Halo

Chapter 16: Echo

I followed Ash around his house with my mouth hung open like I'd slept through a second and third scientific revolution. I was shown his bedroom first, which had three walls of glass. And his bed. My God, you could fit an entire high school in his bed comfortably! I immediately kicked off my shoes and dove onto it.

"It's like a cloud," I whispered.

"That's something I never want to leave my memory," Ash chuckled. I frowned at him. What was he talking about? "The image of you hopping onto my bed like your seven, not seventeen, and whispering about how it feels like a cloud."

"It is, though!"

"I know, babe," he laughed and peeled off his shirt. "I need a shower. I can turn the lights off if you want to join," he winked. I followed him out of his room and across the hall to a giant bathroom. No glass walls, but it was like walking into a sci-fi movie.

"Where the hell do you get all this shit?!"

He was quiet for a minute, pretending he didn't hear me. I cleared my throat. "Around," he shrugged. He stood at the shower with his back to me, and there I noticed his tattoos. Small. One on his left shoulder; the other on his right.

The one on his left shoulder was an eye. Egyptian. Eye of Horus, maybe. If I was thinking right.

"You are," Ash chuckled.

The one on his left was the flail and crook that pretty much everyone associated with King Tut. I think I stopped breathing. I reached out to touch it, as if it were a mirage and I had to make sure it was real. Of course it was.

"You're...You're King Tut," my voice was drained of almost all sound. "Like...real...actual...King Tut."

"That would be me," Ash laughed.

"You're a king."

"Was."

"You married your sister?"

"I don't have a sister, Echo."

"Oh." Pause. "I'm in love with King Tut."

"King Tut, the devil's son, plenty of other things," he laughed and started the water. He finally turned around.

"How old are you?" I giggled.

"Older than the earth itself," he shut and locked the bathroom door. He flicked the lights off and kissed me before getting undressed and stepping in the shower. I did the same.

"No, but...like, you've gotta be at least two thousand years old." The hot water felt like heaven on my tense shoulders.

"I am at least two thousand years old," Ash chuckled. "Three thousand three hundred fifty-six years old."

I choked. "Aren't we sort of illegal, then?"

Ash laughed, and the sound echoed off the walls of the shower. "I think we're okay, angel," he kissed my forehead. "Shampoo?"

"Does it smell like you?"

"Yes?"

"Then yes?"

"This conversation got weird," he laughed. I nodded in agreement and took the shampoo. "It's okay if you use all of it. You've got a lot of hair."

"I won't use all of it," I scoffed. "Just most of it."

And I did use most of it. I rinsed out the suds. Ash handed me body wash, and I smiled. "This is what heaven is going to smell like. Even if I have to douse everything in this."