Free Day's End by Colleen Vanderlinden

think.”
    “Not a chance. Quiet evenings are boring anyway.”
    “Good, because I’d kick the ass of anyone who tried to have a romantic evening with you,” I told him, and he laughed.
    He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my lips. He sat and kept me company while I ate, and then he knelt next to the tub.
    “I’ll wash your hair if you want,” he said. I nodded and watched as he put a dollop of shampoo in his palm. When I looked up at his face, his eyes were on my body, what he could see of it above the bubbles, anyway. He caught me looking at him and grinned.
    “Blue balls,” he muttered, and I laughed. My laughter died the second he sank his fingers into my hair, ending on a contented sigh. I closed my eyes and relished the feel of his hands massaging my scalp, firm yet gentle.
    “How do you do shit like this, Jolene?” he asked, gently running one hand down my bruised back, then back up it again to my hair.
    “I don’t think about it. I just react.”
    “Are you in a lot of pain?”
    “Well, I’m not feeling up to kicking anyone’s ass just now.”
    “Then it must be excruciating,” he joked, and I laughed.
    “This helps a lot,” I said, splashing my hands in the bubbly water a little.
    “Good.” Ryan started working the shampoo through my hair, his fingertips gently massaging my scalp. I glanced up at him to see that he was completely focused as his fingers worked through my hair, and I swore my heart melted a little. Was this what love looked like? Someone being utterly, completely focused on something as mundane as washing another person’s hair? My stomach gave a funny little lurch, remembering what we’d said to one another earlier, about wanting each other forever. This was what my forever looked like, and I knew it the same way I know that the sun will rise in the morning and the stars will continue to shine overhead.
    “You can wash my hair whenever you want,” I murmured.
    “I’m holding you to that.” He worked the shampoo through my hair for a few more moments, then grabbed the shower head and gently rinsed the shampoo from my hair. When he was done, he ran some of my conditioner through my hair.
    “Fucking Killjoy,” he muttered after a while.
    “I was about to say that you were handling that whole fight remarkably well,” I said, and he shook his head.
    “I hate that bastard. He just won’t stop. He’s hiding like the rat he is, but he can come here and do this shit? He’s obsessed and crazy. I can’t figure him out, other than knowing that eventually, he’ll show up to actually, really confront you or whatever the hell it is he thinks he’s doing.”
    I shrugged. “He’s nuts. Trying to figure him out will only make you crazy, too.”
    He didn’t answer. “I know you already know this—”
    “I’ll be careful,” I told him. “As careful as I can be, anyway.” I remembered what Killjoy had said before flying away, that killing me wasn’t the worst thing he could do to me. He was right. Killing my mother had been way worse than if he’d just killed me. If he hurt or killed Ryan, or Jenson, or any of my other friends and teammates, that would be worse. I’m not afraid to die. I mean, I’d rather not, obviously. But I kind of accepted during my burglary days that someday the crazy life I lived would catch up with me, and I wouldn’t win. This was the same, but on a much bigger scale.
    Was that what he had meant? I would destroy him if he went after anyone else I cared about. I would end him, and I wouldn’t even give it a second thought.
    “Jolene?”
    “Hm?”
    “Your heart rate just spiked. What’s wrong?”
    I shook my head. “Just pissed off about him getting away again. I don’t like having him out there.”
    “I know.”
    I finished my bath and he went into my room while I dried off and put my pajamas on. When I walked into the bedroom, he was already there, on what was becoming “his” side of the bed. I smiled and lay down beside him and he