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“Yes. Which is why we’re hanging up now. Next week.”
“Next week?! I’m going to die by next week.”
“I’ll call you.”
“Fine. Fine. I know when I’m defeated. Next week.”
We disconnect and I wonder who will be alive and who will be dead next week. I wonder if I’ll be alive or dead. It’s a crazy, destructive thought that I shove away, but when the shower comes on, I say screw it. I get up and head to the bathroom, where I join Rick in the hot shower. It takes nothing more than me joining him under the hot water to end up with his mouth on my mouth and me in the corner with him inside me. And I don’t miss the desperation in his touch or his kiss. It’s in the air. It being that foreboding sense of bad we all feel every now and then. Only this isn’t every now and then. This is now and this is us. And we’re in the company, and bad graces, of killers.
***
Thirty minutes later, I’m officially running behind. I’ve managed to dress in black jeans and a pink T-shirt with white Converse on my feet, but my hair is still wet, though I’m attempting to dry it. Hairdryer in hand, I stand next to Rick, who is shaving all but his goatee, and looking good in faded ripped jeans and a plain white T-shirt. A T-shirt that stretches over every perfect inch of him, and gives me teases of the tattoo on his right arm. And while some might think my obsession with his body rather inappropriate considering the danger we’re in, I don’t. While I’m thinking about him, I’m not thinking about Gabriel or murder or strangers jacking off on my bed.
I can feel the seed of panic trying to weave itself inside me. My hand itches for my sketchpad. I have work to do and I need that mental escape that isn’t anywhere in the near future.
There’s a knock on the door at the same time Rick’s phone buzzes with a text. “They’re here,” he says, wiping off his face with a towel. He leans over and kisses me. “Coffee strong enough to grow hair on my chest and horns on my head will be waiting.”
“Horns on your head?” I laugh.
“Devil that I am,” he says, giving me a wink and walking out of the bathroom.
The things that man says barely make sense and yet, they make total sense.
The devil that he is seems light and funny, but the truth is, there’s some self-hate beneath that comment. Suddenly, I really want to get out there with him and the rest of the guys.
I hurry and finish up my hair and what make-up I can, considering Rick was better at packing my clothes than my make-up. He tried, though, and I love that he did. Pink gloss, pink cheeks, a bit of mascara and I’m ready to join Rick with the rest of the Walker team. There has to be something we can do right now, to end this. If anyone can find dirt on Gabriel, it’s me. I’m missing an opportunity somewhere.
As if the monster himself leaped into my mind and read it, my phone buzzes with a text from Gabriel that reads: Good morning to the future First Lady of the country. How do you feel?
I reply with the most honest reply I can summon: Like throwing up.
Is it time to go to the doctor? he asks.
I grimace and type: I’m better than yesterday. I’ll see how I am tomorrow. And then for reasons, I can’t explain, instinct has me building in an excuse for not being home. How is work?
Proving this is all obligation to him, his reply is: Busy. You didn’t reply to me last night. I was worried. I even called.
He called?
I quickly check my call log, but there is nothing. I decide this feels like a test or something. It feels like something I can’t quite name. Going with my instincts, I dial his number. “Hey,” I say when he answers.
“Hello.” That’s it. Nothing more.
“I didn’t get a call last night. I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
He doesn’t deny or confirm the call. He simply says, “You sound better.”
“I am a lot better. I just can’t eat much yet. I’ll get there.”
“I sent you flowers. I hear you weren’t there to get them.”
He sent me flowers? A five-alarm warning goes off in my head but I remind myself I was pretty hard on him last night and he’s likely been instructed by Pocher to play the romantic. “I hate that I wasn’t home. I stayed with Linda last night because I felt crappy. Right now, I’m at the grocery store getting soup and I’m going to sit at the coffee shop a while on my way home, and try to get some sketching done.” And because I know Linda would have told me had he used her flower shop, I say, “Too bad you didn’t use Linda’s shop.”
