by K. T. Samois
“I ran a black light over the surfaces after I moved in, Riona. It’s sordid. What would I ever do with you here?”
All I can offer her is a ride back to her place.
***
She’s pushed too far and asked for too much. He hadn’t been ready to show her this, and she’s peeled the scab off too early in her careless curiosity.
And despite pushing, despite her forcing him to this humiliation, what’s hurt him the worse is her lack of faith.
Oh, Ree. How are you to fix this mess you’ve made?
“I’m sorry,” she starts, but that sounds trite. She shivers under the slice of his blue glare, but doesn’t let that stop her. “I am. I’m sorry that I pushed you into showing me. I shouldn’t have done that. And I am... I am sorry for not trusting you. That was wrong of me.”
“I deserved your suspicion.”
Ree laughs weakly, but there’s no humour to it. “You can be sort of shady, Hardin. That’s not what bothers me. I didn’t care to know the details, and I don’t mean to push. I just… I wanted to know that you weren’t hiding me.”
“Hiding you? I am.” Hardin confesses easily. Ree’s stomach clenches, but she waits to hear him out before panicking.
“But I am not hiding this from you. I was trying to hide you from it. This…” He gestures to their sorry surroundings. “This is nowhere I would want to bring you.”
“I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me.”
He looks at her over his shoulder, and the weight in his gaze roots her to the ground.
“How could I, Riona? You, with the happy home with the loving family and board games, in a nice neighbourhood on the right side of the tracks. What could you possibly understand about this? And when — or how — would I have brought it up? The man you’ve chosen to seduce you lives a step above a box under a bridge. What will the neighbours think?”
It would probably have hurt less than the sad expression in his eyes, guarded behind a mask of carefully applied neutrality. She’s always heard that people create the life they believe they deserve — and based on Hardin’s harsh words about himself, she thinks that might be the case.
She doesn’t step back or away. Rather, she lifts her hands and rests them lightly on the outside of his arms. No pressure, just the gentle weight of her grounding him.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “Because I tell my neighbours my business. My mother loves to say that opinions are like arseholes — everyone’s got them, and they’re mostly full of shit.”
He snorts at her, and it’s the first sign of good humour she’s seen in hours.
“It’s only… Hardin, I understand the necessity. But think about it — anyone looking for you will know your routine well enough to know you don’t spend a lot of time here. The dust would give it away to me, and I’m just an amateur.”
“I’m sorry my squalor offends you. There might be rags and cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink. I think. I haven’t been here in a while,” he adds.
Hardin’s shoulders are rigid, and it looks as though he’s fighting the urge to hunch them. She can understand why. Hardin is compulsively neat, and he’s forever bitching at her about Becca’s late-night munchies leaving messes in the kitchen. This must mortify him. She can’t imagine Hardin not knowing where cleaning supplies are in his own home.
Oh.
“Hardin?” Her voice is breathless with realisation.
“Yes, Riona?” He sounds dog-tired.
“That reminds me,” Ree says with exquisite casualness. “How are we on Swifter cloths? Back at home, I mean. I can’t remember the last time I bought a box.” Nothing important. Just the sort of simple question any homeowner would know the answer to.
He stares at her like she’s grown a tail.
“The box under the sink is nearly empty. There’s another one at the bottom of the linen closet in the hall as well, so we should be good for a while. Unless you wanted to go back and get a few to deal with this mess…”
Riona cuts Hardin off with a kiss. When she steps back, Hardin stares at her; Ree doesn’t blame him. Even she can feel the ache in her cheeks from her smile.
“What is it?” Hardin asks, looking at her as though she’s gone mad.
“I’m happy.”
“Happy.”
“Not about being here, of course. This place is awful. But I’m happy just the same. Do you have any bags here in your bunker?”
“Probably. Dare I ask why?”
“Because we’re packing. To go home. Honestly, you can’t think staying here is smart. The rent is probably way more than it’s worth, even if you share the cost with your local Ratking.”
