“Shit!” I cover my hand with my mouth, wondering if Aerin can hear me over the sound of the water running.
Shit, shit, shit!
Moving farther away from the bookshelf, I run my hands through my hair and over my face as I glance toward the bathroom door. I can still hear the water running, and I can only hope she didn’t see what I had just done.
No, she couldn’t have. If she had seen it, she would have said something. She probably would have yelled something. She might very well have punched me again.
I sit back down in the chair and rub my palms on the thighs of my jeans as if that would undo what I had done. I feel like a total jackass, and I have no idea what I should do now. Should I tell her I read it by accident, or just pretend it didn’t happen?
I never would have touched it if I had known it was hers. Reading someone else’s diary is the epitome of betrayals, so maybe it’s best not to say anything. If I tell her, she might get pissed—seriously pissed—and I want her to trust me.
I want her to like me.
I breathe deeply for a moment, then begin to panic again as I hear the water shut off. I can’t let her see me this agitated, so I jump up and go to the kitchen sink to splash a little water on my face. I dry myself off with the edge of my jacket, totally forgetting there are actual towels here, and then sit back down in the chair. I take another deep breath and wait.
Aerin steps out of the room a moment later with shiny, wet hair glistening down her back. She’s wearing shorts and a black tank top, and I can’t stop myself from looking at her long, lusciously sculpted legs. She moves toward the kitchen, wafting steam and a strong floral scent in my direction. Without a doubt, it’s the same scent I smelled in her hair when we were lying next to each other in the shaft, only stronger, and just like the first time I smelled it, my dick starts to respond.
For fuck’s sake, when did I revert to being a fourteen-year-old again?
“My turn!” I chuckle nervously as I rush past her and quickly close the bathroom door before she can say anything.
Once inside, I close my eyes and lean against the door, trying to get myself together again. It doesn’t work. I’m equally disturbed over my increasingly sexual thoughts and my guilt over reading part of Aerin’s diary.
I sigh deeply and look around the tiny bathroom.
Along one wall is a small sink and a cabinet underneath and a toilet. A new, unopened toothbrush sits next to the sink along with a tiny tube of what I assume is toothpaste. The remainder of the space is taken up by the bare-bones shower. It’s really only a square on the floor with a short lip to catch the water. I see a small round drain in the center and a showerhead up above. A rod runs around the top, but there is no curtain to offer additional privacy. Still, it is a shower—an actual, hot-water-producing shower. A shelf holds a bottle of shampoo, and a folded towel sits on the tank of the toilet.
I shed my clothing and step in.
The handle is a little stiff and creaks when I turn it, but the water comes on quickly, and I let the heat pour over me. I try to ignore how the liquid around my feet turns nearly black as the dirt is washed from my body, choosing to focus on the water flowing over me instead of how badly I needed to bathe. Every muscle in my body relaxes, loosens, lets go…every muscle except one.
I look down at my cock, which is jutting out from my body like a divining rod that has just discovered one of the Great Lakes.
“You have to stop that shit,” I whisper. “At the very least, it’s fucking rude.”
My cock doesn’t seem to care.
I close my eyes and try to recall what I would think about when I was in high school and this kind of thing would happen to me. Music, sports, the general state of the world…nothing seems to be helping.
I wonder what Ava would say to me right now, and thinking about her reminds me of how I ended up in the woods last night in the first place. I recall stalking Mack all the way to the river, and images of blood and death quickly end my erection.
Killing Mack needed to be done. Men like him don’t do something like that just once. Ultimately, I did the entire community a favor. It’s not like there is any kind of organized justice system in Plastictown, and taking matters into my own hands was the only option.
The notion doesn’t stop me from feeling a little sick to my stomach. I lean forward, resting my forehead against the shower wall. I feel like a total idiot, but at least I’ve had a little relief from my wayward cock. I close my eyes and attempt to blank out my mind.
Instead, I begin to wonder wh
at Ava is thinking now. Is she wondering why I haven’t returned? I’ve been gone for days before but never under such circumstances. She is bound to think that something is up, and I don’t want her to worry about me.
Eventually, I calm down enough to get to the intended task at hand. I reach for a bottle of shampoo—definitely the source of the floral scent—and rub some of it into my hair. I find a bar of soap as well, though I don’t see a washcloth or anything. The soap is already wet and sudsy, so I can only assume Aerin used it on herself. With that thought going through my head, I try not to think about what parts of her body the soap might have touched while I use it on myself.
I finish up and turn the water off. The towel is a little threadbare and has a hole in it, but it does the job well enough. I wrap it around my waist and look down at the floor as I step out.
My clothing is lying in a soggy heap on the floor due to a clump of long, dark hair twisted around the shower drain. Nothing is totally soaked, but when I pick up my shirt, filthy water drips from it. I can’t really put it back on now, and all my clothing is dirty, so I end up washing everything in the sink.
After I hang each item over the curtain-free rod around the shower, I realize I only have one extra pair of shorts, and they’re in my pack in the other room. In my hurry to get out of Aerin’s presence, I completely forgot about having something to wear when I was done.
My choices are to either sit in the cramped bathroom for hours until my clothes are dry, put on wet clothes, or go out in a towel—a threadbare towel with a decent-sized hole in it, a hole that didn’t really matter until just now—to retrieve a pair of shorts.