that bad.”
“You smell more offensive than a militant redneck’s Facebook feed.”
“You can be mean when you want to. We wiped out an enormous threat that was headed this way.”
“And San Quintin thanks you, but I think you enjoyed every minute of it. Can we get to the showers now?”
“I think you just want to see me naked again. I saw you checking me out after you stopped playing in the water.”
“I think you enjoy being an asshole.”
“I think you like it when I’m an asshole.”
“I think I will like it when you get all those guts off you.”
“So, you can check me out in all my naked glory.”
“Because you stink. Let’s get in the shower.”
And yeah, because I wanted to look at him naked again, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Plus, after so many cold showers, bathing in the river, and stinking to high heaven myself, hot showers were still a treat.
I tried to stay downwind of Aeron as we made it to the showers. There was this stench to the entire world now that the dead were walking. It was less in San Quintin since they burned anything that died outside the walls, but I could smell Aeron over the prevalent scent of burning corpses that lingered in the air in San Quintin, and he desperately needed that shower.
Aeron was a gentleman and kept his eyes above the waist while we were stripping off our clothes. I was no lady, and I was peeking everywhere.
“I hope you plan on burning those clothes.”
“It’s not like I can hit up a store and buy more. It’s pretty hard finding angel sized clothes when I scavenge.”
“You’re seriously going to ask someone to wash that for you?”
Aeron turned the water on and let it get hot. I did the same.
“Just because we’re angels doesn’t mean we don’t do our own laundry, Ariel.”
“The Horseman of Death folds clothes?”
“Not fitted sheets. I don’t think anyone knows how to fold those. I’ve seen people post videos where they’ve figured something out, but who has time to mess with that?”
“What other totally normal things do the Horsemen of the Apocalypse do?”
“Chat with pretty girls online.”
“Are you flirting with me covered in guts?”
“Well, I’m not as good at it as Leif, but I’m trying.”
I looked at Aeron. His face was finally clean, and he had this pained look on his face like everything had changed between us now that I’d met Leif and spent all day with him. I thought we came as a set before. Did I pay more attention to Leif before I went missing?
“Can you tell me what our thing was before I went missing? I remember Leif and I spoke on the phone about books. I know we would have had something like that.”
“I might be good at killing things, but I’ve always appreciated the beauty in the art humans have created. I’d make it a point to see it when I got called to Earth. I have my favorites over the centuries. We talked about your art and other artists.”
I so didn’t take Aeron for talking art with me, but a brief memory got jogged loose. Big, gruff Aeron was pretty passionate about art and made it a point to study it. He even taught me a few things. Aeron exposed me to artists I’d never heard of and really broadened my horizons artistically.
I grinned at him. I remembered.
“You couldn’t pick your favorite art period. It was a combination of Rococo and German Expressionism.”
“And you loved every single time period equally except Cubism. You never did like the Cubists.”
Aeron rinsed the shampoo out of his hair, and all the stink had washed down the drain. Water was dripping down his hard chest, and this angel had a fucking eight pack. His gray eyes got that silvery glow to them again, and he looked a little dangerous. He looked like he wanted to eat me. He turned off his shower and came to stand under my spray.
Aeron pressed forward until my back was against the wall, and his chest was pressed against mine. He trapped me between his arms against the wall.
“I don’t want to talk about art right now, Ariel.”
I could feel his erection pressing against my stomach, and my mouth went dry. Were we finally going to do this after all that tension on the road? Everything was about to come to a head in that tent, and then those gang members showed up.
I stuck my hand between us