He stares at her.
“It’s my place, Riona.”
She shakes her head and wraps her arms around his waist.
“No, Hardin. It isn’t. This isn’t your place; it’s where you sleep sometimes. I don’t know if it’s a pride thing or an independence thing, but this isn’t where you belong. You spend most of your time at my place, anyway.”
He stares. “I’ve missed something.”
“Well, it’s logical. Why pay rent on something you visit so infrequently it accumulates dust? Hardin, I asked you if we had Swifter cloths at home and you even knew where you’d stashed the spare box. If I were to ask you where the bathroom was in this place, would you be able to give me directions if all the doors were closed? Also, I have the better kitchen, which is clearly why you need to move in with me, as opposed to me moving in with you.”
She gives the mattress on the shitty bed-frame a whack for emphasis; dust rises like a mushroom cloud.
“And that speaks volumes, doesn’t it? Fun fact: dust is mostly skin cells and mite poop.”
His face crinkles into a grimace. “Thank you for advising me. You want me to move in. With you.”
“Yes. Why not?”
“What if I don’t want to?”
For a moment, Ree wonders if she ought to take offence. Then she recognises the hypothetical and gives it some solid thought instead.
“Then I’d be upset,” she says, trying to word her thoughts carefully. “But I would understand. You’re a private person who is used to a certain independence. If living together bothered you that much, I wouldn’t press the issue. I’d just help you house-search somewhere less awful than this. I get why you’re worried about me asking now; you think maybe it’s pity or charity, but it isn’t, Hardin. It’s just sensible, and there’s no time like the present.”
He’s listening carefully, as though for a lie — but he doesn’t hear one. There aren’t any; she means it.
“Anyway,” she adds, “not wanting to live together would be tricky in the long term. So you’d better help me pack. Let’s get out of here and go home.”
***
Hardin knows he’s a lost cause the second she says the words. To make matters worse, the dust from the mattress is making his eyes water. Goddamned allergies. How long has that thing been lying there?
He grinds at his eyes as he walks over to the mostly empty pantry. Grabbing a black garbage bag, he goes to work on the grim closet. He strips the shirts off of the metal hangers with perhaps a bit more aggression than necessary, but it feels good to put his pent-up tension to good use.
It won’t take long to pack up — especially not with two of them at it. By design, that.
An indignant squawk breaks his workaday silence.
“What the hell? A garbage bag? Hardin, I meant like a suitcase!”
He shrugs a shoulder.
“What does it matter? A bag’s a bag. I used to move like this all the time.”
Riona stares at him, but he doesn’t look away. Raw nerves jangle, but he’s tired of hiding, and if she’s seen this, what’s left to hide?
“It’s cheap and easy to pack quickly; foster care wasn’t big on time or money. In the army, a rucksack was just a bigger, less waterproof version.”
“Yeah, and this-” Riona says, and her voice is gent
eel but brooks no argument, “-is still not happening. You’re moving in with me, not getting evicted from here. My dance bag’s in the trunk, Hardin; would you mind emptying it and bringing it back up here? We can at least get a couple of your drawers into it.”
Hardin stares.
“Pretty please?” She tries again, pitching her voice up to a saccharine coo and batting her eyelashes at him. The effect looks like something that should be in magazines, but is so clearly contrived that he can’t help it—
He snorts. “I let you get away with murder.”
“Doubtful,” Ree says. “That’s more your job.”
He lets that slide. She isn’t wrong.
“I still don’t understand, Riona. You want me to pack up my effects and move in with you. What do you get out of it?” The more he repeats it, the less likely it sounds.
“Hardin?” Her voice is softer this time, a genuine query.
“If you really want to keep this place as a bolt-hole, I get it. But asking me what I get out of it? I get you, which is also my win condition. I don’t like it here, Hardin, and I don’t like the thought of you alone here. I’m also not staying a hot second longer than I have to. It’s time to head out, sir. There’s a bathtub at home and we’re not in it.”
