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Joan’s laughter pinged off the metal walls, sounding particularly rich in the steamy room. “Sorry, did I interrupt something in there?”
“Ever heard of privacy, Joan?” Garrett scrubbed down the rest of his body until the water ran clear.
“You want me to come back?”
“A little late for that now.”
Garrett checked his hair one last time, then behind his ears and the creases and folds of his body where he knew from long experience grime could accumulate after days in the field. Other than his ruined orgasm and blue balls, he wasn’t really annoyed with Joan. She was one of his few true friends, and considering how little they’d had time to see each other since the Barzen went down, he really should have expected her to drop in on his shower. She’d done it before.
He turned off the spray and wiped the water from his face. “So, what’s up?”
“I’m here to tell you where you’re going next.”
Garrett drew the shower curtain—never one to be body shy—and found Joan sitting on the counter next to the sink, bumping her heels back on the cabinets. He motioned to the towel beside her, caught it when she tossed it over, and wrapped it around his hips. “I already know where I’m going next. The bar.”
“No, yeah, that’s true.” Joan moved her feet so Garrett could grab his shaving stuff from the cabinets. “And you should do that, but I mean tomorrow.”
“Can it wait until tomorrow?” Garrett sprayed the cream into his palm and spread it across his mess of stubble, his face still warm from the steam and shower. Shaving this many days of stubble off with this shitty razor was going to be a long and painful process, but it was going to be so worth it.
“It can…” Joan drew out the “can” and wobbled her head back and forth. “But I didn’t really want to spring it on you tomorrow either. Thought you might want some time to process.”
Garrett quirked his eyebrow as he started shaving in short, slow strokes to avoid pulling the hair. “Well, now you have to tell me. What am I gonna need to process?”
“I’m sending you to Thule.”
Garrett froze for a beat, the razor halfway through a stroke. He looked in the mirror and saw his face and his father’s face and his brother’s face, and then resumed shaving. “Okay.”
Joan made a sound in the back of her throat. “Garrett.”
“Okay, I’m going to Thule, and?” Garrett rinsed the razor and then brought it back up to his face.
“We’re not gonna talk about it?”
Garrett shrugged and then lifted his chin so he could shave under his jaw. Right where Maxwell had kissed and licked and whispered. He let that warm memory fill in the cold hole the mention of home had left in him. “What do you want to talk about?”
Joan leaned back against the mirror and tapped her finger against the ceramic of the sink. “You haven’t been back there in a long time.”
“Nope.” Ever, in fact. Garrett had followed Leon out of that town and never looked back. Well, no, he’d looked back and thought back plenty, though not recently. But he’d never physically gone back.
Joan rolled her eyes and raised her voice. “So hence the processing, Garrett!”
“Joan, if I was gonna ‘process’ every terrible thing I’d ever seen, done, or gone through, then I would never have time to do anything.” Garrett switched to the other side of his face. “I’m fine. I don’t need to talk about it.”
Joan picked at a loose thread over her knee. “Yeah, that sounds really healthy.”
Garrett scoffed. “You’re one to talk. You wanna discuss your mother?”
Joan flinched and then scowled hard. “No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
They lapsed into silence for a while, the only sound the soft scrape of the razor over Garrett’s skin.
Then Garrett sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone there.”
“Yeah, well.” Joan kicked him lightly with the side of her boot. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”
Garrett tilted his head to get at the underside of his jaw on the other side. Almost done. He was already looking more like himself. “So why am I going to Thule?”
