https://youtu.be/dp8MnyYvTi8

Alex

Elias steps in front of me and turns on the faucet while I silently marvel at every groove and curve of his back. My eyes find their way down to two cute dimples near the bottom of his spine, and I hopelessly give into to the urge to touch them. Elias startles a little, but I'm not sure if it's because of the burst of cold water rocketing out of the shower head or because of me.

He reaches around and squeezes my reckless hand.

"Sorry. Did the water get you? The pipes are shitty, so it'll be a second before it heats up in here."

Hah. I'm pretty sure it's hot enough as it is, but details.

"It's okay. I can wait," I say.

Elias shoots me a sly smile over his shoulder.

"Can you?"

The low growl in his voice sends shivers through parts of my body I wish I could control. But I can't. Every inch of my skin is throbbing because of him.

"What? Anyway, where's your body wash?

He turns around without warning, warm water streaming down his face, and leans in to the point where there's barely any space left between us.

"Behind you."

He reaches for a bottle just over my head, and I flatten myself against the wall just to keep our bodies from connecting the way they want to.

"Great! Thanks! Actually, I can grab it mys--"

"I got it," he says.

Elias lowers his lips to my ear and kisses the edge of it before dropping the body wash in my hands.

"Can you do this for me?" He asks.

"D-do what? Open the bottle?"

He shakes his head and a billion little water beads cascade down to the shower floor.

"Clean me up. Like you said you would."

My heart tightens like a boa constrictor.

"I never said--"

"Please, I haven't showered all week because it's too hard to do it on my own," he whines.

Literally whines.

My eyes roll so far back into my head they give Magic Eight Balls a run for their money.

"Fine, but the only reason I'm agreeing to this is because I--"

"--love you."

My cheeks turn Chernobyl-reactor-red.

"Elias King--"

"Yes, Ms. Summers?"

"Let me be clear, I am only doing this because you reek, and I'd rather scrub you down than have to stand around your cheesy musky stink."

He grabs a hand towel off the rack and drops it into my free hand.

"Scrub away, Bae."

He turns back around and waits for me to do the unthinkable. Okay, fine, maybe washing your ex-boyfriend's back isn't the worst thing in the world, but my nerves seem to think so.

I squeeze a dollop of body wash into his towel and then lift a shaking hand to his broad shoulders. I start in small hurried circles and scrub away at his back like it's a dirty floor until he reaches up to stop me.

"Easy, J, I'm a sick man, remember?"

"Too sick to enjoy a good cleaning? Fine! Then you do it!"

I shove the towel in his direction, but he refuses to take it.

"Nah, don't want to. Just slow down a little and enjoy yourself."

No, Elias. How can I possibly enjoy myself when the simple act of looking at you gives me chest-crushing anxiety?!

"Whatever. I'll try," I mutter.

I shut my eyes, breathe out the tension tearing through my chest, and relax my hands. I move across his back slowly, tracing the grooves of his muscles down the length of his torso.

Sometimes, you forget about simple chemistry. The black and white details of what makes a person beautiful. Every inch of Elias's skin feels so soft under my hands. I'd forgotten what it was like to touch him. To touch someone who stops your heart and forces it to pay attention.

And he has mine.

Undisturbed.

Undivided.

He has me in the palm of his hands even as I explore him with my own. I wash the back of his strong thighs and calves before making my way back up to his back again.

Once I'm standing, Elias steps forward and leans against the wall just to stay standing. His breaths come out coarse and shallow, so I stop what I'm doing and inch closer to see if he feels as awful as he looks.

"You okay?" I ask.

He looks back at me, cheeks flushed dark red.

"I will be, this just--it hurts."

"Am I doing something wrong?" I ask.

He coughs his way through a raspy laugh and shakes his head.

"Not at all. I am. I shouldn't have asked you to do this because I--"

"I know, you think I'm a terrible back cleaner and my hands are too rough. Well, tough cookies, King, it's too late for regrets now. I still have to wash your hair, so grin and bear it. It'll be over it a minute."

I grab a bottle of black label, fancy-looking shampoo off the shelf, pour a good amount into my hands, and start massaging it into his hair. Prior to bathing Elias King, I thought all shampoos were created equal. Apparently, I was wrong. His shampoo smells like angels and leaves a soft, silky lather all over his soft silky hair.

I take his pointers and slow my pace, kneading slow, gentle, circles into his scalp. Elias's whole body tenses all of a sudden, and he snakes one hand around my wrist.

"Stop. Please."

His voice comes out between weighty breaths, but I ignore his adult temper tantrum and continue lathering my merry way around his glorious head of hair.

"Jersey, seriously I--"

"You what?"

"I can't take this...your hands...I need a second."

I catch the exasperated expression on Elias's face and suddenly everything clicks. He doesn't have to turn around for me to see how embarrassed he is. I silently curse myself for being oblivious to the obvious once again.