The apartment, with its queen-sized bed and its cloud-soft mattress, and a shower he can bear to step foot in without a hazmat suit. The city sunsets he enjoys out on the balcony alone with a cigarette; the quiet moments they share watching the dawn after Riona’s overnight shifts. The kitchen in the evening, low music playing while Riona perches on the counter ‘supervising’.
She enjoys reading the menu cards to him and taste-testing the results. Riona gives a candid review of each and encouragement at every turn. The noises of pleasure she makes when a mouthful hits just right elicit a Pavlovian reaction in him. He’s convinced she’s doing it on purpose, but doesn’t really care. The way the neighbours have started to greet him when they see him arrive; they believe he’s a pilot, and when their paths cross in the elevator, they welcome him home from his travels.
Home. He hasn’t had one of those since a trigger-happy dumb fuck made his mother an angel.
“All right,” he says, before he can really think better of it.
“Really?” She sounds so excited that he can finally bring himself to look at her. She’s never looked more out of place; she’s a cardinal perched on concrete.
“Yes. I’ll get the bag, if you’ll organize my effects? There shouldn’t be much.”
“Sure. And while you’re down there — is there anywhere nearby with something to drink?”
“There’s tap water if you’re thirsty.”
Riona looks at the faucet, leaking and rusted and reeking like an abattoir, and then back at him. “You think you’re so cute. But seriously, my mouth’s dustier than the Sahara. Would you mind, please?”
There’s a bodega within sight radius; he can be there and back in five.
“Fine,” he tells her. “But don’t leave and lock the door after me.”
***
Well, he wasn’t exaggerating when he said it would be quick.
There isn’t much to Hardin’s… place, really. Just a few simple personal effects. There’s a knife-set that she assiduously does not touch. There are a few French toiletries in the scrupulously clean nightmare of a bathroom.
And there’s the binder of papers I thought was closed-bottomed but definitely is not. Shit, these are probably for accounting. Way to go, Ree. Time to put that degree to use—
Her hands stop sorting through the mess of papers, because something is wrong.
All of them are [DECLINED]… And they all have the same logo-
She drops the papers bearing the Department of Defence seal like they’ve turned into a hot coal. This isn’t any of my business… but why are they all declined?
Ree takes a breath and files all the papers away without reading them. She’ll dig into this a bit more, but she won’t read his diary. Still, it consumes her attention as she goes about putting his things into neat piles, and after a moment’s consideration, she opens her phone’s browser app.
***
Giving the bodega tabby one last farewell scratch, Hardin makes his way out of the store and back to the apartment.
She mentioned something about a bathtub…
His boots make the ramshackle stairs creak, and he’s careful to avoid the worst of it. It’s the same with the hallway; he raps his usual pattern onto the door.
“Who is it?” Riona chirps through the door, and Hardin clenches his jaw against a grin.
“Kitten, it’s me. Let me in.”
“Or what, you’ll puff and puff and blow me down?”
He thinks of all the ways she might blow him down, or blow his mind, or any other part of anatomy she’d like to help himself to.
“Would you like me to?” Hardin asks and can hear her blush through the door.
There’s the immediate throwing of tumblers and locks; it sounds like a rifle going off, and when she opens the door, she nearly wrenches it off the hinges. “Rude.” She sniffs, all injured dignity, and he can’t help but grin.
“I didn’t want the beers to get cold,” Hardin lies.
“You bought beer?! Great, we can drink it at home. I took everything out of everywhere and it’s there on the bed.” It’s her smile that seals the deal for him; she’s happy, and though her eyes are dark, her gaze is no less warm than before. It’s still his same Riona. So he packs his effects into a bag as neatly as he can, takes her hand, and throws the locks. He’ll leave the key in the super’s mailbox on the way out and be long gone before anyone cares to notice he’s late on the rent.
Beside him, Ree is chattering away easily.
