Page 22 of The Black Rider
“I know you crashed the women’s shower,” I told Aeron.
“Technically, you were in the men’s shower, Speedy. I was there with you because everyone in San Quintin knew we were looking for you. There’s been a lot of unknown people here since I left. I was protecting you. Want to shower with me again?”
What I should have done was punch him in his zombie guts covered face and gone back inside with Leif, who hadn’t tried to check out my naked ass so far. But when had I ever reacted normally to anything that had happened since I woke up from that coma? I wasn’t all that offended Aeron saw me naked. I did my fair share of checking him out in the shower too.
And I wanted to do it again. I worked all day poring over that laptop. I deserved to sexually objectify the Horseman of Death after a hard day of work.
“Yeah, I’ll take that shower, but you’re staying far away from me because I don’t want my feet in zombie guts.”
Aeron just smirked at me like he had something planned. Leif just threw up his hands and went back inside.
“One day, I’m going to get called when science is sexy,” he muttered.
Oh, I totally found Leif in his lab coat and goggles sexy, but I was still trying to process that and remember him. I liked what I knew about Leif so far, but I wasn’t ready to get naked with him. I had a feeling there should be a yet behind that sentence, and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I still wasn’t fucking their entire team in the Oval Office, but I could admit I felt very comfortable around Aeron and Leif, and I liked them a little more than just apocalypse friends.
Aeron held out his hand to me like he expected me to hold it. I wasn’t touching that hand until he cleaned under his fingernails because it looked like he even had zombie under there too.
“No way. You’re filthy, and you smell like someone wrapped shrimp in a dirty diaper and left it in a sweltering room with no ventilation for two weeks.”
“Ido notsmell that bad.”
“You smell more offensive than a militant redneck’s Facebook feed.”
“You can be mean when you want to. We wiped out an enormous threat that was headed this way.”
“And San Quintin thanks you, but I think you enjoyed every minute of it. Can we get to the showers now?”
“I think you just want to see me naked again. I saw you checking me out after you stopped playing in the water.”
“I think you enjoy being an asshole.”
“I think you like it when I’m an asshole.”
“I think I will like it when you get all those guts off you.”
“So, you can check me out in all my naked glory.”
“Because you stink. Let’s get in the shower.”
And yeah, because I wanted to look at him naked again, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Plus, after so many cold showers, bathing in the river, and stinking to high heaven myself, hot showers were still a treat.
I tried to stay downwind of Aeron as we made it to the showers. There was this stench to the entire world now that the dead were walking. It was less in San Quintin since they burned anything that died outside the walls, but I could smell Aeron over the prevalent scent of burning corpses that lingered in the air in San Quintin, and he desperately needed that shower.
Aeron was a gentleman and kept his eyes above the waist while we were stripping off our clothes. I was no lady, and I was peeking everywhere.
“I hope you plan on burning those clothes.”
“It’s not like I can hit up a store and buy more. It’s pretty hard finding angel sized clothes when I scavenge.”
“You’re seriously going to ask someone to wash that for you?”
Aeron turned the water on and let it get hot. I did the same.
“Just because we’re angels doesn’t mean we don’t do our own laundry, Ariel.”
“The Horseman of Death folds clothes?”
“Not fitted sheets. I don’t think anyone knows how to fold those. I’ve seen people post videos where they’ve figured something out, but who has time to mess with that?”
