“I’m not a runner. I never run. I…” He was already filthy and pathetic, so he figured the truth could only benefit him at this point. “I wanted to do something for myself because I came here all heartbroken like a stupid, heartbroken fool, and then I met you and I got all bleargh when you left yesterday, but it’s really not about you. It’s about Guy. Guy’s his actual name. I know, it’s confusing. It’s about Guy and my stupid heartbrokenness, but then there’s you and there was the wine, and I was just gonna go run to the shore because it was so beautiful and, like, heart-expanding yesterday, so I ran and then. Well. Then I fell. Anyway. I’m fine. I mean, physically. Obviously I’m a ridiculous mess in every other way,” Truman finished with laughter bordering on the frantic.

Ash was watching him with a line between his brows. “Do you want to take a shower?” he asked.

“With you?”

The words were out of Truman’s mouth before they passed through his conscious mind. Ash’s eyes widened.

“Ohmygod, no. I’m sorry. Obviously not with you.”

Was there a mortification greater than cringe? Because if there hadn’t previously been, Truman was sure this was it.

Ash gave a tiny smile, and Truman swallowed hard, trying not to cry.

To avoid this still-greater horror, he turned and headed quickly for the bathroom. He threw open the door, ready to escape Ash’s beautiful, serene blue-gray gaze, and came face-to-face—well, nearly hanger to eyeball—with the closet.

“It’s…um…”

Ash pointed through the kitchen, and Truman squeezed his eyes shut tight. He gave a weak thumbs-up sign that he hoped would forestall all other communication and headed in the direction Ash had pointed.

Safely inside the tiny bathroom, he turned on the shower and sagged onto the toilet lid.

“Omigod, kill me.”

Once, his freshman year of college, he’d done something mortifying at a floor party—he didn’t remember what it was now, which should have been a comfort—and had fled to the communal bathroom to hide. He’d said something similar, and a voice, strange and inhuman in the echoey bathroom, had responded, “Don’t tempt me.”

Truman had been so startled he’d almost fallen in the toilet trying to get out of the stall. By the time he did manage to extract himself, there was no one there to be found.

He choked on a giggle thinking about it and stepped under the hot water.

To calm himself, he imagined what Germaine would say. Probably something like You just tripped! It’s not a big deal. And Ash is just a person. So talk to him like a person.

“Just a person,” Truman repeated.

When he got out of the shower, there was a soft knock on the door.

“I have some clothes for you.”

“Okay.”