Nicky had agreed to try it for a month as an experiment, and then made it permanent. Travis helped make Nicky a better Rex, and understanding the emotional stuff helped head off problems before they snowballed into fights. It was like being the kind of bouncer who knew when to step in, before something got out of hand, rather than the kind who had to wait for the fists to fly to know how to fix the problem. Preventive maintenance wasn’t just for your car.
Nicky had insisted that the first time off Travis had, he had to come and spend it training to fight here with our guards, because Nicky couldn’t be with Travis all the time. Also, Nicky had confided in me that Travis sucked at fighting, like seriously sucked. I’d actually forgotten that last night was the start of a long weekend of training for our scholarly lion.
I said yes to Travis and Magda for bunkmates. Travis I liked as a friend, and a chance to talk to Magda about her treatment of Kelly would be a good thing. I wouldn’t bring up the topic, but I needed a better feel for Magda if I was going to understand why she was challenging Kelly to a fight that would gain her nothing in the pride except a token title of head lioness. Maybe that was enough for her to do it; if it was, then I didn’t know how to stop it, but I was hoping for more of a clue. If I had a chance to talk with Travis alone, I’d ask him for his take on Magda. But I was suddenly exhausted, as if everything were catching up with me all at once.
I’d rinsed off wereanimal goop again, and blood, in the shower. Doc Lillian had to bandage me again, because I couldn’t keep the dressing clean. She’d been quite cranky about it, as if I’d done it on purpose. I sat on the edge of the bed with bandages running across the top of my left shoulder and a little down my arm. I still had the towel from the shower wrapped around me. I couldn’t decide if I just didn’t want to walk back through the underground naked again, or if I’d simply been so tired I forgot to take it off. At least my hair hadn’t gotten messy, so it wasn’t wet this time. It would make sleeping on a pillow more comfortable and I wouldn’t wake up with my hair dried in odd positions like some curly Rorschach test.
I heard voices and knew someone was talking their way past the two guards outside my door. Bram had tattled on me to Fredo, so now I had bodyguards everywhere I went, at least for today. There was a soft knock, and that alone let me know it wasn’t Magda. She knocked like a cop with a knock-and-announce warrant—loud, authoritative, and about to knock your door down. This was a knock you could say no to, and they’d just go away. It had to be Travis.
I said, “Come in.”
Travis peeked around the door. His short curls looked dark brown, instead of their usual brownish blond. It also looked like his hair had grown out a little, and it was only when he’d walked into the room and shut the door behind him that I realized his hair was wet, which made it darker and, with the curls relaxed, longer. My hair wet and heavy was nearly four inches longer in back. He was also wearing nothing but a towel around him, just like me. In fact, the towel covered him from armpit to nearly ankle like it did for me, because we were almost the same height. The extra-big towels were like dresses on both of us, but on Claudia they barely covered the essentials.
“Sorry you’re hurt,” he said.
“Me, too. Sorry I’m interrupting your fight training.”
He smiled then. “I’m not, I hate it.”
“You’re starting to show some muscle definition,” I said, starting to motion at his arms, but having to stop in midmotion because I’d forgotten and tried to raise my left arm.
“Yeah, and if the women I wanted to date were into that sort of thing it’d be great, but they’re more impressed that I can recite Shakespearian sonnets by memory in their ear.”
I gave him a look. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“Haven’t you ever dated someone who was into literature?”
“I thought I had, but maybe I’m wrong, because I think if I’d tried to whisper sonnets for pillow talk they’d have giggled at me.”
“You have to know your audience,” he said. “Mine likes poetry.”
“I didn’t say I disliked poetry, just not that fond of the sonnets.”
“You don’t like Shakespeare?” He pretended to be offended, hand to his chest as if I’d wounded him.
“I prefer the tragedies,” I said.
He smiled again. “Of course you do, but I don’t think whispering Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy would get me laid.”
It was my turn to grin. “I don’t know, depends on the girl.”
“You?”
“No,” I said, still smiling, and it was good to be smiling. It helped chase back the tiredness.
He came and sat on the bed beside me, careful to sit on the side that wasn’t bandaged. “You look beat, Anita.”
“Good to know I feel as bad as I look, or look as bad as I feel, or something like that.”
“I didn’t mean you look bad, you always look good.”
I looked at him. “Now, that is totally not true.”
He smiled, frowned, and finally said, “Is this one of those girl moments that I can’t win? So if I agree with you, are you going to accuse me of not thinking you’re beautiful, and if I disagree with you, are you going to tell me I’m lying?”
I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “If you were a boyfriend, or lover, maybe, but no, I’m not going to go all girl-logic weird on you.”