Flesh 01 (15 page)

“I get that you needed to do it. Just wake me next time. You can’t go out on your own, Al.”

“Shit. I’ve got soap in my eyes.” Ali fumbled around for the threadbare hand towel that had been hanging from a hook beside the trough. “Damn it.”

“Hang on.”

Something soft and dry dabbed at her face. She dared blinking. That was one thing that hadn’t changed – getting soap in your eyes still sucked. “Thank you.”

Finn’s face was solemn, mouth set and eyes decades older than they should have been. His gaze made her feel juvenile, foolish. Like she had hurt him somehow, disappointed him.

Making the mad dash outside had seemed perfectly reasonable at the time. Why did she feel yet more guilt creeping up on her?

“What sign did you put out there?”

“Oh, it’s subtle. Don’t worry.” Her eyes were hot, stinging from more than suds. Ali scrubbed the soap off her face, searched for a distraction to stop the tears. Every damn subject felt razor-edged. “Thanks.”

Finn tipped his chin, accepting the meager show of gratitude. “You’re welcome.”

It was wildly insufficient on her part, and she admitted it. “For everything, I mean. In case I haven’t mentioned it before. You’ve been

… amazing, Finn. Real y.”

Finn nodded again, set the requested t-shirt aside. His face was calm but somber, lips slightly parted and eyes ful of concern. She blinked back tears like crazy, refusing to let them show. As if he was fooled.

Not even a little.

He was no more fooled than embarrassed. “You need to be more careful, Al.”

“I know. I understand.”

“Good. Because you need to give me the opportunity to watch your back. You need to trust me.” And then he turned his back, gave her a chance to shut down the waterworks. What a gentleman. After a moment or so he cleared his throat, giving her warning. “How about you wash my back and I’ll do yours. Deal?”

“How about I clean yours up, and help put on a new bandage. Deal?”

He gave a gruff nod and showed her his back.

The intimacy of it unnerved her. So, she talked. “When I ran into Daniel I had been hiding in a neighbor’s roof for months. No baths.”

“So I’m getting off easy?”

“I was … fragrant, let’s leave it at that. Once upon a time, I never bathed with veritable strangers at al .” The smile felt awkward, strained.

“Small-minded of you. There’s nothing wrong with sharing a shower with new friends.” He flashed her a grin as he glanced back over his shoulder. There and gone in a moment.

“You know, the Japanese have public bath houses, have done for centuries,” he continued on when she failed to pick up the thread of the conversation.

“I don’t believe the men and women actual y mix in those.” Ali rubbed her hand against the slab of soap, working up a lather for round two. “I’l get the dried blood off your back while you tell me sordid tales of your youth.”

“I have two older sisters. My adventures couldn’t even begin to compete.”

“I’m sure you underestimate yourself.”

He flashed his teeth again.

“So you were the baby of the family.” She ran her fingers over his back, aiming for impersonal. She rubbed at the build-up of blood and dirt. Reddish-brown soap bubbles trailed down his spine, soaked into the top of his low-slung jeans. Her throat closed at the sight of the bloody gash in his shoulder. A hand-span lower and the bullet would have killed him. No Finn. The thought of it had her tearing up once more. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I’m fine.”

“Got some hard evidence to the contrary back here.” Her voice wavered. Damn it.

The look he gave her over his shoulder made no sense but it froze her in place. Finn held her gaze for a long moment. And then turned away. Said nothing.

She had no idea what it meant. Her hands hovered, hesitating, waiting for enlightenment. He kept his face averted. “Finn?”

“We should eat soon.”

“Okay,” she agreed, letting it drop.

He nodded. Mission accomplished apparently, whatever the mission had been.

She couldn’t read him for shit. Then again, she’d always been clueless when it came to the other sex. Men were complicated.

Straightforward one minute and riddles the next. It irked the crap out of her. In the face of her new upfront and open frame of mind, she wasn’t letting it go after all. “Finn, what was that?”

“What?”

“The look.”

“Nothing.” His tone of voice firm and flat.

Okey dokey. Apparently she hadn’t grown enough to chase it down. Awkward feelings flooded her.

“It’s a good thing you had antibiotics,” she said. An innocuous enough topic, surely.

