“You’re sure?” I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.
She rose on her tiptoes and sniffed my neck. Next, she lifted each of my arms and gave them the same treatment. “Nothing but lemon verbena.”
I tipped my head toward the yellow bar in her grip. “Is that what that is?”
She nodded and set it on the soap tray, taking my hands as she turned back to me. “I’m guessing you recognized the smell of bodies because of something to do with your father?”
I squeezed her fingers, grounding myself in her touch. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I lifted my head, looking past her, and the words started pouring out of me before I could stop them. “It happened the summer I turned eleven. Dad took me with him into town for some reason. His car stank to high heaven, so bad that even riding with all the windows open, I was gagging when he finally parked. I asked him what it was, and he said he’d hit a raccoon the night before, and some of it must have stuck to the undercarriage and was rotting because of the heat wave. Back then, I did whatever I could to stay in his good graces, so I went to the trunk to find something to clean it off with. Before I could get it open, Dad pushed me away so hard that I fell onto the pavement.”
I lifted my right arm, bending it to show Aly my elbow. “That’s where this scar came from.”
She leaned in and kissed it, her expression full of sympathy. “I’m so sorry that happened to you.”
I nodded and let my arm fall back to my side. “At the time, I was used to his anger, but that day, he looked scared, helping me up when people stopped to watch, telling them it was an accident, and apologizing to me like he never had before. Instead of going into the store, he told me to get back in the car so he could drive me home and clean my scrapes. Instead, he dropped me in the driveway and then took off for two days. I’m not sure where he went after that, but when he came back, the car was so clean it looked new, and it didn’t smell anymore.”
Aly stepped in close and wrapped her arms around my waist, careful to avoid my ribs, her breasts flattening against my stomach.
Had she been naked this whole time?
Wait, of course, she had. We were in the shower. Jesus, I hated the way memories of Dad still put me in such a chokehold, blinding me to my surroundings.
“You think one of his victims was inside the trunk?” Aly asked.
I hugged her close and rested my chin on her head. “Yeah. Dad was pretty active that summer. I just wish I knew the exact date it happened.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because there are still several missing women he’s suspected of killing who have never been found. If the date lined up with one of their disappearances, it might give the family some sort of closure or help the cops find her. I even tried hypnosis once to draw the details out, but it didn’t work. I feel like a fucking asshole for not being able to remember.”
Aly pulled back, frowning. “You know it’s not your fault, right? That you shouldn’t feel any guilt over it? You were a child, and your mind probably suppressed as much as it could afterward to protect you.”
I nodded and tugged her back in. “I know that, but it still doesn’t make it any easier.”
“I understand,” she said. “It’s the same thing with me and the car accident. Not the memory part, but the guilt part. As much as I know it’s not my fault, I can’t shake the feeling of responsibility.”
“We’ve got some baggage between us, huh?”
Aly choked back a laugh. “Sorry. It’s really not funny.”
I took her by the shoulders and leaned back enough to look at her. “What?”
She scrunched her nose. “I just had a flashback to the other night and the literal baggage between us.”
I grinned. “I get it. It’s not ha-ha funny; it’s fucked up funny.”
The humor faded from her eyes almost as quickly as it had appeared. “I was so afraid for you tonight.”
Her words speared straight into my heart. “I was afraid for you, too.”
She shook her head, water droplets sliding down her face. “No, I mean it, Josh. I could not leave you behind. Not just because I couldn’t stand the thought of you trapped in that house alone with Brad’s poor victims, but because I didn’t trust Junior to keep his word about picking you up after.”
Ah, so she had similar fears about me making a great fall guy or, at the very least, being conveniently expendable. That wasn’t ominous at all.
Before now, I was chalking my suspicion up to paranoia, but knowing my girlfriend had come to the same conclusion made it feel like a much bigger threat. I’d have to be more careful around her family from now on. And I definitely needed to do whatever was necessary to stay on Nico’s good side.
I smoothed Aly’s hair back from her face, wrapping my fingers behind her neck so I could drag her closer. She came willingly, lips parting like she was subconsciously preparing for a kiss.
I dipped down and pressed my forehead against hers, feeling coldness steel up my spine as I remembered how afraid I’d been when she said she was staying behind. “You should have gone with them, even if it put me at risk.”
Her eyes flashed with stubbornness, and she tried to pull away, but I tightened my grip and held her where she was. The breath she released was ragged, and I didn’t miss the fact that even though she looked pissed, her nipples had tightened.
“That isn’t how this works,” she said. “You don’t get to sacrifice yourself for me. This isn’t the medieval times, and I’m not some damsel in distress.”
“The whole point of you staying in the van was so there was no sign of you at the house, Aly.”
“I know that,” she said.
“What if a neighbor saw you? What if a piece of your hair fell out, and the cops find it?”
Fast as lighting, she tipped forward and turned, breaking my grip on her. “My hair was in a braid,” she said, stepping as far back as the shower would allow. “And the closest I got to the house was when I helped you off the patio floor. The likelihood of them finding any sign of me is much lower than them finding some sign of you.”
I shook my head, closing the distance between us. “My hair was covered, and I had gloves on.”
“You might have left behind fabric strands.”
I tilted her chin up to make it easier to meet her eyes. “Fiber analysis is about as reliable as blood splatter these days, and all our clothes were generic polyester for a reason. Any fibers left behind could have come from anything.”
She huffed out a breath. “Fine. I’m sorry I broke my word to you, but I’m not sorry I stayed behind.”
I spun her around, wrapping my arms over her shoulders so I could lean down and speak my next words directly into her ear. “I wasn’t trying to sacrifice myself for you, and the last thing I think you are is a damsel in distress. I just want to keep you safe. And I’m sorry if I’m overbearing about it, but I care about you, Aly. I’m sure Tyler warned you that I tend to go overboard when it comes to the people I care about.”
“He might have mentioned it.”
Noticing that her skin was starting to pebble, I pulled her back beneath the water with me. “I guess we’re at an impasse then. We’ll both do anything to keep each other safe, even if that means pissing the other one off.”
She gripped my forearms and dropped a kiss onto the nearest one. “I’d rather have you care too much than too little.”
I squeezed her tight. “Same.”
We stayed like that for a few moments, the water running over us and heating our night-chilled skin until I felt like the warmth had finally soaked all the way to my bones, chasing away the last of the cold.