#Chapter 26: The Parents

Ella The following morning, I woke to the sound of water running. I cracked one eye open first, then the other, and realized that Alexander was no longer sleeping beside me. Yesterday’s memories, still too fresh for comfort, washed over me. The kiss, the bitterness, the awful things we’d said to each other before bed. But I pushed the negative feelings down and sat up, rubbing sleep from my eyes as the shower shut off in the other room. A moment later, the bathroom door opened, and Alexander stepped out with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Water droplets clung to his chest, sliding down the planes of his muscles before disappearing beneath the towel. I quickly looked away, cursing my body for responding to the sight. For five years I had yearned to share a bed with this man, and now I couldn’t wait for this phase to end—if only because it was a constant reminder just how instinctively my body reacted whenever I was close to him. “Morning,” Al