Page 105 of The ARC Unit: Breach

I put my face under the spray and concentrated on conditioner with the intensity of someone defusing a bomb. Bare feet crossed the wet tile behind me. One stall curtain moved, then another. Then the stall directly beside mine opened.

I turned my head before I could stop myself. “There are five others.”

“This one actually has water pressure.”

“So does mine.”

“You’re using it.”

I stared at his blurred outline through the partition. “You are an exhausting person to share plumbing with.”

“You wanted the bathroom.”

“I wanted the bathroom empty.”

“Good luck with that.”

His shower came on before I could come up with a response that didn’t sound irrationally immature.

The water between us filled the room with enough noise that the silence should have become easier. Instead, it made every movement more noticeable. His silhouette shifted under the spray when he pushed wet hair away from his face. I could see the angle of one arm when he washed, the broad outline of his torso when he turned and the blurred shadow of a face he had hidden from me since the day I arrived.

I carefully raised both arms to work the conditioner through the ends of my hair and immediately wondered what the movement looked like from his side. The overhead light turned my own curtain into the same useless privacy screen. My breasts were only shape and shadow through it, but the wet fabric occasionally pulled closer when the air moved, and my nipples had hardened enough that I had no confidence the silhouette was as anonymous as I wanted it to be.

I lowered my arms and focused on the tile again while Wolf stayed quiet beside me.

After another minute, I finally gave in. “This is incredibly awkward.”

“You’re the one narrating it.”

“I’m trying to make it less awkward.”

“Working?”

I considered the question. “No.”

A low sound came through the partition that might have been the beginning of a laugh. With his face uncovered and the curtain between us, even that felt more intimate than it should have. I kept rinsing my hair until his shadow turned slightly toward my stall.

“Shoulder,” he said.

I glanced at my right arm. “What about it?”

“You’ve been protecting it when you lift your hands.”

“You can see that through the curtain?”

“I saw it when you walked in.”

I pictured him at the long mirror, catching my reflection as I walked in with the towel tucked under my arm, before either of us had taken anything off.

“It’s fine. Bear said mild strain.”

“He told me.”

“Apparently Bear has made my medical chart public.”

“I asked.”

That pulled my attention fully toward his silhouette. “Why?”