The towel’s a mess. It’s less of a streak and more of a series of blotches, I guess where I rubbed it down my leg.Goddammit.
I could throw it away, but we barely have any towels to begin with, so the Corona towel’s absence wouldnotgo unnoticed, let alone the missing bath mat. I chew my lip. I could try and scrub them out in the sink here, with…I don’t know, hand soap? My Arctic Crash body wash? But who knows if that’d even work, let alone work fast enough. And trapping myself in the bathroom when there are four full-grown men who’ve just spent the night drinkinglikefour full-grown men. Not to mention if Blue needs to…clean up, or something.
No, I’ve got to move. Change, then laundry. No one’s going to be in the basement at this hour, I reason, and as soon as these are in the wash, I’m basically home free.
I move in fast-forward: my room for my locker and my Diva Cup, the first floor and the silent shop, the basement door, the dismal gross basement where we all have to go to get our clothes clean. In ten seconds I’ve yanked on the light, dumped a whole load’s worth of detergent onto my bundle, and shoved everything into the ancient Speed Queen, cranking the dial to COLD before slamming it in to start.
For one terrifying moment, it’s just silence. Then the machine clicks to life, thefwooshsound of water filling the drum drowning out my thudding heart. I exhale, gripping the cool sides of the metal and leaning over the machine, trying to let my pulse normalize despite the adrenaline and the press of my binder over my sports bra.
Close call, I think, as the machine noisily ratchets into its wash cycle.But not too?—
There’s a loud, ugly, electric kind ofsnap.
Then the room goes black.
Shit, I think, stomach plunging. Fucking…shit. I must have…overloaded the circuits, or something. Wouldn’t be the first time. The building is old as hell, and whoever actually owns it—owned it?—didn’t seem to do a ton of upkeep. We get blown breakers, weak ventilation, even a sink backup once or twice. But Pan refuses to get anyone out to repair stuff because of the whole “not technically legal residents of the property” thing.
I’m just debating going over to see if I can fix the breaker when?—
“Someone there?” barks a voice.
I jump. I don’t have to see to know who it is.
“Oh,” I say. “Shit. I?—”
“Tink?” Blue’s voice is rough, hard. Not happy. I swallow and fold my arms, immediate, instinctive.
“What the hell are you doing?” he yells.
My pulse skyrockets. I don’t look at him, don’t look anywhere if I can help it, my brain going too fast trying to calculate why I’m here, why Icouldbe here, whyTinkcould be here.
It doesn’t help that Blue’s half-naked.
“I’m trying toworkup there”—he waves at the stairs—”and you’re…you’re fucking doing laundry?”
Fuck. There’s no good excuse, is there?
“I know, I know,” I say. I sound hoarse, desperate. “I just?—”
“It’s three in the fucking morning!” Blue roars. “Wash your fucking clothes tomorrow, asshole!”
I don’t answer. Because he’s right. He’s right, he’s right,fuck, he’s totally right.
“My bad,” I say. Weak. The only thing I can manage. I swallow. “Listen, if it’s the money?—”
Blue scoffs. “Save it.” He stomps off, toward the basement wall, where he opens up a panel door and starts flicking at breaker switches.
“Blue, dude?—”
“I said,save it.” I can barely see his face from this far, just the edge of his profile as he finds the loose one and pushes it back to place.
The bulbs overhead come back on. The machine rumbles back to life.
And Blue leaves without a second glance my way.
CHAPTER 6
BLUE
