she looks glad. A wide smile sits perched on her full lips. “I knew if you came back, you'd take them apart limb by limb.”
Beth’s lips curl. “That might be too quick for my taste.”
They finish their shower in total silence. Beth counts it among the lengthiest showers of her life.
Beth assumes Maddie's thoughts are much the same as her own, though Maddie's are most likely mere dreams of vengeance.
However, Beth's does not dream; she plans.
*
Jeb smirks.
Jacky glares.
Beth barely holds back her laughter. “It's fine that Jacky doesn't want to shower with you Jeb.”
“I'm not interested in males. Especially now,” Jeb says, giving Beth a significant glance that instantly makes her uncomfortable, wiping all traces of humor from the moment. Her new status of declared soul mate and the uneasy climate they found upon their return to Papilio—she can't come to terms with any of it.
Jacky shrugs. “You guys can take long showers together here, but back on Three… there's no dropping the soap, if you catch my drift.”
Jeb blinks.
Beth can't restrain her barking laugh and slaps a hand over her mouth.
Jeb turns to her with a frown.
“I'm sorry—it's so funny,” she says.
“Beth, please.”
“You're a serious dude. You need to chillax.”
“And you're homophobic.” Jeb's eyebrows cock, and he folds his arms over muscles that stretch beneath a T-shirt so snug, it's criminal. Beth simply doesn't have male clothes lying around her domicile. Both the men, if Jacky can be classified as such, had to make do.
Beth considers their wardrobe a form of comic relief.
“I'm cool with gay dudes, bro. I just don't want to travel the Hershey Highway myself.” He thumbs his chest and grins. “I dig the chicks. The vagina is where it's at.”
Beth's breath leaks out of her like helium from a deflating balloon.
Jeb glowers, and Maddie rolls her eyes. “Kinda homophobic, Jacky. And verbiage. Duh.”
Jeb pushes away from the wall. His skintight shorts, which leave very little to the imagination, force Beth to look away, a flush rising. She's become too aware of Jeb Merrick’s body.
She likes it—and she doesn't need the complication right now. He seems to sense her feelings and studies her with half-hooded eyes.
Beth looks everywhere but at him. She swears she can feel his self-satisfaction
Jacky glances between the two of them and opens his mouth.
“Shut up, Jacky,” Maddie warns.
“What?” he asks indignantly. “I was—”
She whips her head in his direction. “I know. Don't.”
“Fine, God.” He stuffs his hands underneath his armpits, and challenges them all with his presence.
“Let's make a plan,” Beth says to break the uncomfortable silence and steer the conversation from body parts and sexual orientation. “We've eaten, cleansed, and had five hours of rest.”
Jeb looks at all their faces, his eyes fastening on Beth's last. He nods in apparent agreement. “We will move to TCH then see what order, if any, Kennet and Calvin have restored, and join them in those efforts.”
He looks at Jacky and Maddie. “This does not concern you directly. Neither of you are Reflectives, and you are foreigners here. You might want to sequester yourselves. Beth and I will reconnoiter our position and assess what's needed and by whom.” Jeb plants his feet wide apart, hands crossing the flat planes of his chest.
Three seconds of heavy silence pass.
“Fuck that, Merrick,” Jacky spits out in disgust. “You need all the help you can get in this crazy takeover bullshit. Count me in.”
Beth holds her breath for Jeb's reply.
A smile ghosts Jeb's lips. “That's what I was afraid you'd say.”
Beth releases the breath and looks at Maddie's thin body and too-long hair. “I'd like to give Maddie's hair a trim and bundle her up a little better. She's been surviving on garbage and thievery. It'd take longer to braid all that hair than to just cut some off.”
“Okay,” Jeb agrees slowly, surveying Maddie's condition with eyes that miss nothing. “Jacky and I will get clothing from my domicile and return here within the hour.”
Beth's eyes sweep the second-skin shorts that Jeb wears.
He catches her eye and his lips quirk.
The bastard knows she was admiring the view.
They leave before she can think of anything clever to say.
Maddie says it for her. “Jeb is hot.”
She doesn't say anything when Beth blushes beat red. That was exactly what Beth was thinking.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Merrick
Jeb studies Jacky with a critical eye. He is not built like a Reflective, but he is not small of stature, either.
Jeb circles the youth, noting the too-long cuffs at the sleeves of the borrowed shirt and the pants that