Page 19 of Clinically Delicious
I pulled my knees up to my chest and rested my forehead against them, trying to achieve some kind of meditative state where I could simply cease to exist. It wasn’t working. My brain was too busy replaying the scene on loop, like a highlight reel from the worst movie ever made.
“You’re clearly... busy. With your... towel situation.”
I groaned so hard I nearly dislocated something.
The thing was—and this was the part that made it infinitely worse—he’d lookedgood. Like, objectively, scientifically, undeniably good. The kind of good that made you question whether you’d been living under a rock your entire life, because how had I not noticed that Gabriel Lyon was an actual human specimen?
Sure, I’d noticed he was attractive in an annoying, grumpy, perpetually disappointed way. But that was different. That was like noticing a sculpture was well-crafted. Intellectual appreciation. Distant. Safe.
This was not safe.
This was wet hair and water droplets and muscles that had clearly been doing push-ups while I wasn’t looking, and atowel situationthat had nearly caused me to spontaneously combust.
And I’dsaidthat. Out loud. To his face.
“Towel situation,” I muttered again, banging my head lightly against the bedroom door. “Who even says that? What does that even mean? It’s not a real phrase, Cate. You invented it. You invented a phrase to describe the fact that he was half-naked and you were having a complete neurological breakdown.”
I heard the front door open.
“Cate? Honey?”
My mom’s voice echoed through the house, followed by the sound of grocery bags hitting the kitchen counter. I heard herpause, probably noticing the trail of destruction I’d left—my purse abandoned by the door, my shoes kicked off haphazardly, and me, apparently, having a full mental breakdown on the floor like some kind of tragic Victorian heroine.
“Cate?” she called again, this time with more concern.
“Up here,” I called back weakly. “I’m having a crisis.”
Her footsteps quickened, and then she appeared, taking in the scene with the practiced eye of someone who’d dealt with my dramatics for twenty-something years.
“Okay,” she said, setting down her purse and crouching beside me. “Talk to me. What happened? Did he fire you? Oh God, did Megan break something else?”
“Worse,” I said.
“Worse than a broken arm?”
“Infinitely worse.”
My mom sat down on the floor next to me, her expression shifting from concern to curiosity. “Alright, I’m listening.”
I took a deep breath. “He answered the door in a towel.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then my mom started laughing. Not a polite chuckle. A full, body-shaking laugh that echoed through the hallway.
“It’s not funny!” I protested, but I could feel my face heating up again just from saying it out loud.
“Oh, honey, it’s a little funny,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “So what? He was getting out of the shower. That’s... normal. People shower.”
“Yes, but he was—there was—” I gestured vaguely at the space in front of me, trying to convey the sheersituationof it all. “And I said, ‘towel situation.’”
My mom lost it again.
“I’m serious!” I huffed. “I actually said those words. ‘You’re clearly busy with your towel situation.’ Like I was commenting on his laundry schedule!”
“Oh my God,” my mom gasped between laughs. “That’s the mostyouthing I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re not helping, Mom,” I groaned. “In fact, you’re making it worse. I have to go back there on Monday. I have to see him again. I have to look him in the eye and pretend like I didn’t just have a complete meltdown on his doorstep because he was—” I stopped myself, but it was too late.
