“You made it?”
“Yes. I read—”
“An article,” he finished.
Katrina lifted a shoulder. “I was curious. I still planned on ordering new commercial ones, but it was a fun science experiment. I stuck one in my purse.”
Jas narrowed his eyes. “Can you show me?”
“Um. Sure.”
He followed her upstairs and into the kitchen. Doodle thumped her tail from her position in front of the front door.
Her large tote was on the kitchen counter. She pulled out a small unlabeled red bottle and handed it to him. “The biggest drawback is the pressurization, of course,” she remarked. “The ones sold in stores are obviously more forceful.”
“What’s in it?” He opened the bottle and carefully sniffed it. His nose twitched.
“Peppers, cayenne, all stuff I had in my kitchen.”
“Have you tested it?” He inhaled again. “I should be sneezing, at least.” He shut the bottle.
“I definitely coughed when I took a whiff of it. To test it any more, I’d have to spray— Jesus Christ, what are you doing?”
Jas doubled over, choking and coughing, which made sense, because he’d just pumped a direct spray of the stuff right at his face.
“Oh my God!” Katrina grabbed him by the arm, helping him over to the kitchen table. “What do we do? We can’t wash it, right? Why would you do that?”
“Bowl. Dish soap. Water.” He choked the words out. They were punctuated with racking coughs.
She grabbed the items as quickly as possible, along with clean towels, then came back to the table. He was still gasping.
“I am so sorry, so, so sorry,” she babbled, and dumped the dish soap into the bowl of water, until he indicated for her to stop. She watched, dismayed, as he dunked his whole face in the bowl for a few seconds, then came up and patted it with a towel, then dunked again. He kept repeating that while she stood around wringing her hands.
Unable to watch, she pulled out her phone and googled and found an article. “Take your shirt off, you may have gotten some spray on it,” she instructed. Later, she’d think about what an absurd variation that command was on the good oldtake your shirt off, it’s all wet.
While he stripped his shirt off, she went to the fridge and grabbed a gallon of milk. When she came back, he had stopped dunking his head, though he was still coughing slightly. He sat with his head tipped back, the towel over his face. “Here,” she said softly, then pulled off the towel and replaced it with the one she’d soaked in milk. “This may help.”
He groaned in appreciation and touched the towel. “Yes,” he said, his voice raspy.
Katrina didn’t know what else to do, so she kept patting his shoulder as his coughing subsided. She didn’t knowhow long she stood there. He finally pulled the towel off his face.
She flinched at his pink face, at his still-teared-up eyes. His chest was wet from the dish-soap antidote.
She couldn’t stop patting his shoulder. But she had to know. “What.” Pat, pat. “And I cannot stress this enough.” Pat, pat. “The actual fuck?”
He blinked at her, and she couldn’t tell if he was confused, or if he was still blinking out the pepper spray. “I wanted to see how effective it was.”
Her mouth fell open, and her pats became harder. “Are you.” Pat, pat. “Fucking.” Swat, swat. “Kidding me right now?”
He grabbed her hand. “You don’t swear often.”
“Then you should understand how upset I am,” she said, her voice hoarse. Hardeep had once noted that when she got angry, her voice got quiet. A function of her upbringing. She’d been perpetually angry at her dad, and she’d learned at a young age it was easier to push that anger down and deal with him quietly than to blow up.
She wasn’t angry now, but incredulous. And okay, also angry. “You could have hurt yourself.”
“Nah. I didn’t spray it directly into my eyes. Now we know how someone will react to it. It’s not as strong as the commercial ones for sure, by the way, it faded fast. It’s not burning now.”
“That was fast?”
