by Giulia Skye
She handed it to him, finally lifting her gaze to his face. Her eyes narrowed. He narrowed his own back, already picturing the headlines.
EX-OLYMPIAN FOUND NAKED IN OUTBACK
“I’ve not seen you before,” she finally said. “Only paying clientele can use these showers. When did you check in?”
Close call. She hadn’t recognized him. Adam wrapped the towel around himself. “A few minutes ago.”
He waited for her to move to the side so he could step out of the cubicle, but she seemed too distracted by his chest to move. He watched, mildly amused, as her gaze trailed a slow journey south to where he’d tucked the towel low over his narrow hips. The corners of his mouth kicked up and he couldn’t help himself. He flexed his torso, bulging each of his intensely trained muscles.
“Like what you see, honey?”
“What? Oh, God! I’m so sorry.” Aunt Flo slapped both hands on her red cheeks and whirled round, and he couldn’t help but snicker.
“Yeah, funny guy,” she snapped in that dry tone only the British could pull off. “What would you do if you found a naked supermodel in the shower while you were trying to clean it?”
Actually, he’d had enough of supermodels, naked or clothed, and being compared to one himself, after the year he’d had, wiped the smile off his face. This body hadn’t come from vanity. It was the result of years of discipline, dedication, and hard, hard work. He snapped on his boxer shorts and stepped out of the cubicle. Aunt Flo faced him again, not looking so impressed now she no longer had a view of his penis.
Like most women, she barely reached his chest, but the lack of height didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. She tilted her chin up as if this alone would make up the shortfall. “You ignored the sign.”
“So shoot me.”
“If I had a gun I would.” She grabbed the rest of his clothes off the bench and pushed them at his damp chest. “Now please leave so I can finish up here.” She then shooed him to the door and shut it in his face.
Huh.
Adam stared at the chipped and faded yellow paint inches from his nose. No one had ever shut a door in his face before.
A slow grin spread from ear to ear.
Normal people.
So this is how it feels to be like everyone else.
CHAPTER 2
Evelyn Blake pulled a glob of wet hair from the shower’s plughole and tried not to gag as an eggy waft of muck hit her nostrils. She plopped the matted mess into the black plastic bin beside her. There were better things to do after recovering from a severe bout of food poisoning, but the job paid cash in hand and came with free accommodation, and after months of traveling, staying put in one place and getting to know Lorraine, the campground’s owner, had helped to alleviate some of her homesickness. Even if it did mean dealing with shower sludge, hair balls, and illiterate Americans.
The sign had been up for God’s sake. Closed for cleaning. Evie groaned again, the residue of embarrassment clinging to her like wet hair, irritating and difficult to flick off.
She’d just walked in on an absolute Adonis in all his natural glory. It was his fault, of course, but—cringe, cringe, cringe—the smarmy prick had caught her staring.
Like what you see, honey?
Of course she had bloody liked what she’d seen. Who wouldn’t? Tall, lean, broad. He’d been a jug of ice-cold juice just out of her reach. A gorgeous, mouth-watering vision that had her gawping like she’d never before seen a naked man.
Well, she hadn’t. Not like that. And not that she’d seen many, really. Zac, her ex, had been the only man she’d seen in the buff in over a decade so no wonder this particular shower experience was all the more unsettling. A sculpted man with a perfect bum had been the last thing she’d expected to see when she’d walked back in with clean shower curtains.
Wow. That body. Was it even real?
The tips of her fingers tingled—positively itched—as she imagined how the muscles on his torso would feel under her touch, tracing the contours, up, down and along, over his taut pale skin. Zac had kept himself in shape, but never like that. He’d worked out a couple of times a week at the gym after work, had a hint of six pack abs when he stretched, but he was a mere mortal in the shadow of this Adonis, and the last time she’d seen Zac naked, he’d—
Evie stopped herself, her shoulders sagging as she let out a breath of air.
