Luke pulled at the collar of his shirt. He supposed he did stink. “I don’t need to – ” He started to protest, but he stopped when he realized he was just doing it to Charlie’s retreating back. He sighed and went back into the house, leaving the door open for Jake, who was lucky he was a dog and did not fall into the category of immediately needing to bathe.

While Charlie showered, he finished his second granola bar and made a list at the island of the errands they needed to do while they were in town. [i]Food – all. Police station. Feed store. Chickens? Box fan.[/i] He stopped when he felt his stomach about to consume the rest of his body, so he got a stale piece of bread and put butter on it.

Water must’ve been Charlie’s power-up source because she was on something when she came back into the kitchen. Various different response options flooded Luke’s brain.

[i]How many of my shirts do you have, hm? Look at me. How many?[/i]

[i]There’s a recruitment office in Billings. You seem interested in joining.[/i]

[i]So that’s the plan? You’re going to sit in my truck and wear my shirt while I ask another woman to dinner?[/i]

[i]Take it off. Before I take it off for you.[/i]

He said none of these things. Instead, brown eyes moved to her chest, where “ARMY” sat in large letters, and then back up to her face. He walked up to her and reached for the hem of the tee. He gave it a small tug with a dirty hand. [i]Mine.[/i] “Because you want me to go so bad,” he said darkly, “the police station is the first stop.”

Luke stepped away, stuffed the rest of the bread in his mouth, and went upstairs to shower. It was still humid from its recent usage, and he could smell which shampoo she’d used. Flirting with his dead brother’s wife six weeks after he’d died was going to send him to hell. Touching his dick while he knew she was downstairs thinking about what he’d said – also, straight to hell. He kept his hands away from his lower half while he went through all the shower bottles, squinting at them under the water. The differences between Sam’s and Charlie’s were obvious, but if memory served, there was still one that he’d bought near Christmas, sitting on the edge of the tub. He scrubbed himself with it in a hopeful attempt that it’d also clean the inside of his mouth so he wouldn’t say any more stupid shit to Charlie, at least for the rest of the day.

As a premise, Luke didn’t wear shorts unless he was planning on getting in a body of water or sleeping, so he came back downstairs in (clean) work pants and a dark gray shirt. Maybe it would be better at hiding his sweat stains. He cuffed the sleeves at his biceps, knowing it wouldn’t be nearly as cooling as the cut-off tanks he usually favored in the summer – but he didn’t need the entire town seeing his scars and asking him questions he didn’t want to answer.

He grabbed his hat off the counter and stuffed his wallet in his back pocket. “I like it when you wear my things,” he finally admitted. “It makes me – ” What? Fucking weird was what it made him. It was literally just a shirt. She probably had them laying around and wore them because it didn’t matter if they got dirty or not. Not because they were “his.” He needed to calm down. Luke looked at her. “I wasn’t trying to be an asshole. Wear what you want.”