Jonny and Christine held each other in the shower for a while, cool water beating down on their shoulders. She closed her eyes and laid her head on his shoulder. She felt safe in his strong arms. She liked the way her naked body fit against his. His hands were rubbing the sore muscles in her back. She smiled as she felt his fingers rub out the kinks. "The driver here was hard on you," he commented. She nodded, purring from the massage. "You'll have plenty of time to relax, now that you're here." She smiled again. "I think you'll get along well with everyone else here, too."
She raised an eyebrow. "This place isn't all yours?"
"I wish. During the school year there are six people in this house. It's not quite that crazy, now that it's summer."
"Well, who are they?"
"My friend Bryan lives in a room down this hall. He's a bartender downtown, so he keeps fairly odd hours. My room is in the basement. And—"
There was a knock on the bathroom door. A female voice rang out: "Jonny, are you almost done in there?" Christine looked at the door. That voice... she could have sworn she'd heard it before, somewhere.
"And that's Elizabeth," Jonny continued. He shouted at the door: "We'll be out in a minute, Elizabeth!"
Elizabeth? Christine thought. No... couldn't be.
Jonny turned off the shower, opened the shower curtain. He wrapped a towel around Christine's wet body before he started toweling himself off. There was another knock on the door. "Jonny, who are you in there with?" Elizabeth demanded.
Christine's eyes grew wide. That voice was unmistakable. "Elizabeth!" Christine said, an exclamation. The door was suddenly flung open, and there was standing Christine's best friend from her freshman year of college, Elizabeth, an Italian goddess. She was wearing only a towel. She leapt to Christine and hugged her tightly. Then, at the same time, each said to the other: "What the hell are you doing here?"
Jonny laughed. "How do you two know each other?"
"I told you about Elizabeth," Christine said. "She's the one girl who ever kissed me."
"I remember," Jonny said.
"How did you get here? With Jonny?" Christine asked. She couldn't believe what was happening.
"A year after I left Hood, I ran away. I wanted to go to California. I stopped here in Columbia, Missouri for a night. I was having dinner by myself at the hotel bar, when in walks this guy," Elizabeth explained.
"That's me," Jonny said.
"He was really nice, and we hung out for the rest of the night, after he took care of some business of something," Elizabeth said.
"I don't usually frequent hotel bars," Jonny said. "I was there to get some weed from a friend from out of town."
"That was some really good weed," Elizabeth commented. She turned to Christine. "So what were you doing here? And in the shower with Jonny no less! Jonny, I don't think I've ever known you to bring home a girl!" She whacked Jonny on his arm. "And how come you never told me you knew her?"
Christine blushed and said: "Well... we met on the internet, in a chat room, and I never wanted to stop talking to him. And then I ran away, just a few days ago, to come here."
"Christine!" Elizabeth said. "I never thought you would do something like that!"
"Love will make you do crazy things," Christine said, looking back at Jonny. He blushed and ran his towel through his thick curly brown hair.
