Page 34 of Riff

“No,” she said, shaking her head at herself. “I don’t want to move,” she admitted.

But she eventually crawled out from under the nest and made her way into the bathroom. The water turned on in the shower, and I felt like the biggest kind of monster for the way my mind immediately started to imagine her stepping inside the water, but my imagination added more flesh to her bones, rounding her out…

“Fuck,” I hissed, shaking my head at myself.

What the hell was wrong with me?

Maybe Raff had been right in that hotel room before the job. Maybe I did need to get laid.

I mean, clearly.

There was no other reason to be fantasizing about a woman who’d been held captive and brutalized for months.

“Well, the vending machine had all the classic chips, cookies, and sugary drinks,” Raff said as he came in, dropping his armful of goodies onto my bed. “Not exactly a great start to the day, but it does look like the general store people are snow blowing too, so we can get something real there later.”

“And some warm shit for going out in this,” I said. “She was comfortable under all of those,” I told him, waving toward the blanket mound on her bed.

Vienna came back out a while later, likely after having used up all of the hot water, dressed in another of the outfits Raff had gotten her—a striped green and white sweater and yoga pants.

“A well-rounded breakfast,” she said with a hint of a smile as she chose an electrolyte drink, a bag of mini chocolate chip cookies, and some sour cream and onion chips.

We all picked at the snacks while watching the local weather report, all of us seeming relieved to learn the storm was just a freak front and no more were coming along behind it.

I got up to feed Vernon as Vienna curled back into her nest and opened her book, and Raff offered to head into town to see what was and wasn’t open yet.

“We can’t leave Vernon, though,” Vienna said, shooting me big eyes. “He’s not even supposed to be here.”

“We can put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door and keep Vernon in the bathroom. It won’t be for long.”

She seemed uncertain until Raff returned two hours later with lots of warm shit to wear and the news of breakfast being served at the restaurant in town. The lure of french toast, it seemed, trumped her worries about Vernon being found out.

I mean, it wasn’t like they’d take the cat, anyway. If anything, we’d get charged extra for any possible damage.

Once Vienna was all snuggled up in a hat, scarf, gloves, boots, and this fluffy as fuck lined jacket with a bison print across it, and had a stomach full of carbs, eggs, and caffeine, she was a lot more relaxed and interested in walking around, mostly just looking in the windows of shops the town had to offer.

Raff went to the general store to stock up on the makings for sandwiches, since his room had a mini fridge to keep things fresh, as well as various other snacks and drinks, while he waved us off toward the bookstore.

Vienna was tense as we closed in on it, clearly fearful of being around people. Each time she saw a man, she moved behind me. I don’t know if she was worried they might hurt her, or they might somehow ‘see’ her trauma. Or both. But she visibly relaxed when the bookstore door chimed as we entered, and we moved inside the space to find an elderly woman behind the desk, and no one else to be seen.

I hung back, mostly just watching Vienna as she eagerly scanned titles, touched spines, and occasionally picked up books to read the blurbs.

She didn’t, though, take any with her.

And it wasn’t until I saw the way she longingly looked at one of the books as she set it back on the shelf that I realized it was because she had no cash of her own to buy any.

Keeping an eye on her, I backtracked and picked up all of the ones I’d seen her pick up, having a stack nearly up to my chin by the time I rounded the little accessory section.

Vienna was distracted by a stack of postcards, so I grabbed several bookmarks for her to add to my stack.

“What are you doing?” she asked, eyes wide when she finally turned and saw the stack of books in my arms.

“Shopping for books,” I said. “Funny, but I thought that’s what you wanted to do,” I said, pointedly looking at her empty hands.

“So, you like reading rom-coms and cozy mysteries?” she asked, shooting the stack a small smirk.

“Love ‘em,” I said, getting a surprised little twinkling laugh out of her.

“I really don’t need all of those,” she said, shaking her head, feeling guilty about the money.

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