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She hits me with an icy glare.
“Don’t push yourself. You should take a nap.”
“No, no… It’s like jet lag at this point. It’s the middle of the day here. If I stick it out until nightfall, I’ll be right as rain in the morning.”
“Right as rain?” she repeats. “Listen to yourself, talking like an old lady! This is the delirium of someone who needs to sleep.”
“That’s how I talk, and you know it,” I mumble as I climb out of the hot pool. “I’m going to the showers for a bit to cool off, then I’ll see how I feel.”
“Alright,” she says.
Raina briefly showed me around the facilities when we arrived, so I know where to go. There’s a small shower room off the main baths with a few stalls, more towels, and plenty of relaxing scents emanating from the basket of soaps.
The emotions of the day are creeping up on me, and the sudden relief of being alone causes an onslaught of unshed tears to bubble up. I try to swallow it down. What comes out of me instead is a weak whimper as I fight the temptation. I made it this far. Why do I have to be such a baby—
I hear a creaking sound from the shower stall area.
Maybe it’s the spookiness of the palace getting to me, but I nearly jump out of my skin.
“Is someone there?” I call out. “Hello?”
A pause.
“Hello.” The register is low and gravelly. “Sorry, did I scare you?”
I squeak. I’m naked and that’s definitely a guy. “I’ll just leave you al—”
“You don’t have to,” the deep voice says. “There are other stalls. I won’t look. I’m just drying off in here.”
I tentatively step toward the open shower stall and glance down. There’s a huge gray foot visible from my vantage point. It shouldn’t be weird, since all of Rossa’s crew is male, and I’ve been living with them. Except I had a whole room to myself there, and I certainly was not this close to one of them while completely naked.
I’ll admit the size of his foot freaks me out too. It’s… unnaturally large to human eyes.
“Are you okay? You sounded… upset,” he says.
“Yeah, I needed a minute to collect myself.”
“Ah, I understand,” he replies. “I’m here for just the same reason, actually.”
“What happened?” I ask as I poke through the basket of shower products. “No, I shouldn’t ask. You don’t have to—”
“An argument with a friend,” he tells me. “Had to cool my hot head off with a cold shower.”
“Oh,” I say, happy to realize that the presence of another—even a presumably naked mystery man—has saved me from an impending emotional breakdown. “Was it bad?”
A dark chuckle. “Yes. I’ve learned it’s better to leave before you say things you’ll regret. I can have a harsh tongue, too harsh sometimes.”
“It’s good that you know yourself,” I say, splashing water from the basin near the mirror over my eyes to recover now that the instinct to cry has passed.
“And what are you cooling off over?” he asks.
I find a towel and roll my chosen bath products inside, hesitant to go closer. What is it about the aura of this man’s voice that makes me cautious? It might simply be the paranoia of having recently escaped captivity with predominantly male jailers. Or is there something about the velvet rumble of his words that twists my stomach the wrong way? Either way, a mere wall between our naked bodies doesn’t seem like quite enough. My insides can’t decide whether I’m anxious about his presence or feeling something like… butterflies?
“I don’t know if I should tell a stranger about it,” I say with a laugh. “It’s not a happy topic.”
“Sometimes strangers can see things from a different perspective. If you want to talk, I’ll listen. Besides, I have a great deal of experience with unhappiness.”
“I’m sorry to hear that…”
