“Okay, okay, I get the point.” I drag my finger through a clump of bubbles resting on the rim. “This is new.”

I’m not talking about the tub, and we both know it.

“Not that new.”

“New enough. Up to the time you accidentally texted me, I thought of you as Macon Ass-Chaps Saint.”

He huffs a laugh. “And you were Delilah Judgy-Eyes Baker.”

“Judgy-Eyes?”

He smiles, totally pleased. “Asks the woman currently giving me judgy-eyes.”

I flick the side of his head. Macon chuckles slow and easy. “Just proves my point.”

Something inside me goes quiet and warm. “I don’t think you’re an asshat anymore.”

All humor fades from his night-dark eyes. His gaze, hazy and heated, lowers to my mouth. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

My resistance melts like warm butter in a hot pot. “I think about you too.”

The muscles along his big arms clench as he grips the tub. “I want to be near you all the time. And when I am near you, it isn’t enough; I want more.”

We’re leaning into each other, not touching but sharing the same air.

Macon’s lips part softly. He licks them, then meets my eyes. “I can’t pretend anymore.”

I want to rest my head on his shoulder, crawl into the tub with him, clothes and all, and hold him close. It scares the crap out of me. “No,” I agree. “We can’t go back to how it was before.”

Macon stirs, the water sloshing, but he doesn’t touch me. His lashes are spiky fans, his skin glowing bronze in the lowered bathroom lights. “I know you think everything comes easily to me, Delilah. On the surface, it’s true. But when it comes to here”—he presses a fist to the center of his chest—“I’m fucking lost. I don’t know about normal relationships; my parents certainly didn’t have one.”

He wipes a hand over his wet face and then stares out of the window, where the night sky is black as velvet. Lines of concentration pull at his mouth. When he finally looks at me, his expression is drawn tight, frustration darkening his eyes. “When I’m on location, it eats up hours, days, months. It isolates me, and I forget to be social. Fuck, half the time, it messes with my mind, and I start acting like whatever character I’m playing.”

I nod because I don’t know what to say, and Macon rubs his face again, water tinkling with the movement. “It can be lonely as fuck. But I’m used to being lonely.”

The thought makes me ache.