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"Well, four new men in the course of a week isn't too shabby," Lo mused. "If they all pan out. Bet you'd be ahead of figuring that out right now if someone would get his head out of his ass..."
"I know I fucked up, Lo," I said, shaking my head. "No use squeezing lemons into the wound."
"Well, apparently there is a need for it since you spent the afternoon trying to numb your pain instead of figuring out a way to try to make it up to her."
"Make it up to who?" Edison's deep, unmistakable voice asked, coming up behind us.
I turned to find him cuffed again, but freshly showered, likely feeling a fuckuva lot more human than he had ten minutes before, and dressed in clothes that must have belonged to one of our fallen guys, just black jeans and a black tee.
"Renny pissed off his woman this morning."
"My advice, frate," he said, clamping a hand on my shoulder. "Fucking grovel."
"You don't even know what he did," Maze insisted, giving him a strange smile as he dropped down next to Lo as casually as you please.
"My experience with women, love, is that it don't fucking matter what you did. Whatever it is, you need to fucking grovel."
"But what if..." Maze started.
"You like the woman?" he asked, leaning forward, putting his elbows on his knees and looking at me.
I don't know why I said it, least of all to him, a perfect stranger, and surrounded by people who barely even knew the situation, but I did. "I love her."
"Then you grovel. You love her, you fucked up, you make it up. This ain't fucking rocket science here. Besides," he added, going for a little levity if the way his lips turned up into a smirk was anything to go by, "can't have you drinking this away when you can't hold your fucking liquor."
It was right about then that I remembered how much he had drank.
And the man seemed sober as a judge.
It was fucking impressive was what it was.
I looked over at Maze. "Any idea how late the mall is open to?"
She had been taking a sip of Vitamin Water when I asked and started to choke on it. "The... mall...?" she gasped out between chokes as Repo slammed his hand into her back.
"Yeah, I have to pick up some socks."
"Socks?" Cash asked, lips twitching. "Yeah, man, that's... ah... romantic."
"Trust me. It's a thing," I said, standing. "You gonna make your guys let me into Hailstorm are are there shoot to kill orders on me?"
She looked up, brown eyes warm, because if there was anything Lo was, above a certified badass, it was a hopeless romantic. And she was a sucker for a good romantic gesture. "I suppose I can have that order lifted for a little bit."
"It's going to have to wait," Maze said, making me freeze. She waved her phone at me. "The mall is closed until ten tomorrow."
Of course it was.
"Eh, maybe it's good," Edison put in. "Let her work through the anger first."
"She wasn't angry," Reeve said, drawing everyone's attention. He had been so silent I had forgotten he was even there. He looked at me then, face guarded, and gave me all I needed to know. "She was heartbroken."SIXTEENMina"What'd the leggings ever do to you?" Ash asked, walking up behind me as I stuffed them into the garbage in the bathroom.
"My mother saw me in them. For that, they need to burn," I supplied, ripping off the shrug while I was at it and letting it follow the leggings into the garbage heap.
"You know," Ash said, watching my reflection in the mirror, "I've known you, what, five years now?"
"Sounds about right," I agreed.
"I've never seen you cry."
"Don't analyze me, Ash," I begged, shaking my head. "Believe me, I've had about enough of that today."
"It's just an observation," she said, shrugging. "Your nose gets red," she added, smiling when my eyes widened at the comment.
"Gee thanks for pointing that out," I said, laughing a little as I made my way back to the barracks to grab some new clothes. I dragged up my old, familiar utility pants and a somewhat roomy Army t-shirt I stole from one of the guys when they shrank it in the wash, and moved to sit down on my bed, reaching under my pillow and freezing.
"What's the matter?" Ash asked, sitting down on the edge of her bunk and looking at me.
"I left it there."
"You left what where?"
"My Gameboy," I supplied. "I left it on Renny's nightstand."
In fact, it had been there since that first night when he first pulled it out of my hands. I hadn't touched it since then. There was no need. I was calm there, comfortable. I had slept like a baby.
Ash looked at me for a second, knowing as well as anyone else in the barracks that I was never without it, that I all-too often could be found up playing it at night when sleep wouldn't come.
