Page 7 of Flash Bang
“You got somewhere to be? How ‘bout you share that with us.”
When Ro didn’t reply immediately, she swore she saw the muscle in his jaw twitch. Ro yanked her head away from his grip and looked at Beau, about to ask him for that ice pack, when the hand that grabbed her jaw turned her face back to meet a snapping brown gaze.
“Look, woman. You are in my house, and you will answer my questions. All of them. Get me?”
About to launch into a snit to end all angry snits, another hand on her shoulder stopped Ro. This one belonged to Zach.
“How’d you like to clean up? Get some of that mess off you? I’m not sure if there’s an inch of you not covered in dirt.”
Ro checked the snit. A chance to get clean trumped throwing another tantrum. Priorities and all.
She tried not to sound too excited when she answered, “That would be great. Even some water and maybe some paper towel would be fine.”
“Oh, honey, we can do better than that. You can take a proper shower, if you’d like.”
Shower? Um, yes please.
“That would be awesome.” Because six days of wet wipe baths left a whole lot to be desired. Ro figured she had to be pretty ripe, in addition to dirt-covered.
“She can’t stand to take a shower, dumbass. What’re you thinking?” Beau said.
Undeterred, Zach responded, “So we’ll get her a chair. She can sit and shower. I mean, I know she needs to get her foot up, but that can wait ten minutes while she cleans up, right? I’ll give her a hand.”
A grunt had Zach looking toward Conan. “You need to report for fire watch. Now.”
“I don’t have watch tonight.”
“You do now. I had to ... redeploy some assets, and you’re taking Alex’s shift.”
From the mulish set of his jaw, Ro could tell that Zach wanted to argue, but for some reason he didn’t. He just tapped her cheek with two fingers and said, “Later, doll. Enjoy the shower.”
Ro was so excited about the shower she didn’t even bother to ream him for calling her doll.
Ro’s excitement turned into uncertainly in a hurry. Shereallywasn’t sure about this. Well, she was damn sure she wanted a shower. But the fact that Conan was carrying her, bride-on-wedding-night-style, across the threshold of a rough-hewn wood-sided building was ... unsettling. First the handholding, and now the picking her up and carrying her places. And when he picked her up, it was like she weighed nothing. Ro wasn’t a stick figure; she struggled to stay in a size eight, and definitely toted around ten extra pounds she could stand to lose, but Conan didn’t seem to notice.
He flipped a light switch inside the building, and it worked! He sat her on a wooden bench in a room that looked, but didn’t smell, like a high school locker room. Complete with a shower room set off to the right with showerheads attached to the walls. No curtains, no stalls, no dividers. Ro would have dwelled on this design flaw a little more, but she was still marveling at the fact that the light switchactually worked.Where the hell was she anyway? Neither Zach nor Conan had answered her earlier question. Ro resolved to figure it out. Right after she showered.
Conan headed back to the door.
“Stay put.”
He walked out of the building, pulling the door shut behind him. Ro took in the yellow and white tiled interior. There was a long counter top studded with sinks every few feet. A mirror, hazy and spotted around the edges, ran the length of the counter. The big lockers lining two walls of the room had cage-like doors, so she could make out the contents. It looked like they were mostly filled with clothes in the colors of the camouflage rainbow—all black, green, brown, gray, tan, or actual camo print. Except for one locker, which looked like it held ...pink bath toys?
A stack of white towels sat piled in the locker nearest the shower room, which was separated from the main room only by an ankle-high tiled barrier. The entrance to the shower area was at least eight feet wide. Definitely no privacy. At all.
The door opened, and Conan stepped back inside carrying a brown metal folding chair. He walked to the shower area and set it up under the showerhead that was nearest to the entrance.
How exactly was this going to work?
Without saying a word, Conan squatted at her feet and unlaced the one boot she was still wearing before pulling it off, along with the sock.
Ro was stunned that he was undressing her like a child. “I can do that. It’s fine.”
“You’ll want to lose the hoody,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. Ro pulled it over her head, but left on the t-shirt underneath. She was not stripping down in front of him. Better to make that crystal-freaking-clear right now.
“Um, you can go now. I can take it from here.”
Conan didn’t respond, but swung her up into his arms again and stepped over the divider into the shower room and sat her on the folding chair.
