Just A Boy In A Bathroom
Upstairs Lee, true to the habits of his profession, was poking around the bathroom a bit, trying to get his bearings. Pretty much everyone knew that the medicine cabinet was the best place to start snooping for information. Antacids. Band-aids. Dental floss. Calamine lotion. Open box of contact lenses with 2 blisters left, but no cases or lense solution. Open tube of toothpaste, but no toothbrushes. No deodorant. So, whoever normally used this suite was not currently in residence. Near-empty tube of antibiotic ointment. Generic lidocaine muscle rub. Lip balm. Ibuprofen. Now we're talking! He felt a little guilty helping himself to two tablets. No, better make that four tablets.
The vanity drawers were well stocked with q-tips, a nail trimmer, unopened toothpaste, toothbrushes, and soaps, and an open pack of pink plastic razors. Again, nothing informative, but a razor would be useful. He just hoped it would be up to the challenge of over a year's worth of scruffy facial hair. It had been ages since he'd looked in a mirror and been able to recognize himself.
He found soft, fluffy towels in the linen closet. Nice, oversized bath sheets. Perfect. Being a tall man, he appreciated a larger towel. As an admitted connoisseur of the finer points of domestic life, he relished the heft and plushness of the spa quality Turkish cotton. He suddenly realized just how much he'd missed long, hot showers and sumptuous towels. There had been more than a few mornings he'd envied Francine's ability to enjoy starting the day with a short, cold shower. He didn't think she'd like them as much when the ambient temperature was rarely above 21 degrees. Or should he mentally convert that to 70?
At least he'd become pretty proficient at thinking in Celsius and metric. Oliver had once jokingly congratulated him on joining the mathematically bilingual elite. That silver lining was about as thin as the towels he'd gotten used to using.
When he closed the closet door, he noticed the switch for heated floors. He'd thought wistfully about installing those floors several years ago when they updated their bathroom but knew Amanda would never have agreed. Unlike the stereotypical couple's gender divide, she was the one who considered the bathroom a functional space, whereas he saw the opportunity for luxury. He'd managed to convince her that an oversized jacuzzi bath was a practical investment for a couple whose jobs were often physically punishing. She didn't need much convincing of the ...recreational... possibilities it offered said couple.
He switched on the floor heaters, mostly out of sybaritic curiosity, then stepped into the shower. Oh yeah. The instant hot water hit the spot as it cascaded over his sore muscles. Ordinarily he would have felt a little ridiculous using the obnoxiously overly scented shampoo and body wash, but just this once he allowed himself what Amanda had always called a "Calgon moment", imagining the cloying fragrance of sweet coconut-hibiscus and hot water whisking him away to a warm, sunny beach somewhere, maybe with a swim-up bar that served fruity drinks with those awful little paper umbrellas.
The steamy water was working its relaxing magic. Over the past year and a half off the grid in northern Canada he'd come to appreciate the area's rustic charm, but he didn't remember the last time he'd actually felt warm.
Probably when he and Oliver were fighting their way through the fire, looking for an exit that fateful night.
So much for his pleasant tropical visualizations.