He wasn’t massively hairy, but there was hair on his leg. So it was probably best she just ripped it like that, but it didn’t help to stop the scream of pain he let out. “Fuck, Marie, that hurt!”
“Sorry, but it’s done now. Hand me those alcohol wipes out of the bag on the nightstand there.” They were sitting on the bed so he reached over to grab the bag without having to move too much. “It doesn’t look bad. But I want to keep it clean.”
She probably didn’t realize she did it, but her left hand, cupped around his calf while she wiped at the edges of the wound with her right, massaged his leg lovingly as if to soothe him. It was one of the things he loved about her. She always had a need to touch him, to soothe him when he was upset, or hurt, like now. Her touch was an act of love for her.
She didn’t touch just anyone, and he’d noticed she didn’t like people to invade her space very often, but with him, she was different. She had to touch him, be near him if they were in the same room. She needed him in her space, and that told him a lot about how she felt towards him.
“You’re very sweet, Marie,” he said without thinking.
“What?” She looked up, her eyebrows raised as she looked at him. “Because I’m doing something anyone else could do?”
“No, it’s how you do it, babe. It’s all in how you do it.”
Before she could respond, Anton knocked on the door. “It’s me, guys.”
“Come in,” Matteo called.
Marie quickly applied more antibiotic ointment to his wound, covered it with another large self-adhesive bandage, and went into the bathroom to change. He’d forgotten she was only in a towel until he saw her blush when Anton walked in. “Sorry, babe, forgot.”
“It’s alright,” she called over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
“Sorry, Anton.”
“For what?” The other man looked up with a question on his face.
“She wasn’t dressed yet. I didn’t even think about it.”
“That’s why I keep my head down, boss.” Anton grinned and brought in two bags filled with food and drinks. “I wasn’t sure how hungry anybody would be, so I got desserts too, and a few more drinks.”
“That should tide us over.” Matteo started to take out plastic cutlery, then the boxes of food.
Marie came back out in her new pajamas, and they all ate in silence. They were all hungry but as soon as the initial hunger was sated, they began to speak.
“We’ll leave in the morning, head over to Calgary, maybe?” Matteo said and sat back in his chair to let his last bite settle in before he went on. “I think we should head for Ontario, get as close to New York as we can, maybe.”
“Might be a good idea,” Anton agreed, but Marie didn’t.
“Why go so close? We might as well head straight back to New York if we’re going to be so close to it.” She didn’t look convinced of the proposal.
“It was a suggestion. What do you think?” He was curious to know her thoughts. She wasn’t a stupid person, after all, and he respected her opinion.
“I think we should head over to Oregon or Washington. They’ll expect us to be up here, or in New York, maybe even in California, but they won’t expect us in somewhere like that. Idaho is too close to Montana, so I don’t think that’s a good idea either. Or back down, to Texas maybe, or Mexico.”
“Good points, all good points.” Matteo saw Anton agreed when he nodded along with Matteo.
“Shall we head to warmer locations then? That sounds good to me.” He shivered as he thought about more snow. “I’ve about had my fill of snow for the year.”
“I thought all you Yankees lived for snow,” Marie teased with an impish grin. “You’re all the Vikings of America, built with fortitude and ice in your veins.”
“Not all of us,” Matteo answered with a grin of his own. “Some of us have wanted to escape to the tropics for years now.”
“I’m with you there, Matteo. I’m sick to death of snow,” Anton spoke up, gave Marie a shy smile, then looked back down at the chocolate cake he’d started on after his dinner.
Matteo knew it wasn’t a crush that made Anton so nervous around Marie, it was that she was his wife and he wanted to be respectful. Anton wasn’t used to speaking with women of Marie’s status, and that made him nervous, shy, and almost boyish. It had caught Matteo off-guard at first, but now he was used to it. It was good to see he was relaxing though.
“Right, so Texas then down to Mexico?” Matteo asked and the other two in the room nodded. “Good. Tomorrow?”
“Yep,” Marie agreed and reached for the butterscotch pie Anton had brought. “Sounds good to me.”
“Sounds good, boss.”
“Good. Hand me that cheesecake, will you?” Matteo took the confection from Anton and looked around. They’d need to buy more clothes again, but that would be fine, he thought with a quiet laugh. It would be nice to be warm again, without the need for a heat source other than the sun.
They spent the rest of the evening making plans, checking the route down, and were about to head to their respective beds when Anton had a thought.
“I had all of the cameras backed up to a cloud.” He’d been about to stand up to leave but settled back down. He grabbed the cheap laptop he’d bought earlier and opened it up. The motel wifi was free, so he was able to get online and check the cloud where he stored the camera feeds. “I’m going to let you two get back to sleep, but I’m going to go over these feeds. Whoever set the fire must be on the feeds somewhere. He got close enough to cut the power and set a fire, there must be something in the footage.”
“Right, let me know in the morning what you find. Good thinking, Anton.”
“Thanks, Matteo.”
By the time they were settled in bed, Marie was watching a movie on TV but Matteo was falling asleep. He’d just fallen into a nice, black place when a knock came at the door.
He got up and opened it, it could only be Anton, after all. “What’s up?”
He knew it had to be important because Anton would have waited until the morning to come back otherwise.
“I’ve found something. I forgot that cameras had their own batteries. They kept recording and backed themselves up to the cloud, even after the power went out.”
“How? Wouldn’t they have needed wifi?” Matteo was sleepy and confused, maybe even a little pissy, but he tried to hide it.
“They weren’t cheap cameras, boss.” Anton came in and opened his laptop before he turned back to Matteo and Marie. “I got cameras that operated on solar energy, so the batteries were constantly charged up. I used it on the whole system, except for the monitors, those were plugged into the house electricity. I didn’t think about it last night, but the wifi, the backup system, it was all on the solar power panel I’d set up on the roof.”
“I didn’t know you’d done that, I’m impressed,” Matteo said, some of the pissiness melting away.
“I do it on all the places you have me set up security cameras. Just in case. So, the cameras were still running, still backing up into the cloud, even after the power went out. I kept patrolling, going from window to window, but the perpetrator must have waited for me to move before they set the fire.”