Your Ivy Grows

Chapter 36

If someone had told me I'd find myself standing in James Bucky Barnes' bathroom one day wrapped in nothing but a towel, I'd have laughed in their face. And yet here I stand, drying my hair while staring at myself in his bathroom mirror. A laugh of pure disbelief rises out of me. How the fuck did we get here?

I set the hair dryer down when I see Barnes wander back in from the bedroom. He's taken the time to pull on a pair of grey sweatpants, his upper body still on full display. I'm too busy unashamedly ogling him to pay attention to the fact he's holding my clothes in his hand, folded neatly.

"Here," he says, placing them on the counter in front of me. "I grabbed you one of my shirts too, in case you want something more comfortable to wear."

"Thank you." I say quietly, trying to decide what to do now. It's hard to fight against the voice in my head that screams at me to run. If I put my jeans and sweater back on, it will be far too easy to slip out the door and not look back. I look from Barnes to the pile of clothes and I suspect he knows exactly where my head is at.

He leans back against the bathroom counter, watching me. His sea-blue eyes are even more captivating under the fluorescent lights in here. His gaze as relaxed as his posture; there's not a hint of tension in him. But me, I'm feeling so tightly wound I might snap in half.

"I have another question for you." Barnes tells me, making me tense up more.

"What?" I ask, failing to hide how nervous the thought makes me.

"What do you like to eat?"

My head jerks up in surprise, and he smiles like he knows that's the last thing I was expecting him to say. I don't even have it in me to feel relieved it wasn't a more probing question.

"What?" I ask again, like a fucking idiot, which only makes him smile wider.

"Food, princess. I'm asking what you enjoy eating. What's your go-to comfort food? What's going to make that stomach of yours sound less mad at me for keeping you in bed all afternoon rather than feeding it?"

I laugh, but that seems to make my stomach angrier. Placing a hand over it, I laugh harder. It's not even his fault, it's mine. As soon as John got called away, I felt sick to my stomach knowing where I planned to go. The idea of seeing Barnes after how we left things in that alley had my stomach in knots. I couldn't even think about breakfast this morning; I'm regretting that choice now.

"Pizza will forever be my comfort food. I'm also a sucker for pasta, all types of pasta. Honestly, carb-filled foods are my kryptonite. But you could probably give me anything right now and my stomach would be grateful."

"Hmmm," He pushes off the counter, walking towards me and pushing my still damp hair away from my face before cupping my cheek, leaning forward and kissing me. "If your stomach wants carb-filled food, it will get carb-filled food. Finish up in here and I'll go get the food started."

He drops another small kiss to my lips before trying to step back, but my hand grips on to his.

"You cook?" I ask him.

"Yes. I'm nowhere near as good as you, though. Try not to get too excited, Lex. I'd hate to disappoint you."

With that, he leans in for one last kiss and then turns and walks out of the bathroom, leaving me here to finish my hair and stare after him. It hasn't skipped my attention that he touches me with such ease now. He takes my kisses like they belong to him and only him.

The thought of him cooking does something to me. Maybe it's the fact I've spent ten years married to a man who never has. John wouldn't even stay and help me cook, even when he knew how happy it would have made me.