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Shaking his head, he walks over to one of the metal carts strewn about the shop then drops his tools on it with a loud clatter that echoes in this massive space.
His back is to me when he finally answers.
“For one, I don’t know what style of panties you prefer.”
Of course, that would be the first thing he answers.
“But if you’d like to show me, I’d be happy to take a look.”
My jaw drops, every nerve on edge with the desire to pick up one of the many tools lying around the place and smash his head in with it.
“That,” I say, emphasizing the word, “will never happen. You are nothing more than a painful squirt of runny shit, and you’ll never get anywhere near my panties.”
Turning to look at me, he’s laughing so hard he has to wrap his arms around his midsection.
Damn near doubling over, he gathers his wits about him, gains control then straightens to his full height, laughing tears shimmering in those stormy sea eyes of his.
“I’m sorry, but what did you just call me?”
Shooting him a look that would cut glass, I repeat myself. “A painful squirt of runny shit.”
He’s laughing again, finally wiping at his eyes when tears break free. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you aren’t good enough to be a regular piece of shit. Those are well-formed and solid. A sign of good health. Which you are anything but. So you’re a squirt of runny shit. Diarrhea. The kind that makes a person break out in a cold sweat as they sit on the pot, their stomach in knots while the room spins around them. You are the kind of shit that people pray to whoever they believe in just to get you out of their body. That’s what I mean by that.”
Oh, he is losing it now.
Practically howling.
It only makes him more attractive somehow. There’s pure joy in what just may be his real smile, his body shaking as he laughs. His eyes sparkle beneath the bright lights of the room.
I imagine this is what Shane would look like if he truly loved where he was and what he did, if there was an ounce of purity inside him that he could find from wherever or whenever it was lost.
For a moment, he seems free, and I hate that I’ve seen that about him.
It makes him more human.
More real.
And more like somebody I might want to know if the circumstances were different.
It takes almost a full minute for him to gain control of himself again, his eyes still glimmering with humor when he turns away to fiddle with his tools and answer more of my questions.
“Second, your friend is fine. We let her go since she wasn’t who we were after.”
My muscles relax a little at the thought that she’s not dead somewhere, her life snuffed out before she ever really had the chance to live.
“Third,” he says, his eyes meeting mine when he finishes whatever he was doing with those tools and turns back my direction again, “how we found you doesn’t really matter.”
“I fail to see how that’s true, but whatever.”
With a long-legged and almost arrogant stride, Shane crosses the room to stand in front of me. He’s so close that I have to crane my neck to look up at him.
“And fourth, you need to stop watching so many bullshit crime shows. Your imagination is miles ahead of you in all of this.”
Stifling the urge to stomp my foot like an errant toddler, I keep my stare locked on his.
“I read books. And I can’t stand television.”
