And so what if her smile, the one that showed too many teeth, had somehow become the thing he looked forward to seeing most after a long day—

Oh
shit
.

“What’d I miss?”

Jarek jolted when Olivia dropped into the seat next to him and picked up her chopsticks. “Thanks for saving me some food,” she said, digging in.

The guys were careful to avoid each other’s eyes and spare themselves his wrath. Good, Jarek thought. He still had it. At least there was a tiny bit of testosterone left in his body. What had he been thinking, eating her peppers for her? It wasn’t as though he loved green peppers and didn’t have enough of his own. If she didn’t want to eat them, let her pick them out of the bowl and set them aside, where they’d sit in a useless pile, getting cold and—dammit.

Brant and Dale started talking about a tennis tournament they’d been following on TV, and Jarek felt Olivia’s hand on his knee. “What’s wrong?” she asked, voice low so the other men wouldn’t hear.

He shot her a forced smile. “Nothing.”

“Are you nervous about Beijing?”

“No. Why would I be?”

“Because you said you didn’t like traveling, and didn’t want to deal with all the people.”

Ah, right. The Shanghai trip. The one she’d gone on with Marcus. He didn’t particularly want to go to Beijing, even if he would get to visit the Great Wall, but more than anything, he just didn’t want her to find a replacement travel partner. “I’m not nervous. Just tired. It’s been a long week.” It was Friday, and it
had
been a long week. The exterior of the building was finished and he’d had a lot of work to do, installing doorframes and trim, and taking measurements for the custom furniture the company requested. He was tired, but that wasn’t the problem.

Olivia nodded. “I hear you. You can sleep on the train. All fourteen hours, if you like. I’ll wake you up when we get there. Or let you carry on to Mongolia.”

“That’s sweet. Thanks.”

She winked at him and flagged down a server to ask for another drink. With her attention diverted, Dale and Brant stuck out their tongues and batted their eyes, doing their best to look like lovesick fools, frantically searching for green peppers on their plates so they might find what he had.

He definitely didn’t love her
, Jarek thought the next night. He tossed his bag on the end of the ancient bed and it fell on the floor. Typical of the entire fucking day. They’d tried and failed to get tickets for the overnight train and so had been stuck leaving at seven thirty in the morning, meaning they’d been wide awake for the bulk of the fourteen-hour trip. They had hard sleeper tickets, forcing them into a cramped space with six beds, three stacked one on top of the other like triple bunk beds, arm’s reach from the opposing three. They shared the room with a couple with twins, and Jarek finally understood the one-child-per-family policy. The boys couldn’t have been more than eight years old, with the boundless energy of rabid puppies. They shrieked and hollered the entire time, and their parents’ scoldings were equally shrill and piercing. He tried to cover his head with the thin pillow that came with the rock hard bed, but it was approximately half an inch thick, smelled like onions, and proved useless.

Olivia tried cheering him up for the first couple of hours, chatting brightly until he snapped at her to leave him alone for the sleep she’d promised. She was offended but returned to her bottom bunk and did not speak again until lunchtime, when they bought instant noodles from the vendor who wheeled a creaky cart up and down the hall once an hour. Jarek burned his hand with the boiling water, cursing furiously and telling Olivia to shut up when she asked him to watch his language for the sake of the kids. Kids who
didn’t speak English
.

She switched then from hurt to pissed, and things didn’t improve over the next ten hours. She disappeared from time to time to “stretch her legs,” and no, he didn’t want to walk with her. He didn’t like this kind of travel, he preferred airplanes, but she’d deemed it too expensive. Plus, she’d argued, they’d have to take the train to Shanghai anyway, so they may as well take it all the way to Beijing. There were a few other foreigners on the train, at least he’d seen them at the station before they’d boarded, yet they still garnered more than a few curious looks from people who strolled past the doorless doorway more often than he deemed necessary.

Olivia loaned him her mp3 player, which was, unfortunately, loaded with the unbearable music she listened to when running. The lyrics were trite and stupid, and it only got worse when his legs started twitching as though he wanted to run, when there was nowhere to escape to. And there were still eight hours left.

By the time they got to Beijing, Olivia was barely speaking to him. She’d befriended the two boys and taught them to play Go Fish, keeping them occupied for the last hours to their parents’ relief and amusement. Jarek should have been relieved as well, but he was too fucking wound up to be grateful. He wanted off the train, away from all people, wanted to be alone for the first time in what felt like forever.
There was a reason he didn’t do this shit
, he reminded himself. Travel. Girlfriends. It was too much. It was a headache he just didn’t need.

