Xander #2
Pushing the door open, I saw more steam and made my way carefully to the shower area.
Maybe if I scared the shit out of him while he was naked and vulnerable, he might keep it in mind the next time he sneaked in a longer than allowed shower.
I was glad kids had always been something Mona and I had agreed weren’t for us because taking care of these morons was enough of a job without throwing kids into the mix as—
I stopped short as I rounded the corner, mouth opening to bark…
well, I didn’t know what I was going to bark because it wasn’t Trevor, but someone I didn’t recognize.
Logic would have concluded it was our new hire because I knew everyone else.
That logic, however, came to a grinding halt because the stranger was facing me, eyes closed and his hand wrapped around his—
My stomach twisted as I heard myself say, “What the fuck?”
His eyes snapped open, and they were bright, both in color and shock.
Thank God his hand stopped, and I didn’t have to fight to decide where to look.
The movement was clearly distracting, and that was all there was to it.
No need to worry about anything else because who the hell expected to walk in on a total stranger jerking off in a communal shower?
“You must be Xander,” he said, and I almost stopped right then to gape at him in total shock. If it wasn’t for the fact that his face turned a bold shade of red, I might have blown my top at the sheer absurdity of acting so casually when I’d just busted him.
“And you must be a fucking idiot!” I barked, fighting and winning, to keep my eyes on his face, which was more red than pale.
“You’ve been here for what, thirty minutes at most?
And you’re already jerking off like you own the place?
Jesus Christ on a stick, get your ass into some goddamn clothes and get the fuck out of here. Are you shitting me?”
“Right,” he said, pressing his lips together so tightly they disappeared. I was just glad he wasn’t so hard that I felt like I was being stared at by his… “I’ll do that.”
“Good,” I growled. “Congratulations, you earned yourself cooking duty for the night, and the cleanup. And if I don’t see you out there with the rest of us, without your dick out, in the next three minutes, I’ll add scrubbing the entire building…including this fucking shower room.”
Before he could say anything else that might piss me off, I turned and left.
I was eager to wipe away the memory of finding some strange guy jerking off in the shower, that was for sure.
You got used to seeing different states of undress with guys in this job and after years in the Army, and with the latter you got used to occasionally walking up on a guy taking care of things.
Didn’t mean I wanted to see it now.
With a huff, I shoved the image and thoughts from my head and walked to where Cait was coming back with a scowl on her face, Jake and Reno standing uneasily in the doorway to the kitchen. She saw me, stopped, and raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“Was going to ask you the same thing,” I said, returning her expression.
“You’re the one looking pissed off.”
“So are you.”
“Yes, but I was dealing with these two idiots, so I have an excuse. What’s yours?”
It would have been easy to tell her right then and there that I had just watched her new favorite jerking off in the showers.
That might have curdled her positive opinion of him.
My eyes flicked to Jake and Reno, who were watching me intently, and I realized it would let them off the hook for whatever stupidity they had been up to before I showed up.
It wasn’t right to take a man’s private moments and put them on display for others, even if they were branded on your own memory banks.
“Working here, leading these fools, do you think I need a reason to be pissed off?” I asked her instead, as I heard, and ignored, the footsteps echoing from the hallway behind me.
Her nostrils flared. “These two are on kitchen duty.”
“These two are on cleaning duty that doesn’t involve the kitchen,” I told them.
They looked dismayed; she looked annoyed. “Why?”
“Because the new guy earned an emergency spot in the kitchen and cleanup,” I told them.
She narrowed her eyes. “Why’s that?”
“I didn’t realize I needed to explain myself,” I barked.
Jake and Reno winced, turning away, satisfied by my attitude for being…well, me. Cait, however, watched me carefully before snorting and heading for her office. “Fine, so long as these two suffer, that’s all I need to know.”
“If that’s all you needed, why didn’t you just say so?” I asked, making them groan. “I can do that without your input.”
“Good,” she said, closing the door behind her and raising her voice. “Do it.”
I turned on the two of them with a grin, not ashamed to admit I enjoyed the way they cringed.