“Got the bag of wonders.”

“Yes.” She offered him a smile. He looked over his shoulder and almost returned it. The corner of his mouth hesitated at the last.

“Your bag of wonders rocks, I must say.”

“Personal preparedness. I was a Scout.” He braced his arms on the edge of the basin and dropped his head forward. She scrubbed at his back and neck, gently pushing her fingers into solid muscle. “Can you do it harder?” he asked.

“Sure.” She dug in, keeping a safe distance from his shoulder, wanting to soothe, not harm. From her, it was the least he deserved.

“Where was your family?”

“Down south. We grew up on one of the Northern Beaches, running wild half the time. I don’t know how Mum put up with us.” The strong column of his neck tensed beneath her fingers. The warmth in his voice when he talked about his family made her heart ache.

They had obviously been close, something she had never quite managed.

“How long have you been with him?” he enquired. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

“No, I don’t mind. Only a couple of days, though it feels longer. Things work differently now, don’t they?”

“Times of war, the rules change.”

“War … I guess that’s one way to put it.” Her eyes bored into the back door. If she stared long and hard enough then magic might happen. Bullshit. Daniel would make it. He would.

And what the hell would he see when he walked in? Her fingers flinched back from Finn, covered in suds. “Wet the towel for me so I can clean you off, please.”

He did as asked.

“So, do I want to know what you saw when you were watching us?”

“I don’t know, Al. Do you?” He watched her over his shoulder, something akin to amusement lighting the pale green of his eyes. The corner of his mouth twitched.

The tease.

“No. No, I don’t. Forget I asked.” Heat swept her face. He handed her a wet cloth, and she washed off his back as careful y as possible, sopping up al of the gray suds. “Can I get to the water, please?”

“Let’s see … You two fight. A lot.” He turned to face her, blocking her way with his arms crossed over his chest. “Opposites attract, I guess.”

“That would be it.”

“Sucked when I dropped the night-vision goggles. Smashed the lenses. I had to go by guesswork after that …”

Her jaw fell. “You did not have night-vision goggles. Pervert.”

The elegant face gave away nothing. He was fibbing. Had to be.

Suddenly a dimple flashed, he shrugged his shoulders. “Be fair. Without TV what was I supposed to do for entertainment?”

“Aren’t you funny?” She bumped her hip against his. “I know you’re lying.”

“Do you?”

“Yep.”

“Alright then. I would hate to make you feel uncomfortable about any lewd, unnatural acts I might have witnessed.”

“I think I liked you better without a sense of humor.” The clean, if threadbare, hand towel would do fine for washing them off. “Turn around, please.”

He did so without further comment. Thank God.

And he couldn’t have seen anything. Jerk.

With gentle strokes, she washed off his back, wary of touching his wound. “You’re good to go. Got more bandages?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. What about your back?”

“I haven’t been shot lately.”

“I’m not trying anything, Al. Let me wash your back. Consider it a stress remedy.”

“Wow, that offer isn’t dubious in the least. I’m fine.”

A sly sort of mirth lit his eyes. “Are you? Or are you … a chicken?”

She laughed, delighted at the unexpected sil iness. Amazed to be feeling anything at al . “Bawk, bawk, bawk.”

Childish sniggering ensued until a loud crash from upstairs stopped them cold.

Finn watched her in silence.

They sat in the parked car inside the garage passing a can of chicken soup back and forth, along with bottles of lukewarm beer. It was the car seats or the concrete. Most of their clothes were scattered over a wire rack, drying.

She didn’t speak, so neither did he.

He watched her watching the door. She barely even blinked.

He could almost feel her hope waning. There was no point cracking bad jokes now to try and make her smile. He had done his fair share of delivering bad news. Between confirmed death and missing persons, the latter was the cruelest.

“Al.” He nudged her elbow with the beer bottle and she started. Enough to let him know her thoughts had been a mil ion miles away from the dodgy Datsun with the mission brown interior.

A billion miles away from him.

“Thanks.” With an ever-present hand at the bottom of her t-shirt, the only item of clothing on her, Al accepted the bottle and took a swig.

