Page 26 of Faithless
“Sure, if you want.” I shrugged, pushing down the jab like I always did. “But I’ll keep my boxers on, I just get really hot. And I use protection and get tested regularly, by the way.” I hated everything about that last sentence that came out of my mouth and wished I could take it back. Maybe it was the ride and the long day, but she had me feeling so damn defensive.
Rori’s mouth wobbled. “Sorry. I was just poking fun, but that was mean. I’m sorry, Torr. I’m an asshole when I’m tired and stressed.”
“It’s nothing. Here, just give me a sheet and a pillow.”
“You’re not sleeping on the floor,” she insisted. “Just don’t strangle me like an anaconda, and we’ll be good.”
“My anaconda is far gentler than that, I assure you.”
“Okay!” She made a sound halfway between a groan and a laugh as she came to rummage through her bags. “I’m taking a shower, unless you wanted to get in first?”
“Nah, go ahead.”
When she disappeared into the small bathroom and closed the door, I flopped back onto the bed with a sigh and pulled out my phone.
No reception, which was pretty much what I expected. Cellular service was spotty in most places, except for well-established territories and only if there were peace treaties between those territories. At least Sevier, a neighboring territory to Four Corners, was finally in the process of manufacturing new phones now. Everything we used now were relics from before the Collapse.
Rori’s parents, Bryce, and all the other old timers talked about how technology used to advance so quickly. Before the Collapse, they had powerful computers that were so sleek, fast, and could perform all kinds of functions. Electric vehicles and the automated machines that built them. Speakers that you could talk to and order things that were delivered straight to your house.
That kind of growth happened at a snail’s pace for Rori and my generation. There were just fewer opportunities to learn the things of the past, and those who knew enough to teach it were dying off.
I played some puzzle game on my phone until I heard the shower shut off. Then I tried and failed to focus on my game instead of imagining Rori step out of the shower, her bare skin glossy with water as she swiped a towel over herself. The mental image of her naked was too much to bear, and I dropped my phone, palming my erection with an annoyed grunt.
Maybe I’d wait until she was asleep, then slip out of bed to sleep on the floor after all. The fact that she insisted on two rooms, and then her utter disappointment at the lack of two beds, got under my skin more than her usual jabs.
We partied together, crashed together, told dirty jokes, and flirted all the time. We’d known each other for years, and yet had never been in the position to share a bed. I’d be a gentleman and not touch her, of course. But for some reason, her repulsion of me bothered me to the point where I’d rather take the floor than force her to share a mattress with me. She’d never outright tell me that it made her uncomfortable, but I knew she’d be relieved to wake up in bed alone.
The bathroom door opened, and Rori stepped out in a cloud of steam. She was dressed in sleeping shorts and an oversized T-shirt, thankfully saving me from seeing the impression of her nipples against anything tighter, like a tank top. Her hair was brushed back, the wet strands sticking to each other and ending at chin-length. Normally her hair was so voluminous, hovering around her face like golden clouds, but I liked the slicked back look on her too.
Who was I kidding? I liked everything on her.
“No lead poisoning?” I asked, watching her rub a towel over her hair in the mirror.
“Not enough to croak yet, at least,” she chuckled. “The water’s hot, which was a pleasant surprise.”
“That’s good.”
She turned, hanging the towel on a hook as she came toward me with a thoughtful expression. “Do you remember what else Astarte said? Something about a contact tomorrow?”
“We’ll meet our first contact in the morning here,” I said. “You think this place serves breakfast?” I laughed when she wrinkled her nose. “I’ll taste-test everything for you, princess.”
“It’s not that, dick.” She gave a playful shove to my shoulder before flopping down on the bed next to me. “The wordfirsthas me worried. Like this is some kind of top secret covert mission in those old spy movies. How many contacts are there going to be? And are they humans or…?”
Gods was the unspoken word she left hanging on the end of that sentence.
“I dunno, Ror. We’ll find out when we meet them, I guess.”
She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest as she turned to face me on the bed, drawing her long legs up to sit cross-legged. Funny how she called me an anaconda when I’d love nothing more than those legs to wrap around my hips and squeeze the life out of me.
“What do you think this whole mission is going to entail?” Rori’s chin rested on top of the pillow, brows knitted together as she thought out loud. “Are we just receiving instructions from various mysterious contacts? What if they tell us to, I dunno, hurt people without any clarifying details?” She jerked her head up abruptly, pinning me with a wide-eyed stare. “What if we’re on the wrong side of this, Torr?”
I snatched the pillow from her and softly whacked her over the head with it. “Don’twhat-ifyourself to death. That’s not gonna help us. We’ll find out more tomorrow. And if shit looks fishy, we’ll plan accordingly.”
“You ass!” Rori dove for the pillow, but I swung it out of her reach. With nothing to hold on to, she barreled forward into my lap. I half expected her to scramble away, but to my surprise, she pressed her palms into the tops of my thighs, pushing herself up until we were eye-to-eye.
“How are you so calm and collected about this?” Our faces were inches apart, and I could feel the warm puffs of air from her lips as she spoke. “How does your mindnotrace with all the worst possible outcomes, Torr? Whatever you’ve got, I want some, because I wish my brain worked like that.”
I shrugged, practically sitting on my free hand so I wouldn’t be tempted to run my fingers up one of those arms braced on my thighs. “Being left for dead taught me pretty quickly that it’s not worth worrying about things I can’t control.”