“And I was thinking of ordering takeout. After this, I don’t even have the energy to watch you cook.”
“It’s a strenuous job,” he replies, careful to keep his expression deadpan lest she win their little contest of wills. “I understand you might find throwing out chopsticks onerous.”
“We can’t all be master chefs, Hardin.” Her tone sounds pithy, but he knows she doesn’t mind; she seems to encourage his culinary experimentation. “I can’t believe you cooked in that kitchen,” she mutters. “What happened if you burned something? I bet that window doesn’t even open.”
“Not since someone died falling out of it.”
Riona’s flat gaze could rattle a Vegas bookie. “Did you throw anyone out of it?”
“No.”
Not out of that window, specifically.
“Don’t think I didn’t hear that ten-month pregnant pause, Hardin”, Riona mutters. The elevator arrives with a groan and a smell of old oil, and Hardin holds the door open gallantly.
“After you, my dear.”
Between two adults and a handful of bags, it’s a tight fit in the pre-war elevator. Squashed together, there’s nowhere to go but against each other. With Riona pressed against him from thigh to chest, he can feel every inch of her. When he shifts, his leg slips between her thighs, and now, she can feel every inch of him, as well.
“Oh, hi!” Riona squeaks, and she’s close enough that he can smell cinnamon gum on her breath. It’s a special sort of torture, because Riona’s a beautiful woman, and she’s his, and she wants him-
Avaricious and eager, Hardin’s desperate to lift her up on his hips and take. She’d let him. He can smell her — that brown shampoo that smells like fog in the forests, the spice of her gum, the saltiness that he knows means arousal.
Holding her chin up with the knuckles is a good start, but when he lifts his leg until she’s on her tip-toes, he can see her pupils dilate with desire. With that invitation in hand, he surges forward and presses his mouth to hers; she responds instantly by deepening the kiss until he’s not sure where she begins and he ends. He kisses her like it’s a war he intends to win, and Ree doesn’t seem to mind feeling conquered. His hands hold her hips to his throughout, and when he e
nds the kiss, Ree’s head thumps against his shoulder with a frustrated whine.
“Hi,” she says once she regains her composure. A bit of lizard smugness shows on his face at the sight of Riona, cheeks flushed and pupils dilated, breathless after his kiss.
“You said that already, kitten,” he reminds her, and she blushes.
“I did? I mean, I did. Right. Well. Yes.”
He narrows his eyes. “Are you going to be okay to drive?”
“After I’ve had one of those beers to settle my nerves, sure!”
He can’t help it; she always knows how to make him laugh. He presses a kiss to her knuckles, chuckling throughout.
“Better than I drive, hm?” Hardin can’t help himself; he steals another kiss. The elevator clangs miserably to announce their floor, and Ree jolts back like a scorched cat.
Hardin bites his cheek to stop a laugh.
***
If this is what sexual frustration feels like, I have a new empathy for black widows. I’d like nothing more than to bite his head off.
She’s so aroused she’s afraid to sit directly on the seat for fear she’ll leave a mark, and she knows he knows. His eyes have never left the road, but his leather-gloved thumb strokes the wheel rhythmically, and Ree can’t look at it.
“So…” she says instead. “I mentioned a bath when we get home?”
“Excuse me?!” He sounds scandalised. Clearly he isn’t expecting her to follow through or make good. “Did you mean together?”
“Yes. Did you mean alone?”
“Yes!”
She sits up very straight. “What?! Why!”
He sighs. “You don’t make things easy, do you, kitten? You’re a beautiful woman, Riona, but I’m just a man. Not even a very good one. Asking me to shower with you — and not go further than I’ve promised you — is asking a lot of me.”
Ree can see the error now, but the temptation is still there. Hardin looks edible when he’s sweaty after his runs. He’d probably look like a God wet.
You just asked the poor man to move in with you, Riona, and you know you will not be buying twin beds. Give the guy a bone-