She didn’t want to think about Zac naked. She didn’t want to think about him at all, actually. Not since he’d written to her two days ago announcing the birth of his son only ten months after they’d split up.
She still couldn’t believe it, but no matter how many times she’d reread his email, the words had been the same. And in the tangle of her messy, enflamed emotions, she still hadn’t been able to decipher what hurt more. The fact that Zac had moved on so quickly? The fact that he had a baby and Evie didn’t? Or the fact that Zac—the man she had shared her life with for fifteen years, the man who’d been her best friend and her rock, the man she’d loved and who had loved her back—hadn’t mentioned one single fucking word about having a new girlfriend or that she was even pregnant.
There’d been no, “Hi Evie, I’ve met someone else.” And definitely no, “Remember how we tried for a baby, well, guess what? My new girlfriend Teagan and I managed it straight away. Hope you’re okay with that.”
He’d kept it all from her. He’d lied to her.
And he, of all people, knew how much she hated lies and liars.
Well, she’d tell Zac exactly what she thought of him. She’d tell him exactly how it made her feel to find out he’d betrayed their friendship, reducing their past to nothing, as if she herself were nothing. She grabbed the tile spray and scrubbed hard, mentally drafting the email she’d send him, until beads of sweat trickled down the side of her face. Stepping back, she wiped her brow with the back of her rubber-gloved hand, her heart beating furiously.
When would she learn?
She’d spent years dealing with the fallout the last time she’d faced up to a man who’d lied to her. Was that why she was taking Zac’s news so hard? Because his lies were so reminiscent of her father’s?
In denial that she should be such a Freudian cliché, she dropped the tile spray into the bucket with a clang and forced herself to think of something else. The naked guy helped, but not in the right way, so she thought of the beach instead, the glorious tropical sunshine, and about how she was ready to start traveling again now that she’d had a five week hiatus from the backpacking life. That bloody email from Zac was making her more determined now than ever to overcome her homesickness, forget all about booking an early return home, and just get back on the road. Onwards and upwards, as her mother, the unflappable Bernadette Blake would say. Tomorrow, Evie would be getting on a night bus to Darwin, and begin the next leg of her travels.
After hosing down the showers, Evie moved over to the sinks and caught her reflection as she wiped the toothpaste splattered mirror. She looked a complete mess. She glanced down at her dirty clothes, somehow dirtier and scruffier since they’d been seen by The Naked Adonis. She’d been wearing the same shorts and tops for months, so this fabulous cleaning outfit consisted of the oldest clothes she carried around in her backpack. She wouldn’t normally care, but recently the urge to wear all her other clothes—like the skinny jeans and heels she had stored in her mum’s attic—had been getting stronger and stronger.
Evie finished wiping the sinks and taps, mopped the floor then locked the cleaning kit in the cupboard. When she stepped out of the shower block, she saw The Naked Adonis straight away. He was standing next to an old chunky dust-stained truck studying a map he’d spread out over the bonnet. He was dressed now, wearing a cap and sunglasses, and a loose, long-sleeved rash top that, other than the hard line across his broad shoulders, hid the sculpted muscles she knew he had.
She wondered
who he was, where he’d come from, and where he’d be heading. Was he traveling with friends? Most certainly a girlfriend. Men with a body like his always had girlfriends—ones made with long legs, concave stomachs and stuck-on boobs. Although … come to think of it, in clothes, he didn’t look so spectacular. His ill-fitting shorts sagged around the tight bum she’d just seen, and without the pecs and washboard abs on display, he looked … well, ordinary.
And she certainly wasn’t a fan of all that hair on his face. A sexy, can’t-be-bothered-to-shave stubble had its merits but full on facial hair? Evie didn’t like it. Young men with beards had been all the rage when she’d left England, but she much preferred a cleaner look on a man, especially in this climate. Her face itched just looking at it, and as if to prove her point, he lifted a hand and scratched his jaw—then he glanced up and caught her in the act of staring.
Again.
Damn it.