Now Olivia went into the bathroom and closed the door. After a moment he heard the water run as she brushed her teeth and washed her face. Jarek took a deep breath, rolled out his shoulders, and looked around the tiny room. Olivia had booked the place online, a “short distance” from the train station, which was actually two buses and then a cab when the bus route turned out to be completely incorrect. The hotel was on the small side, just six floors, each older and more decrepit than the last. The elevator wasn’t working so they’d had to take the stairs to the fifth floor, and halfway up the light had gone out, leaving them with just the faint green glow of the emergency exits to lead the way. She’d joked that this was a breeze since they regularly navigated the dark stairwell in her apartment building, but he hadn’t laughed and she hadn’t tried again.

The room had a queen size bed, a wooden dresser, and a low table with a tube TV sitting on top. An enormous remote control rested on a thin guide book—in Chinese, of course—and the thin curtains on the window did nothing to block the light from the busy street below. Even now, ten minutes past midnight, the street was packed with cars and motorbikes and bicycles, the din of horns and bells filtering in through the open window.

Jarek’s stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten anything since the package of vegetable chips Olivia had tossed at him around six o’clock. He glanced at the bathroom door, feeling a tiny bit guilty. She was probably hungry, too. And tired, having tried to compensate for his bad attitude all day. He peered out the window at the shops below, belly rumbling when he saw familiar golden arches.

He strode to the bathroom door, hand raised to knock, and Olivia flinched when she pulled the door open and found his fist an inch from her face. Something went off in the back of his skull, clanging like an alarm bell, though he couldn’t tell if it was warning him off or signaling the start of something. It had been a long time since he’d hit somebody, not for lack of wanting. But he’d never hit a woman and he didn’t intend to. He dropped his hand. “I was going to ask if you were hungry.” His gaze roved over her face, hair pulled back in a bun, damp at the edges.

“Starving.”

“Want to go out? Or I could grab something and bring it back.”

She walked past him to the bag she’d set on the chair and pulled out some money. “You go.”

“I don’t want your money. Burgers okay?”

“Yes. Fine.”

He looked at her and sighed. She didn’t look back, tucking the bills into her wallet and digging around in her purse until she found lip gloss. She walked to the window as she applied it, looking out. Jarek wanted to say something but knew he’d make things worse, so he picked up the room key and went back down the dark stairwell and out into the warm night air.

The first thing he noticed was that there were many more white people in Beijing; the second was that many of them were Russian and didn’t speak English. The restaurant was just half a block away but even though he was hungry, he took his time, willing the darkness to absorb his irritation, letting tight muscles loosen. He pointed at the picture menu and ordered burgers and fries and an apple pie for Olivia, then two bottles of water so they’d have something in the morning. He walked back faster than he’d walked over, wondering how the hell Jonah managed to make a marriage work. He’d been with Katrine for fifteen years—how did people do that? He’d failed to be a good boyfriend for fourteen
hours
, and was trying to make up for it with grease and corn syrup.

He trudged back up the stairs and let himself into the room. Olivia sat cross legged on the edge of the bed, watching TV as the Canadian man explained how to ask directions around a college campus. She’d changed into shorts and a T-shirt, and she was braless. Probably not a good time to ask for sex, so he set the bag on the bed beside her and kicked off his shoes, stripping off his jeans so he was in boxers and a T-shirt, then joined her on top of the covers. “Learn anything?” he asked.

“
Donde esta la biblioteca
?” she replied, unfolding the paper bag and inhaling deeply.

“You’re a natural.”

Olivia didn’t answer, pulling out a handful of fries and sticking two in her mouth as she opened the box containing the hamburger. “Thanks,” she said eventually.

“Yeah? For what?”

“The burger.”

He waited until she looked at him, then held her gaze. “I’m sorry about today. Too many people. Too much noise.”

She raised an eyebrow and ate another fry. “The city’s supposed to be vacant tomorrow, so that should be better.”

Jarek winced at the sarcasm and took a bite of his burger. “We’ll see, I guess.” It was Saturday night—well, Sunday morning—and they were scheduled to return to Lazhou on Tuesday night, giving them three full days to explore the city. Olivia had booked a trip to the Great Wall for Monday, and he had no idea what they’d do on the other days. On his previous travels he’d stuck close to the base or wherever he’d been working; he’d never really played the tourist. The only reason he’d come to Beijing was because she was here, and now he’d ruined it.

“I got you a pie.”

“I’ll save it for breakfast.” Her eyes were trained on the television, but he knew she wasn’t studying.

“Want me to say something else?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just tell me.”

She shrugged and finished the burger, licking special sauce off her fingers before wiping them on a napkin. “You don’t have to say anything. If you want to stay in the room tomorrow, that’s fine.”

“I’m not going to stay in the room.”

“I don’t want to hang out with you if you’re going to be like this. I’m pretty sure we’ll encounter people tomorrow, Jarek.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“You didn’t even last an hour this morning.”

“Those kids were fucking irritating, Olivia. You had to be annoyed.”

“I deal with kids every day. Obviously we deal with it differently.”