I half understand where he is. I've had moments when I'm alone where I physically want him to a point where I'm ashamed of the things I do to stop the feeling.

I'm old enough to know that those feelings don't resolve themselves on their own.

So I give him his resolution.

"Elias, if I--if I help--will it stop hurting you?"

"Yeah, but I'm not asking you to do that. I'll get out and handle this on my own, okay?"

I gently take his arm in my hand to stop him.

"Don't. I don't want you to. I'm a big girl, Elias. Besides...it's not like we haven't done stuff like this before..."

"But we haven't done this. You haven't--and I don't want you to think that I'm pressuring you to do something you don't want to--"

"But I want to. Show me."

My voice slips out of my lips as soft as a secret. This is one I've kept to myself for a while, I couldn't be honest enough with myself say it.

Are you sure?" He asks, sheepishly.

I nod and untangle my fingers from his partially shampooed hair and place them in his. I watch the muscles in Elias's back tighten as he takes my hand and makes it disappear out of view.

Suddenly I feel him, all of him, hard against my palm. I slowly curl my fingers around him and he sucks in a sharp breath at the sensation. He places his hand over mine and he guides me. Our rhythm's slow at first, but the longer I touch him the faster we move. I stand up on my toes, and kiss the side of his neck.

Softly.

Slowly. Until his shoulders tense and a quiet moan escapes his lips. He's breathless as I lean against him, just feeling the rise and fall of his back underneath my bare skin.

After a long silence, we let go of each other, and he shifts around to face me. I don't know how to look at him. My face is as hot and bothered as the rest of me, but he lifts up my chin till we're eye to eye. I'm terrified of him reading all the unspeakable things I want scribbled across my face, but I don't break his gaze.

"Your turn," he says, with firelight in his eyes.

I don't know what to say, so I don't speak. I shut my eyes and listen to the familiar click of the soap bottle opening in his hands.

Elias is so careful in how he handles me. His hands lightly graze my shoulders, soap coating his fingers as he touches me. I swallow the panic rising in my throat and try to force myself to relax. To be in the moment. To not remember.

"Relax, babe. Everything's okay. It's just me. You know me."

But you don't know me. Not anymore.

"Keep going. I'm fine. I promise."

I can't promise you anything. Not after breaking so many promises to myself.

"You're a shitty liar, you know that?" He says.

I swallow the sting of how well he reads me and how close he is to seeing the truth.

"I know. I'm sorry. I don't know why I can't do this...even though I want to."

Elias smirks and then presses his lips against the side of my neck, and slides a hand across my collarbones, down my chest and stops inches away from the place I'm aching for him to touch.

"Believe me, Jersey. I know you want to--"

Elias runs his tongue against the soft place where my neck meets my shoulder before sucking skin between his teeth hard enough to leave evidence.

I whimper out his name involuntarily.

"--but the fore play's half the fun. Just tell me when you're ready. If this cold doesn't kill me, I got at least sixty years I can wait for you. It'll be worth it, even if my balls are old and saggy and I need Viagra, I'll wait for you."

I smile and my whole body relaxes along with his words.

"Thank you. Honestly, you don't know--"

"I do. You don't have to tell me. I see it. Anyway, can I finish washing you though? I promise, no hanky-panky aside from a little boob gropage because holy shit they're beautiful."

And without even trying, he has me laughing again.

We spend the next few minutes playing around in the shower and throwing bubbles till the both of our eyes are red and stinging. Elias does a half-decent job of washing my hair aside from the top section he left a handful of soap in. We get out once the two of us are rinsed, clean, and partially blind from our body wash fight. I wrap him in a giant towel that he insists he can't do himself.

Apparently, our shower shenanigans sapped all his energy, so after I bundle myself up, he volunteers me as his personal human crutch. I leave him in bed, get dressed in one of his clean t-shirts, and wipe up any remainders of his half-eaten dinner from the floor.

I feel him watching me from across the room and turn around to find that my hypothesis was indeed correct.

"So I've decided on your punishment for reading my journal, " he says, sleepily.

"And what's the verdict?"

He laughs.

"I know you're into me Jersey, but the dick talk's taking things to a new level. I like it."

I threaten to throw a vomit-covered paper towel in his direction.

"That's not even close to what I said. I asked what your decision was. Verdict is a synonym for decision."

"Oh. Right. Well, I decided that you're going to have to be my personal caretaker until I'm better. My mom used to take care of me when I was sick, but she's like a couple thousand miles away, and I'll die without someone to take her place."

His poor mother.

"I have classes, Elias, and so do you! You've already been gone for three weeks, you can't just lounge around sick. Midterms are coming up."

Elias groans and sits up abruptly.

"I got a leave of absence until next week. First two weeks for personal reasons and this last week 'cause I was sick. Hayes has me covered, plus I don't have to worry about midterms for another two weeks."

