Page 17 of Red Boar's Baby

“I—but—” Diana found that she was talking to herself. Taking a breath, she collected her choice of sheets and dropped them on the couch. Costa had vanished into the bedroom, where she could hear him talking idly to the baby, accompanied by rustling as he presumably made up a baby-sized bed.

She wanted to be in there too, and she couldn’t understand why.

Instead, she went into the bathroom. It was a typical bachelor’s bathroom, the edge of the tub and the sink cluttered with guy stuff: shaving things, a budget-sized all-in-one shampoo/conditioner, several different brands of muscle rub, some expired medication bottles. But it wasn’t a total mess, and it was clean enough that she didn’t feel bad about shedding her clothes and touching the floor with her bare feet. Although, Diana mused, her tolerance was probably higher than most; she’d been sharing close quarters with mostly-male flight and emergency crews for years.

As she stripped, she looked around curiously. She had been in Costa’s apartment plenty of times, enough to have used his bathroom on a number of occasions, but she never lingered. Now she found herself reading signs from the things around her, like a tracker noting its quarry’s behavior from paw prints. She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for. Even with the distance between them as adults, she was reasonably confident that he didn’t, say, have a secret wife and kids stashed away somewhere.

But she still felt an undefined yet intense urge toknow, even though she wasn’t sure what exactly it was that she wanted so badly to know. She picked up the bottles on the rim of the sink, noting that most of them were for prescription painkillers. Work-related injuries? Pulled muscles?

Being completely naked, knowing Costa was right on the other side of the wall, also gave her a feeling she didn’t know how to interpret. She was used to showering with guys around, another aspect of her job. But this felt different. She could hear him through the wall now and then, occasionally saying something to the baby, and realized she was straining to catch the words.

Ridiculous. She drew the shower curtain and did the usual new-bathroom dance of “where are the shower controls, how does the temperature control work, how long does this take to warm up.”

Costa had a nice shower. Very hot water, great water pressure. Diana sighed in pleasure as dust and dried sweat washed off her skin. Then she found that it was very difficult not to think about Costa in this very same shower, head tilted back, the same hot water that was currently rushing over her body hitting his face and streaming down his muscular chest?—

Diana grabbed the shampoo bottle almost angrily and scrubbed it into her hair. Costa’s stupid all-in-one shampoo was going to leave her curly hair a frizzy mess.Maybe I should buy some decent shampoo, leave it over here so I can use it when?—

She slammed the lid on that thought.When I take all the showers I’m definitely gonna be taking at my totally platonic not-a-boyfriend friend’s house?

Her unruly thoughts were taking all the fun out of this shower.

You know what would really be fun, would be if Quinn was in here with?—

Diana groaned. She gave her hair a cursory rinse and stepped out. There were clean towels folded above the laundry hamper, into which she didnotpeek, and she rubbed herself down while definitely not thinking about Costa using the same towel before its last tour in the washing machine.

Her clothes were an unappealing sweaty and dusty clump on the floor. With the towel wrapped around her body, she cautiously cracked the door open and peeked out. Her mouth was open to say Costa’s name when she discovered he had left a small pile of folded clothing in front of the door.

She definitely wasn’t disappointed that she hadn’t had to call him over to bring her something to wear. Not at all.

He had left her a T-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts. Both were miles too big—she was going to need to hold up the shorts if she couldn’t find something for a belt—but they were pleasant against her shower-clean skin. The T-shirt was very soft, and she fingered the fabric, wondering if it was a well-worn favorite, or if he’d found her the softest shirt he owned. Maybe all his T-shirts were like this.

I could pet them and find out.

Why on earth was her brain doing this to her? It was all this solo proximity, she thought. Normally when she and Costa spent time together, they were around other people as well.

She told herself firmly, as she tried to tuck the waistband of the shorts in such a way they’d stay up, that if she and Costa were actual friends, they’d hang out together sometimes. They were friendly, but one-on-one hangouts were the kind of things you did withfriends. Staying up late drinking. Listening to each other’s problems.

Friends do that kind of thing. That’s friendship by definition. And we aren’t.

We’re just people who call each other when we need a fake date.

For a sudden, startling instant she found herself near tears.

Shaking her head at her own folly, she finger-combed her hair, gathered her clothes, and left the bathroom. She found that the couch had been folded down into a bed, neatly made up for her. All the lights were off except for one in the kitchen, and Costa’s bedroom door was shut.

No good nights, then.

She climbed into bed, settling on the creaky sofa bed and trying to find a position where a metal strut wasn’t jabbing her in the back through the thin mattress.

“Good night,” she whispered into the dark.

* * *

She hadn’t expected to sleep well, but it had been an exhausting day. The next thing she knew, pale gray predawn light was filtering into the room, and soft, furtive sounds came from the kitchen, as of someone trying not to make too much noise, punctuated by an occasional muttered remark or exclamation.

“I see you still get up at zero dark thirty,” Diana said into her pillow.

There was a muffled curse from the kitchen. “And I see you still have ears like a bat—no, sweetie, not there—Di, look out!”

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