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“Sounds good. ” He glanced at me over his shoulder one last time on his way to the door. “Tomorrow I’d like to bring you with me for the day. I’m not on guard duty tomorrow, so you can come with me. I promise to try not to let you get struck by lightning.” He smirked. “Mace didn’t appreciate my joke.”
I shook my head. “It was absolutely not Mace’s fault. Hey, question for you before you go? Do you think I could use your sex machine?”
He blinked and then turned fully to regard me. After a second, he tilted his head to the side. Was he listening to the others or just struck silent by my question? “Why would you want to?” he finally asked.
“I…I’m having unusual—for me, anyway—feelings. I just thought your machine might help me get them under control.”
I had his full attention, and I experienced the uncomfortable sensation of being a moth on a pin. He stalked over to me, even his gait different than his usual lazy stride. “What kinds of feelings?” He practically sniffed the air around me, he so thoroughly considered me.
“Am I talking to just you or all of you?” I held up my hand. “Never mind. It’s always all of you, I get that. I do. I just have to…manage my embarrassment. Forgive me.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to be embarrassed about whatever it is. We never think about privacy, as it has always been like this for us, but I understand that it is sometimes easier to admit something to one person rather than a group.”
I swallowed. “You have a crowd downstairs. They can all hear me. In fact, your neighbors can likely hear my every word, probably for blocks.” I closed my eyes for just a second, breathing in slowly through my nose and out my mouth. “Can we forget I said anything at all? Can we just pretend I didn’t even bring it up?”
He shook his head. “Probably not permanently, but if you want to shelve the discussion until another time which might offer more privacy, I can understand that. I just…” His voice trailed off. “This is just me talking, but not anyone else. Don’t get in that machine.”
I rubbed my eyes. I’d feel better about the conversation if I was dressed. “Okay.”
When Gunnar left, I got dressed quickly. If I was going to be on my feet all night, I wanted to be comfortable. I grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of pants that I wore when I was cleaning up at home, because of their stretchy, comfortable fabric. My shoes would have to do, since they were all I had, but I managed to get my hair up in a ponytail. I absolutely didn’t want to braid it.
Despite crying earlier and being sick from the whole lightning event, I actually looked pretty good in the reflection. My eyes seemed somehow brighter, and my skin had an almost eerie glow. Maybe it was from the crying? I laughed at the thought.
Finally, I realized I was wasting time to avoid facing the fact every Super Soldier in the vicinity just heard me announce I wanted to get their sex machine to remove my sexual desires, so I found my way downstairs.
I expected them to turn and look at me like a science experiment gone wrong when I entered. I wasn’t disappointed. In less than a heartbeat, their bright, cheery laughter faded until I was silently regarded by everyone.
Shaking my head, I dug deep for my training. What had my teacher said again? Men are always men. Her theory was they were fundamentally all the same at their core, a premise I hadn’t bought then and didn’t buy currently. It didn’t mean, however, that none of my skills would be useful with these particular men.
I waved my hand through the air. It was a room filled with men. So they weren’t sexually interested in me? If my teacher, long since dead, was right, then a man was a man. “Oh, come on. You must have seen a woman totally humiliated before this.” I laughed, even though it wasn’t funny and despite the sweat on my palms. “Thank you for the gifts, gentlemen. I’ll go through them later. Much appreciated.”
If I raised my voice so I spoke a little higher-toned than usual, then so be it. I smiled, dipping my lashes to hide my eyes coyly. Within seconds, everyone laughed and went back to what they were doing. A little self-deprecation tended to make people stare less, as with my previous experiences of embarrassment.
Well…almost everyone laughed. My current roommates didn’t seem to find it funny.
Ransom held out his hand from behind the bar. “Come here.”
I walked toward him. “How can I help?”
“Well, you can never do that again, for starters.” He motioned for me to come closer. I sighed. So much for moving on from the earlier conversation. Oh well. I tried. And, for just a second, it even worked.
I rounded the bar. I wasn’t going to address it again, not if I could help it.
Ransom motioned toward a plate he stashed under the bar for me. “That’s your dinner. I know it hasn’t been that long since lunch, but I figured you’d still be hungry. We can reheat it, if it gets cold.”
“Thank you.” It really was very sweet that he’d thought of me. I wasn’t used to anyone else putting my needs before their own. “What can I do to help you?”
There wasn’t a huge crowd at the bar right then, but surely, I can help out. He looked around, scanning the room. “You can polish those glasses.” He gestured with a tilt of his chin. “It might seem stupid for a bar in the middle of nowhere, but I really like things to look good around here.”
It didn’t seem stupid. He took care of what was his. I picked up a glass as well as a towel. “Why did you throw me out when I first came in? That first night? You told me to leave.”
“A beautiful woman, traveling alone, arrives at my bar to ask for The Five? When I haven’t heard anyone call us The Five for years? I just had this sensation, call it a hunch, that you were bringing trouble with you.” He winked and smiled, then he sighed. “Or that we might cause trouble for you, like you seeking us out would hurt you in the long run. I don’t know how to explain it, other than calling it a hunch. My brain? It doesn’t work like everyone else’s. Sometimes it skips a step, and then I can see what will happen next. It’s not premonition, exactly, and it’s hard to explain. The closest I can get is to say it’s as though I’ve suddenly sped up or something.” He shrugged. “It used to help in battle, but not so much now. No real call for it these days, even when I take a job.”
I touched his arm, feeling his strong muscles beneath my hand. Yep, I was in so much trouble. I tried to clear my head. “I appreciate you trying to explain. I’m not very bright, or at least I don’t know a lot of things that weren’t deemed necessary.” I passed him a shiny glass. It really was a good distraction, he was right. “But I can understand that there are truths for other people that aren’t true for me.”
“Hey. ” He knocked my foot with his. “Not very bright? Are you crazy? You’re obviously very smart. No one taught you to read yet, so that doesn’t mean anything. You can’t be expected to know what no one took the time to teach you. They only taught me because reading made me a better killing machine. Trust me, if they hadn’t deemed it useful for their purposes, I wouldn’t have ever been taught, either.”
“Hard for me to picture you all as killers.” Especially when they’d shown me nothing but kindness.
