“A real talk, promise?”
“Promise.”
I hang up and toss my phone onto the couch beside me. Beast and I are waiting in his room for Zero and Piston to get back. Zero is reporting to Eagle-eye, and Piston is off doing something I probably don’t want to know about, but nobody seems worried. I don’t think I took a single full breath until he locked the door behind us.
"I need to take a shower. I have—” Blood all over me.
“Whatever you need, baby. There are towels under the sink and you can use anything you find in there. Want me to put on a pot of coffee? I can order food.”
“Coffee sounds good. Not going to offer to scrub my back?” I ask, mostly kidding.
He’s standing next to the arm of the couch and looks down, clearly worried but also a little curious. “Do you want me to?”
Do I?
“Not this time, but can I take a rain check?”
He flicks the center of my forehead with a laugh. “Always.”
I have a twinge of panic when I close the door to his tiny bathroom, but I take a deep breath and do a half-ass job of working through the exercises my therapist taught me the first time around. I can see that this room is nothing like the one I locked myself into. I can hear Beast moving around getting the coffee going. I turn on the sink and feel the cold water running over my fingers. I hated every moment of therapy when they forced it on me in rehab, but annoyingly enough it did help.
His shower is small but functional, and has plenty of hot water. I don’t trust the woodland mountain double-carbon shampoo and body wash combo in my hair, but it feels good to scrub everything off my skin even if I’m just using my hands. By the time I'm done and wrapped up in one of his fluffy towels, I'm feeling a million times better.
At least until I glance at the clothes I was wearing, and wince. After making sure the towel is tightly wrapped and tucked in place, I leave the bathroom and inhale the glorious scent of fresh coffee. “Beast? You guys do laundry I suppose, right? I mean,I’ve never thought about it, but is there like a Screaming Eagles laundromat?”
“No, we do a ritual clothes burning once a week to help escort the souls of those we kill to Valhalla.” He looks straight at me without a hint of humor on his face.
“Shut up!”
Beast laughs. “Yes, we have a laundry room. A couple of them, actually. Leave what you want washed in the shower and I’ll deal with it later.” He crosses the room and fishes a hoodie out of his dresser. “Here.”
I duck back into the bathroom, and when I come out, Zero is here sitting on the couch. They're in quiet conversation as Beast pours some coffee, but it stops the moment I come out.
“You two didn’t waste any time, did you?” Zero says with a smirk.
I scrunch my nose at Zero and curl up on the couch, tucking one leg underneath me and into Beast’s hoodie. Pants would be nice, but wearing this is like having an oversized sweater dress anyway. It’s black with the Screaming Eagles logo on the back and a zipper down the front. More importantly, it’s comfy and smells a little like the body wash that I now know he uses.
“Milk and sugar?” Beast asks.
“Yup, plenty of both, please.”
"You okay?" Zero runs the backs of his fingers gently up and down my neck. It feels nice. "Rough day."
"Yeah." I accept the steaming mug from Beast and let the heat ground me. "Maybe Natalie was right to be so worried about me getting mixed up with the club."
“Do you really think that?” Beast sits down on my other side and rests a hand on my exposed thigh. I look down at his fingers, thinking about how easy it would be for him to slip them underneath the hoodie.
I shrug. “No. Or maybe, kinda. I think it’s okay to worry, but when I was talking to my boss before all this happened, I realized that I’m nevernotgoing to be mixed up in it. My family is here, and I’ve seen too much to pretend that the world is full of simple answers. It would be nice if this was my last time almost getting killed by a gang because of an ex, though.” I shiver at the thought. “So when am I getting that spanking?”
Zero and Beast share a look.
It’s Zero who moves first. He plucks the coffee out of my hands and puts it down on the table. “Is that something you want?”
“No—” I’d been kidding because of what Zero said earlier, but I pause, not as sure anymore. I wet my lips. “Nottoday, but maybe a distraction would be nice?”
"Yeah?" Zero leans in to nibble the top of my ear. "You think you're ready for that?"
I swing my legs out from under the hoodie. "I think I might be."
