"It's for the beds," she insisted, crossing her arms over her chest.
"I'll bite. Why do you need canned air for the beds?"
"To freeze the bed bugs."
I couldn't help it. The absurdity of that mixed with the authoritative, borderline condescending tone she'd used to deliver it made me throw back my head and laugh.
"I've never been bitten by a bed bug. I never plan to."
"They're every bit as awful as they sound," I told her, shaking my head. "And is that Comet? For the bathroom?" I asked, smiling. "And scrubbers. What? No maid's uniform?"
"You'll thank me when you don't get some pernicious kind of foot fungus," she declared, lifting her chin.
"You wanna scrub the room, sweetheart, you clean to your heart's content. But I don't promise not to tease you about it."
"It's fine. I'm used to it. Where's your pillow?"
"The hotel will have pillows. And, if you don't think you have enough, they will actually bring you extras if you ask. Fancy shit."
"But don't you have a preference."
"A pillow preference? No, angel, can't say that I do. I once used a sack of fake cash for a pillow. I will make do with the luxury pillows in our presidential suite."
"Alright. Well... you're sure you locked the door?" she asked, nibbling on her lower lip as I slammed the door shut.
Anxious.
She was anxious.
Which was understandable.
And why I didn't fight her on the driving thing. It would give her something to focus on. Besides, riding shotgun meant I got control over the playlist. Which everyone knew made or broke a road trip.
"Yep. Got it locked. Even rigged up those light timers you sent over. And Ferryn and Vance said they'd check in. Everything is covered."
"And I, ah, I got what, you know, we need," she said, rushing to her side of the car, hopping in.
What we needed, I imagined, was weapons.
Though I was beginning to know her well enough to know that they weren't nearly tucked into one of the bags or suitcases. She probably had something rigged into her car for smuggling shit like that across state lines.
"What did you tell your mom?" I asked a few minutes later as we made our way out of Navesink Bank, setting our sights on New York state.
"That my therapist said it would be good to get away for a little bit."
"Did he say that?"
"She did. But it was like a year ago."
"Lying to your mom. You little rebel you," I teased, unwrapping a lollipop, slipping it into my mouth.
"She's already had too many questions."
"About me?"
"Yeah. You. Me. Why you were with me. Why you beat the hell out of Jake."
"What did you tell her?"
"That you're an unexpected friend. And that you walked in when Jake was pushing my buttons, and misinterpreted it."
"Did I?" I asked, brow raising.
"Sort of. In a way, he is supposed to provoke me."
"Why?"
"Because I do this thing when I train."
"What do you do, doll?"
"I, ah, well, we call it flinching. I flinch and then I shut down. And then sometimes, it sends me into a spiral for days or weeks. Jake is supposed to push at me to see if he can push me past that flinch. A sort of exposure therapy of sorts. It's why I can't actually go on any jobs. I mean you don't have to go on jobs when you're in charge. But my mom always has. And it makes me feel like I'm screwing up because I can't get through the training which would allow me to go on jobs without being, you know, a liability."
"Think maybe he could push your buttons without calling you a pussy, love," I said, shrugging.
I couldn't claim to have the best morals, but I never intentionally hurt women. Not physically. But not emotionally either. And I damn sure didn't pick at a woman who clearly had been through a lot of trauma, was still trying to get through it. I had to believe there were other ways.
"I don't train with Jake a lot. I never respond well to him. Some of the other guys can push me without sending me to a therapist's couch for a week."
"One day you'll beat the shit out of him, and then you will feel like the baddest chick in the world."
"I think you put a little too much faith in me," she said, shaking her head. "I have never bested any of the guys. I can get to a certain point and then I just... I can't take it anymore and I have to tap out before I go into another spiral."
"Tell you what, if you want sometime, we can go a couple rounds. I won't call you a pussy. And I don't have all that fancy footwork you guys have going on, so you might be able to knock my ass out."
I was even looking forward to that. For her. Which I felt said a lot about what was growing here.
An unexpected friendship, yes.
But possibly more than that.
Though I wasn't stupid.
I understood that if there would be more than that, that I needed to be patient, that it would take a lot of work, that maybe she wasn't even interested in that. But until I got told no, I was going to go ahead and work toward that. Little by little.
Starting with our road trip.
"I told you, love," I said, trying not to sound too cocky about it when she had spent the last twenty minutes undressing the bed, pulling the mattress to and fro, looking for any sign of bed bugs, or anything else that might let her gloat over me for a while.
"Yes, well, it is never a bad thing to be over-prepared. Just in case," she said, piling all the clean bedding that still smelled like bleach into a pile behind the bedroom door, then unpacking the new stuff she'd brought with her.
She was taking the suite bedroom.
I was taking the tiny one across the living space where, I assumed, rich and powerful people likely kept their personal assistants or security when they were traveling.
"What?" I asked when she was finished with the bed, kicking out of her shoes, dropping down on it, then pinching her brows together.
"It's going to be really weird to sleep in a room with a window," she admitted.
"Your container apartment is cool and all," I said, kicking out of my own shoes, going ahead and dropping down on the other side. It was a California King. We could fit two people between us comfortably. Still, she stiffened a little, casting sideways glances as me. "But I can't imagine not seeing the sunlight all day."
"I don't stay inside all day," she told me, rolling her eyes. "I thought it was weird at first. When my mom first brought me there. I even worried as I looked at the building that it would give me flashbacks. I was... I spent a lot of time in a basement," she told me, giving me a few more pieces to that part of her history. Giving me a little more kindling to the fury burning inside for her. "In the end, I think the fact that it was windowless gave me a lot of security. It was safe. Safe was really important to me."
"How old were you when you first went to Hailstorm?"
I had a feeling I wasn't going to like this answer.
Her head turned on the pillow, her blue eyes met mine. "Sixteen," she admitted, voice rough.
Fuck.