“I can wait—” Bruce offered, but Laddin held up his hand.
“Shower. Take all the time you want. Use up all the hot water too, if you like. I grew up taking cold showers because my mama was greedy that way. It’ll make me think I’m back home.”
Bruce smiled at that, and it was a measure of the guy’s exhaustion that he headed for the tiny bathroom. “If you really don’t mind.”
“I don’t. It’s the least I can do since you saved my life.” And it had been his life that had been saved. Not the others’. Bruce had chosen to sacrifice his firstborn child just to save Laddin.
That meant a lot, and Laddin intended to let Bruce know it. Afterward. After they showered and got some rest. After things settled and they figured out where the demon was. After they saved the world, Laddin would 100 percent find a way to make things up to Bruce. But for the moment, all he could offer the guy was a hot shower.
Fortunately, that seemed to be all Bruce needed.
“Thanks,” Bruce said. “And don’t worry about the hot water part. We firemen do it quick… and with a big hose.”
Laddin snorted. It felt good to banter with Bruce. At first Bruce hadn’t seemed like a bantering kind of guy, but in moments when he was too exhausted to maintain his grumpy demeanor, the man was funny and kind. Was this the person he’d be if he wasn’t carrying the weight of the things that had happened when he was a kid? Or when he wasn’t fighting fairies or fires or whatever he had to handle as a paramedic?
Laddin leaned against the door, waiting a moment before he left to get his things.
Bruce noticed. Of course he noticed. He was hyperaware, as most first responders had to be. “What?”
“Do you joke around with your firefighter pals?”
“What?”
“Make hose jokes and stuff like that? With your fellow firefighters?”
Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Yeah, sometimes, I suppose.”
“And now you’re doing it with me.”
“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
Laddin smiled. “Hell no. I was just noticing.”
Bruce crossed his arms. “I wouldn’t read too much into anything right now. I’m not exactly on my game.”
“That’s when the real Bruce shows through.”
Bruce’s gaze canted away. “Yeah. Don’t look too close. You might not like what you see.”
There was a little extra weight behind those words, and it bothered Laddin. The man really didn’t like himself. Then again, that wasn’t a surprise. He’d all but shown up wearing a hair shirt. “I like what I see just fine,” he said. Then he grinned. “It’s the smell that’s the problem.”
Bruce straightened up and gave him a mock salute. “Aye-aye, Captain.”
Laddin nodded and waited until he heard the water start. He wasn’t worried that Bruce would bail—there was something soothing about the sound of a hot shower. He knew exactly what Bruce would do. He’d do what every person did—exhale in relief and let the water wash everything away.
He listened for a moment, letting the sound do for him what it was doing for Bruce—wash away the memories of this morning. And with that thought in his head, he went into the barn to get his suitcase. Besides, he should probably clean up a bit first. They’d all run straight for the fairy disaster. No one had bothered putting things to rights in the van or….
He opened the barn door and saw the mess inside. The van doors were wide open, the contents inside in complete disarray. The burns were clear, as was the small trench Bruce had made around where they’d been sleeping. And as Laddin looked, he remembered it all. The way they’d fought the pixies as firecracker bombs went off on Bruce’s naked body. He remembered the ropes that had cut into his flesh. And then there was the fire.
Everywhere he looked, he saw evidence of what had happened. Not just the horror, but the bedroll mashed into a wad because they’d been wrapped in each other’s arms. The trench around that felt like a desecration of sorts. Laddin looked across it all, the memories battering him, but it was all a delay tactic.
This morning’s horror was over, but it was going to haunt him. He stared at the bedroll because he didn’t want to look out the barn door. He remembered the pixie attack because he didn’t want to think about the cheese fairies. About getting pinned to the trunk of a tree and having words forced out of him. He felt violated and weak.
His throat burned, and he wished he’d brought a water bottle out with him. He forced his feet to move to the van. All he needed to do was grab his suitcase; then he could head back inside. Maybe he’d step into the shower with Bruce. Wasn’t that a lovely fantasy?
He tried to hold all those things in his head. The image of soaping up with Bruce. Of having the big guy put his wet mouth against him, on him, around him. He tried to think of happy things, sexy things, anything.
But it didn’t work, because no matter what he did, he had to look up. He had to step outside. He had to see the open field and remember.
And in the remembering, he broke.
Chapter 17
DISASTERS, SANDWICHES, AND PANTS
BRUCE DIDN’T linger in the shower. He knew Laddin wanted a good soak, and it would be rude to take up all the hot water. But when he came out, the guy wasn’t around. Knowing Laddin, he was probably cleaning up the barn, and though Bruce felt guilty for not going to help, he really appreciated the silence. He needed to process what had happened in the past two days.
He stretched out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling while his mind churned. Except the more his mind chewed on
