A Storm in the Making

Chapter 14--Pyrrhic Victory

Chapter Fourteen

Pyrrhic Victory

He smiled at me tenderly. “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” He asked innocently.

Only then did I remember him saying earlier he would help me through being decontaminated.  Then a horrible thought occurred to me.   Please tell me he didn’t do all this just to help me through a horrible experience, I prayed.

Yes, it was bad.  Very, very bad, I wanted to scream at him but I remained silent.

“Storm?”

 “No.  It wasn’t bad,” I lied.

   I spun away from him before I could do something I would regret—like drown him in the pool.  I’m an idiot, I thought to myself.  Of course, a gorgeous guy like him wouldn’t go for someone like me—the tomboy alien from earth.  What was I thinking?

 With one heave, I lifted myself out onto the deck, not caring that he got a full frontal view of me in my birthday suit when I stood up.   

“I hope you don’t mind if I borrow this again,” I said in a voice that should have frozen the entire pool.  With deliberate slowness, I reached down for the robe I had discarded and slipped it on….my eyes never leaving his face.

Julius followed my movements wordlessly, cautiously.  Some male preservation instinct had kicked in and alerted him to my state of mind. 

I wanted to laugh at the bewildered look on his face, but I didn’t.

“I’m decontaminated.”  I said icily.  “Can we go now?”

I didn’t wait for him, but started towards the door with my head held high.  I was proud of myself in that moment.  I was Storm Weatherly again, not some cowering alien.  I would not break again. 

Somewhere, in a tiny aching part of my heart, I knew it was a pyrrhic victory—however, though no one would know that but me.  I could live with that.

***

   I knew it was going be awkward when we left the pool so I wasn’t surprised that it was worse than I figured.

   By the time Julius got out of the water, his mood matched my own.   He was as angry at me as I was him.  You’d think I had insulted him instead of the other way around.

    I accepted a dry robe and pants from him silently.  He’d gotten a set for each of us out of a cupboard that was built into one side of the room.  They were there for the taking on the honor system apparently.  Julius didn’t really explain it, and I didn’t care.  I just wanted some dry clothes.  We slipped into them with backs turned and our thoughts unshared.

   When he was dressed, Julius went to another cabinet and opened it.  It was filled with belts of every color of the rainbow.  Correction, make that every color on this planet.  I didn’t know if they had rainbows here yet.