Creepy. I hate it when machines get chatty with me. I wiped my eyes before opening them and reaching for the shampoo. George and I used to have shower races. Who could get in and clean and out again in the shortest amount of time. All the guys we went to school with insisted that their girlfriends and sisters took forever in the bathroom, but George always beat me. She could scrub down in under three minutes if she was in a hurry and hadn’t been out in the field—bleaching added time to both our totals, so we started subtracting it when we compared times. It was the only way to keep the contest fair. Of course, once a month or so, she’d take over the bathroom for an afternoon to dye her hair back to its original color, which inevitably resulted in her shouting for me to come in and help her dye her roots. The sink on our old bathroom was stained a permanent shade of brown by the time we were sixteen, and we ruined so many towels—

The water cut off, leaving me with soap behind one ear and a goony expression on my face. I hadn’t realized four minutes could go so quickly. “Thank you for showering with me today, Shaun,” said the shower, as the air lock door unsealed and hissed open. “It’s been a pleasure serving you.”

“Uh, thanks,” I said, stepping out. “Same here.”

I grabbed two towels from the pile by the sink. I wrapped one around my waist and used the other to dry my hair, rubbing briskly all the way around my head before slinging the towel around my shoulders. I needed to sleep. The basket full of my crap would be safe on the counter for the night, and it was long past time for me to get to bed.

I started for the door, and stopped in the process of reaching for the doorknob. “Oh, crap.” When we arrived, Maggie apologized for having only three guest rooms—one each for Alaric, Becks, and Kelly. That left me sleeping on the front room couch, which was fine, when I had, y’know, clothes. Nudity was definitely going to be an issue if I was intending to sleep there again, and since I hadn’t exactly taken time to pack when the building was exploding, I didn’t have spare jeans.

I was too damn tired to make a decision. I was still standing there, trying to figure out what to do, when somebody knocked on the bathroom door. I let out a relieved sigh; saved. Clearly, Maggie had realized I was going to have a problem and was bringing me a bathrobe, if not actual pants left behind by one of her Fictional houseguests. “You have no idea how glad I am that you’re here,” I said, opening the bathroom door.