Mistakes Were Made(40)

“Of course,” Erin said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “Have fun at your dad’s.”

And then Parker was gone, and Erin was alone in the house with Cassie.

She finished putting the groceries away and tried to work. She needed to work. In the New Year she’d be presenting her plans to create a free clinic to the hospital board. There were numbers to crunch and reports to look over. There was information to learn and absorb until it became a part of her. That was how she had always studied in school, and it was what she fell back on as she prepared for her presentation.

It wasn’t going well. White papers stood out against the dark walnut of her desk, but she wasn’t processing any of the words on them. Parker had left fifteen minutes ago. The house was cavernous, empty, and open, its silence reverberating.

Erin couldn’t focus on anything other than Cassie’s presence. She might as well not be here for how much noise she wasn’t making, but Erin suffocated on the knowledge that they were under the same roof.

She needed to say she was sorry. Because she was! And she could be the adult here—Cassie couldn’t mope in her room for the rest of break. That would be more suspicious than anything she and Erin had done so far. Erin would apologize and Cassie would get over it and they could move on.

Sure, maybe her guilt factored into it, too. She hated the idea of Cassie hating her. It was like the phone call—Erin chose to be a bitch, and then felt too bad about it not to apologize. But this time would be different. She would apologize but keep her distance afterward. It’d be fine.

Erin pushed away from her desk to go upstairs.

It’d be fine, she told herself again. She’d find Cassie in her room, apologize, move on. By the time Parker came back, Cassie wouldn’t be in such a mood, and Parker would be none the wiser.

Too busy thinking over what she wanted to say, Erin didn’t notice the door to Cassie’s room was open until she stood right in front of it, the room itself empty. Erin looked down the hallway. The bathroom door was closed.

As Erin approached it, the shower turned on.

Fuck.

She had to do this now, or she’d lose her nerve. Maybe Cassie wasn’t in the shower yet—the water needed time to warm up, right?

“Cassie?” Erin said through the door, knocking gently. “I want to apologize.”

“I can’t hear you. I’m in the shower.”

Erin opened the door and stepped inside.

She acted without thinking. She must have, right? Erin never would’ve gone into the bathroom while Cassie was showering if she’d thought it through. But that seemed too easy an excuse. Like if she could pretend she didn’t know what she was doing, it made it okay.

“Hello?” Cassie’s voice rose over the steam coming from the shower.

“Hi,” Erin said.

What was she doing? What the fuck was she doing? Who goes into the bathroom while someone else is in the shower?

“Is this okay?” she asked. “Or—I can wait, if you want. We can talk later.”

“Uh, no,” Cassie said. “It’s okay.”

Through the frosted shower door, Cassie was nothing more than a vague outline. She looked pink, like the shower was too hot. Erin looked away. She was not going to think about water running down Cassie’s naked body. She wasn’t going to think about tracing the rivulets with her tongue. About exploring just how wet Cassie really was. She needed to stop being horny and remember why she came in here. I’d love to come in here. Great, now she was making horrible puns to herself.

“Erin?”

Erin jumped when Cassie said her name—jumped, like she was surprised, like she had been so busy daydreaming about fucking Cassie that she had forgotten she was in the room—she jumped and smacked her elbow into the doorknob. “Fuck!”

“Are you okay?”

No. She was very clearly not okay.

“Fine,” she said, rubbing at her elbow. It was good to have something to do with her hands other than imagine them on Cassie.

The bathroom was a mess—Erin had made sure it was spotless before Cassie arrived, but Parker’s toothbrush hung over the edge of the sink, her toothpaste uncapped beside it. There was a hairbrush and no fewer than five hair ties strewn across the counter. Cassie’s rocket ship necklace was there, too.

Erin recapped Parker’s toothpaste, dropped her brush into the toothbrush holder inside one of the vanity drawers. Why Erin kept the toothbrush holder in a drawer when they had guests was anyone’s guess. Could no one know she had good oral hygiene?

“Did you come in here to clean?”

The hair ties escaped Erin’s hands and scattered across the tile floor. She bent to pick them up.

“No. No. I’m—no.”

She had no idea why she’d come in here. She couldn’t believe she had.

“I thought you wanted to apologize,” Cassie said.

Erin smirked as she looped the hair ties over the doorknob. “I thought you couldn’t hear me.”

Score one for Erin.

No, Jesus, not score one for Erin. She wasn’t supposed to be bantering with her kid’s friend. They’d already seen where that led.

Erin stood in front of the sink. The mirror was fogged up. Right. She’d come in because she wanted to get the apology over with. Now that she was actually in the bathroom while Cassie was naked in the shower, though, her mind was blank. She forgot everything she’d planned to say. The rocket ship necklace sat on the counter.