There was a lot of skin on display next to him. Who’d have known that beneath those jeans her legs were so long? She had the nicest curves. He tried not to enjoy them, given what she was going through, but it wasn’t easy to keep his mind off track. Those legs, and the way her knees kept rubbing together, came close to causing him pain, especially knowing she wore nothing underneath the shirt.

Not a damn thing. He knew it for a fact. Just like there had been nothing under her dirty jeans, hence the hand on the hem.

Her confidence in him keeping his back turned while she bathed was sweet but misplaced. Each tug on the shirt’s hem seemed to ramp up the heat in the airless garage a bit more, for him at least. She remained oblivious. It frustrated the shit out of him but then, that was the situation, wasn’t it? Shit.

There was only one spare pair of boxer briefs in the bag and he wore them. Al other assorted items of clothing had been washed and hung up to dry. Not that he hadn’t offered her the boxers. He was comfortable with nudity. Guess she wasn’t. Guess maybe it was insensitive on his part to let his thoughts dwell in that direction. Again.

He never had been good at going without sex. Previously, there had never been a need to. Nearly nine weeks into the celibate lifestyle, and he found it as overrated as getting shot had been.

“It’ll be dark soon,” she said. Her voice sounded smal er each time she spoke, making him wonder how long til it disappeared entirely.

“Yeah.”

“Daniel wil find somewhere safe to hole up for the night.”

He didn’t answer. She’d said it more for her benefit than his.

She passed back the bottle of beer and he drained it, put it aside and twisted the cap off number five of the rapidly diminishing six-pack.

The owners might have had dubious taste in vehicles, but he could only applaud their priorities in packing the brew. It had been a shit of a day, wel worth throwing back a couple.

The edge of gold around the door was fading, the shadows growing. He could do nothing for her but be there and wait this out. He couldn’t leave her alone. He would never leave her alone.

But the days of being able to fix something were gone. There wasn’t a chance he could salvage this. It was one more loss amongst so many.

At least she was alive, safe beside him. Protected.

Upstairs, the infected moaned, growing agitated as night set in.

The rat-a-tat-tat on the door seemed part of it at first. Just more of the dragging footsteps from overhead and a

“ker-thunk” as

something hit the floor. It all blended for him. But Al was up and running, the length of the t-shirt forgotten in her dash to get at the door.

“Daniel.”

“Al, wait!” He freed his gun as she did likewise the locks, throwing open the door to all comers. Adrenalin surged through him with fury hot behind it. She’d get them killed for sure this time.

Al launched herself at the tal figure waiting on the other side.

Disappointment had a taste, and it sat on the back of his tongue, hot and sour as acid, making him sick. He truly fucking hated himself for feeling it. No one had canceled Christmas. A man had survived. Bad had been trampled. Al’s heart remained unbroken.

This was a good thing. A good thing. Yeah.

He just needed a minute to catch his breath and find his happy face.

Dan appeared none the worse for wear. He shuffle-stepped her backward, sparing a hand to close and lock the door while she clung to him.

With the shirt riding up he got a great view of Dan’s hands clapped over the curves of her bare ass cheeks. The man murmured to her, soft and low, over and over, “I know. I know. I know …”

“You made it,” Finn said. Lame as it was, it was the best he could do without actually lying.

For some reason, he didn’t want to lie.

Dan nodded. Nothing needed to be said. And Finn didn’t need to see the understanding in the man’s face. Anger would have been easier to take.

Simpler.

He flicked the safety on his gun, pointed it elsewhere.

“Lose something, baby?” A piece of black fabric hung from one of Daniel’s fingers, dangling against the back of Al’s thigh. Dan raised the black fabric high above her head, and she set her chin on his chest, peered skyward. “Finders keepers.”

Finn had to squint and take a step closer to make them out in the fading light. But yes, they had a winner. Daniel had found Al’s panties.

Finn’s sense of humor, however, had long gone. “You risked your life to hang underwear off the mailbox? This is what you couldn’t wait till I was awake to do? Fucksake, Al.”

“Actual y, it was the shrub beside the mailbox, discreetly positioned unless you knew what you were after,” Dan explained, dangling the item higher when Al took the bait and made a grab for them. “I knew what I was after.”