"Elias, did you get excused from the professors in your other classes?"

He pales through his summer tan.

"Shit. No. Was I supposed to?"

I slap my forehead, and his entire face falls.

"Yes, how else would you keep up with assignments and class work? That's a lot of school to miss, Elias!"

He bunches his fingers into a fist and slams it against his blanket.

"Fuck. What do I do? I can't fail out, my mom will kill me, and I'll lose my sweet Writers in Residence thingy. Maybe I can pay somebody to--"

"No! Stop right there with the illegal thoughts. I will help you as a part of my journal-reading punishment, but if my grades start slipping you're on your own, got it?!"

Elias wraps himself in his blanket, waddles across the room, and hugs me from behind. A series of sloppy, bacteria-laced kisses land on my cheek despite my attempts to avoid them.

"You wanna get married? Like today?" He asks.

"What was that, Tanner?"

Elias recoils like a snake.

"Tanner? Why are you bringing up that asshole?"

"Because he asked me the same exact thing last summer. Fraid' you're too late."

Elias grunts and then plops down next to me, cheeks flushed and defeated.

"I saw you first. He can fuck off. He's got, Caleigh. That cheating son-of-a--"

I reach over and pat the side of his head like a dogs.

"I'm kidding, Elias. I'm just messing with you."

He slips into a slightly embarrassed smile. My chest warms up at the sight of it. He inches in my direction and stares at me for a couple excruciatingly uncomfortable seconds before saying anything.

"I like it when you mess with me. I like it even better when you make out with me, so I hope you're down with getting sick 'cause--"

He leans in to close the gap between us, but I'm up on my feet and halfway to the door before he can get away with murder.

"Nice try, Quarantine Boy. Now I know to bring a doctor's mask with me once I get back."

Elias straightens up like a meerkat.

"Where are you going?"

"Out for a Tylenol run and then to Bruin Cafe to grab you some chicken soup."

Elias hoists himself off the ground and shuffles into the space behind me.

"Come back soon, okay? I don't like watching you leave."

"Wow, you two. So, when's the wedding?"

A smoky-cynical sounding voice sneaks into the room from the other side of Elias's partially closed door. I peel it open to find Indigo standing on the other side with a dirt-colored smoothie in one hand and giant box in the other.

I try inching away from Elias, but he throws an arm around my shoulders to stop me.

"Don't know yet, but you're totally invited to come, Go-go," he says.

Indigo winces at her new nickname and then shifts her focus over to me.

"So, I see you finally gave into your stalker impulses and found what you were looking for, Alex."

I love Indigo. Really, I do. She's someone I can always count on to tell the truth. But there is such a thing as telling too much truth and her last statement is a prime example.

"Stalking is for losers. I don't stalk people. Period. Anyway, is that a new juicer!? Cool! Let's go try that out!"

"Sure. Maybe you could whip up something for your ailing boyfriend. You down with Kale, Elias?" She asks.

"Totally. I'm happy with anything as long as Jersey makes it," he says with a twitterpated smile.

I remove all twitterpation from my face and stare daggers at the two of them.

"Okay, so this conversation is over. I'm going to Bruin Cafe, and if you guys want to stay and chat about my non-existent love life, feel free!"

Indigo eyes me like Grumpy Cat and then comes as close to laughing as Indigo can.

"Oh, it exists alright, you're just in denial," she says.

Elias slaps her on the shoulder like she's one of the boys.

"Right!? Don't worry, Go-go, she's in a lot less denial than you think," he winks at her and then mouths "shower" like I can't see it.

But I do.

He gets a swift finger jab to the ribs for having absolutely no filter.

"Bye guys!" I say, but Indigo stops me before I can pass her.

"You might want to head over to Northern Lights Cafe instead," she whispers.

I shoot a quick parting wave to Elias before walking out of earshot with Indigo.

"Why?" I ask.

Indigo waits until Elias is back in his room with the door closed to speak.

"Because there's something important you need to see, especially since you still seem to be on the fence about good old Elias," she says dryly.

My heart bottoms out and lands in the pit of my stomach.

"What do you mean something important? Is it a good something or a bad something?" I ask, my nerves in shambles.

Indigo takes a long sip of her smoothie and then looks back up at me with the wisdom of the Dalai Lama dancing her eyes.

"It'll either end things or mend things. The outcome is up to you."

***

(Thank you guys so much for reading/listening this week! We hope the update was as much fun for you guys to read as it was for us to record and write! The next update should be ready by Sunday as always! Kristen and I are working our hardest to be able to maintain a consistent schedule for you guys and we appreciate your patience with us! If anything changes we will let you know!

PS: Question for EVERYONE how long have you been reading this series? How did you find out about the story? Have you told your friends/shared the story with them?)