The instinct to move twitched her body but she held his gaze, her hot skin prickling with sweat and her own audacity as their eyes locked across the campground.
And then, completely unfazed, he looked away.
Her spirits sagged. What had she been expecting exactly? A smile? Some sort of wave as an invitation to walk over and start up a conversation? Deflated and annoyed with herself, she slunk off to the office in search of Lorraine.
“Who’s the guy in the truck?” Evie asked, as she hung the cleaning-cupboard key on the hook by the office door.
Lorraine glanced up from behind her desk. “He came in about a half hour ago. His name’s Adam.”
Adam. Of course he’d be called something alpha male like Adam. Evie picked up a paper clip on the counter, held it idly between her fingers. “Is it just him?”
“Yes.” She felt Lorraine peer over her glasses at her. “Like the look of him, do ya?”
“He’ll do on a cold night,” she said, trying to keep her voice even despite his naked body being all she could still see. “But I’m liking his four-wheel drive better.”
“Atta, girl.” Lorraine chuckled. “No harm in trying.”
But she wouldn’t try, not with him.
“It’s okay,” Evie said, glancing through the open doorway to the noticeboard and the ad to which no one had replied. Her original travel plan—Plan A—had been to spend a few days in Broome sightseeing with the fellow backpackers she’d befriended touring up the Western Australian coast. They’d all booked to go on a two-week tour of the Kimberleys together afterwards, but after eating a dodgy prawn stir-fry the night before they were due to leave, Evie had no choice but to stay behind. She’d been far too ill to travel in such extreme heat through a vast and isolated area. She’d devised a Plan B—booking another tour as soon as she’d recovered—but the season was coming to an end and they’d all been fully booked. Enter Plan C, her ad. She’d accepted Lorraine’s kind offer of a job while she waited—and waited—for this plan to come into fruition but she’d given up on it now and so had activated Plan D. “I’ll stick to getting the night bus to Darwin tomorrow. Like you said, there are plenty of tours to do from there.”
“Good girl. You’ll have a ball just the same, but you know, doll, you could just ask him.”
She gasped. Ask Shower Guy to be her travel partner? “I can’t. I’ve just seen him naked.” Evie clamped a hand over her mouth, then told Lorraine—between the woman’s hoots of laughter—what had happened in the showers. She left out the bit about her gawping like a stranded fish, but still her cheeks burned at the X-rated image of his very male groin and backside.
“Lucky girl,” Lorraine said, obviously having the same X-rated images racing about in her head. “What an icebreaker.”
Definitely no ice in that shower, but Evie didn’t want to go there anymore. She’d save it for later. Much later. For when she got back home, or at the very least, somewhere cooler.
“Just ask him. He might even appreciate the shared costs,” Lorraine said, with the confidence of someone who’d been there, done that. In her youth she’d traveled the world. She’d told Evie stories of her time in South America and Malaysia, East Africa and even Somalia where she’d had seconds to jump on a boat or risk being caught up in a military coup. Asking a random fellow traveler for a lift was nothing to someone like Lorraine, but Evie had only ever traveled with the friends she’d made on organized tours.
“I’m not sure.” Evie bit down on her bottom lip, her sense of adventure dampened by homesickness. “What happened in the shower was pretty awkward.” Though she’d been the one to make it a thousand times more awkward than it should have been. Any normal, non-sex-starved person would have backed away immediately with a simple, “whoops!” before telling him politely to leave, but she’d helped herself to an eyeful then covered up her ogling by accusing him of gate-crashing like she was some puffed-up figure of campground authority.
Just then, an engine revved across the campground.
“Look, he’s off out,” Lorraine said as they watched him reverse, revealing the blue dome tent he’d pitched behind. “I mentioned you to him earlier.”
Oh God. Evie’s fingers squeezed the paper clip a little harder. “What did he say?”
“Not much.”
Great. The story of her life.
The truck creaked and rattled as it growled its way toward them. Evie replaced the paper clip in Lorraine’s pen pot looking up only when she heard the gear change, a sure sign he’d driven out of the gates.