“Reno, get your ass into the bay and organize it. I want it nice and pretty. That includes getting your goddamn truck, which I know is still in there, out; have fun. Jake, you get the fun of cleaning the basement and Cait’s office however the hell she wants it done so long as it’s clean. ”
They blinked behind me, and I turned just in time to glimpse someone darting from the showers into one of the bunk rooms. My nostrils flared as I saw a flash of bare ass before our new guy disappeared out of sight, towel haphazardly tucked against him and fluttering behind him.
Apparently, the moron decided that not taking a change of clothes with him was as good as trying to jerk off in communal showers.
Again, a mental image I shoved away in both annoyance and confusion.
“Well?” I asked lightly, and then snapped, “Move!”
They jerked, and I sighed when they nearly collided before muttering hasty apologies and dancing around one another.
I sighed, pushing past them and opening the fridge to grab one of the few remaining beers.
Drinking during weather that could result in a call wasn’t the smartest idea, but one mild beer wouldn’t hurt.
Plus, the time it would take for the beer to work through my system was about the time it would take for us to get our shit together and move out.
Twisting the cap off and tossing it in the trash, I made my way over to the counter and plopped down on the other side so I would have a full view of the kitchen.
The sound of the storm was still present, but years of experience told me it was petering off.
Within a couple of hours, it would be a rainstorm at most. Jake and Reno were still moving around; I could hear the bang of something from the garage bay.
Jake’s voice muttered up from the basement, and I could hear Cait talking, probably to her sister down in Florida, as she usually did in her free time.
After another couple of minutes, the still-soaked new guy walked in, and I eyed him warily when he stopped and watched me, albeit with more apprehension.
Now that he wasn’t butt naked and dick flogging, I looked him over.
He was smaller than most of the guys who’d worked here over the years, but that didn’t bother me.
He was going to have to pull his weight with heavy lifting, but his primary job wouldn’t require the same level of brute strength and stamina that someone like Jake often had to put into play.
“You planning on doing what I told you, or stand there with your dick in your hand?” I asked wryly, and then added, “Metaphorically speaking this time, thank God.”
“Yeah,” he drew out, his face coloring slightly as he ducked his head with a weak chuckle. “About that.”
“I don’t want any explanations; trust me.”
“Trust me, I wasn’t going to give any. I think that pretty much spoke for itself.”
I glared, but he was already turning to look over what we had in the kitchen, and I let out a snort. “I’d say it said too much.”
“And I’d say you saw too much for my liking,” he said, and I didn’t know what to do with the wry humor in his voice.
“And you could do yourself a favor by remembering two things. Don’t jerk off where anyone could wander in and see you, and don’t laugh when you’re getting chewed out for jerking off in stupid places like a horny teenager,” I growled.
“Oh, I’m laughing at myself, not at you,” he said lightly as he looked at the sheet of paper stuck to the fridge.
It was the meal plan for the week, and his finger fell on today, where whoever was assigned had jotted down what they planned to make.
“At some point, you’ve got no choice but to laugh at yourself. ”
“You’ll notice I find nothing about that funny.”
“And if you could see into my head, you’d see I don’t find it funny either, but sometimes you’ve got two choices: laugh, or lose your shit. Me? I choose to laugh.”
“Maybe find a third option,” I muttered as I took a drink of my beer.
I wasn’t going to give the idiot a hope he didn’t deserve, but privately I had to respect his attitude.
I suppose if I had been busted like he had, I wouldn’t have dealt with it with the same barely there grace as him.
The other guys would have been too mortified for words if they’d been in Colin’s shoes, so I admired his willingness to hold his head high.
“Might not win me any points back,” he said as he busied himself looking through the cabinets. “But if I’m honest, I’m glad it was you rather than, say…Cait.”
“Cait intentionally stays ignorant of anything that happens down that hallway while she’s in the building,” I told him with a snort. “She works with nothing but men; she knows better.”
“That’s a fair point,” he said. “Normally, if I heard about a woman living with a bunch of young guys in the middle of the woods, I’d feel sympathy for her.”
“I really hope you’re not that stupid. I mean, you’re clearly stupid, but you can’t possibly be that stupid.”
“I can be pretty stupid, but when it comes to Cait? I don’t feel bad for her. Honestly, I’m more likely to feel bad for the rest of us.”