Lorraine nudged Evie’s elbow. “Ask him when he gets back, doll. What have you got to lose?”
Nothing, she supposed.
Except her self-esteem. Which had already taken a beating thanks to Zac’s bombshell.
But, really … she should stop being so pathetic.
“Okay,” she said, standing tall. “Next time I see him, I’ll ask.”
But as she walked back to the little caravan Lorraine had let her sleep in since she’d been ill, Evie passed Adam’s blue tent and lost her nerve. With or without the awkward episode in the shower, if Zac, a man she’d known for fifteen years hadn’t wanted to travel with her, why would a man she’d known for less than fifteen minutes?
CHAPTER 3
“Oh my God, mate, you have really pissed her off.”
Adam held the phone away from his ear, not quite keeping the disappointment at bay as he toyed with the one remaining crumb on his plate. He’d been looking forward to his call with Shane and hadn’t expected another lecture. If he’d wanted one of those, he would have called Howie—or better still, his own father. No doubt the eight days since he’d left Canada had been ample time for Bobby Adams to have prepped an almighty one for his runaway son—or should that be business partner? It had been years since either of them acted upon their family bond.
“What were you thinking tweeting those things about her?”
“She needs help, Shane. She won’t listen unless it’s on Twitter.” And God, back in the days when he actually cared, he’d tried to make Saskia listen. He’d urged, pleaded and shouted at her to lay off the vodka. In the end, he’d resorted to blackmail; clean up or he’d tell everyone what she was really like, but it was just like her to call his bluff. And just like her to think she’d never lose.
“Saskia will get over it,” Adam said.
“She’s planning to sue you for defamation. You’ve read the news yourself. I don’t think she’s gonna get over this any time soon.”
Adam leaned back against the wooden café chair, not as comfortable as when he’d first sat down to practically inhale the two bacon and tomato ciabatta rolls he’d ordered with salad and fries on the side. He’d been enjoying a post-eating bliss, but now his lunch balled in his stomach, and he was caught in the lose-lose situation of either having to explain his break for freedom—which he himself barely understood—or look foolishly naïve by acting blasé about the mess he’d created.
“Saskia hasn’t served me any papers yet,” he said, speaking quietly into his phone. “She can make as much noise as she wants.”
“It’s sounding like more than just noise.”
Adam flicked the crumb off his plate, watched it shoot onto the empty chair across from him. Despite what everyone thought—and what he himself sometimes forgot—he had actually considered the repercussions of walking out on his life.
Okay, maybe not initially when he’d told his driver to take a sharp left to the airport, and maybe not even in Port Douglas when he’d been too focused on getting batshit drunk for the first time in years, but once in Perth, once he’d been left alone—to think alone—of course he’d considered it.
“She can’t put me in jail,” Adam said, and wasn’t surprised to hear Shane’s snort of disbelief. It might sound flippant but that was the bottom line. After all, who gave a shit about two overpaid celebrities at war? What harm were they to the public at large? “If it comes to it, I’ll just settle with whatever gets rid of her. I just want out, Shane.”
“You’re running away.”
Adam clenched his jaw. His coach, Frank, had said the same thing the day before Michael Adams had announced his retirement to the sporting world. Don’t quit, Mikey. Don’t run away. But why did people always assume this of him? Why did they always expect him to pull some miracle reserve of energy out of the bag?
“Call it whatever you like, Shane.” Adam stretched his long legs under the table. “But I’m still out.” He’d told Frank the same thing, but unlike Frank, who’d lost his temper and stormed out of the training gym, Shane merely sighed. Adam didn’t know which was worse.
“So Saskia’s bounty doesn’t bother you?”
“What bounty?”
“Mate, you’ve not heard?” Shane took a deep breath and Adam braced himself. What game was Saskia playing now? “Fifty thousand dollars, Mikey. That’s what she’s saying she’ll pay to whoever can find you—some bullshit about being worried for your mental health.”
