Page 9 of Time for You

Slowly their friends trickled out the door.

Vibol had a shift to get ready for, and Michelle had promised her uncle she would drop by that afternoon.

Brittany’s excuse was that she had to go back to her apartment and sleep since she hadn’t gotten much the night before.

Henry fortunately didn’t seem to understand the implication there, at least.

But before they left, they had decided on a few things, mainly that Henry was obviously staying for at least a little while, so he needed to blend in better. That meant new clothes, but before Vibol would agree to loan Henry anything, he had to shower.

Ellie had taken the bull by the horns while Vibol went upstairs to get something that would fit Henry. They were approximately the same height, although Henry was somewhat broader in the shoulders. “Now you’re going to take a shower,” Ellie explained.

Henry looked befuddled. “A shower?”

“Yeah. You can use ours.”

“We could wait on Vibol. He could teach him,” Daphne suggested.

“First of all, Vibol has worse bedside manner than any of us, so no, he probably shouldn’t be in charge of teaching a man from the past how to shower. Second of all, we’re stealing the man’s clothes and he has to get to work, so it’s really up to us to teach him.”

“Still waiting to learn what precisely you’re supposed to teach me how to do.”

“Take a bath. But standing up,” Daphne said.

“I think I can manage that on my own.”

“You really can’t,” Daphne retorted.

“I beg your pardon, I have been bathing myself—”

“Okay, I’m going to shut this down before you two work yourselves into a bickering frenzy,” Ellie said. “Henry, I’ll talk you through the basics, and Daphne will go buy you the rest of the clothes you’ll need.”

“The rest?” Daphne asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Well, I’m sure as hell not loaning him my underwear,” Vibol said, walking back in. “Here’s what I could find. Should work for a day or two. Good luck with”—he made a circular motion in the air at Henry—“all this. I’ll check in on you guys when I’m off shift tomorrow.”

Vibol shut the door behind him, and Daphne tried to get out of her assigned job. “He doesn’t need underwear.”

“He really does, though. And I have to go to the food pantry for my volunteer shift this afternoon, so we’d better get going. Henry, you know your measurements?”

“I do,” he said, although the hint of a blush had shown up with the first mention of underwear and hadn’t fully faded yet.

“Great, give them to Daph, and I’ll talk you through the basics of plumbing. Daph, why don’t you get him at least another outfit or two, since this isn’t going to be fixed by tomorrow no matter what.”

Daphne got home half an hour later with a crinkly white-and-red plastic bag containing several pairs of pants, long-sleeved shirts, and the cheapest pack of boxer briefs she could find.

She had googled “1885 men’s underwear” while standing in the aisle, feeling like a pervert, and figured boxer briefs looked the most similar to what he was used to—assuming she hadn’t stumbled onto like, fetish sites.

At the last minute she’d grabbed him a hoodie too, since it was still chilly.

“He’s been in there awhile,” Ellie warned her. “I checked a few minutes ago, and he said he was fine, just ‘marveling at the technological prowess’ of our century.”

“The hell does that mean?”

“I think it means he’s impressed by unlimited hot water. Anyway, you’ll have to convince him to get out eventually.”

“How?”

“That’s your problem; I already had to explain hot water heaters to him. I’ve gotta run, though. And Daph?”

“Yeah?”

“Be nice. He’s not a dick, he’s just really disoriented.”

Daphne didn’t feel like that was entirely fair, since she’d been perfectly pleasant to Henry most of the morning.

But without the buffer of everyone else, she had felt her hackles rising even before she’d left on her errand, so maybe Ellie had a point.

Daphne mentally chanted be nice, be nice, be nice as she approached the bathroom.

She knocked but got no response. “Henry? It’s Daphne. Are you okay?” she asked the door.

The water shut off, and she heard the curtain rings drag along the shower rod. “Henry?” she called again.

“What do you need, Miss Griffin?” he called.

“I have your clothes.” She could feel his hesitation, and she sighed. “Remember, I am a medical professional.”

“One moment,” he replied, and she heard rustling before the doorknob twisted.

Daphne stepped back just as the door opened, and—well.

Henry stood in the door with a towel tied around his waist, wisps of steam curling out from behind him.

Apparently, they had gyms in 1885? Or weight lifting.

Or else he was just very, very lucky in the genetics department, because his body was what she could only call well formed .

Whereas Daphne had gotten the distinct impression that Anders waxed his chest, that was obviously not something men did in 1885, and Daphne suddenly had a newfound appreciation for history.

“Miss Griffin? Is anything amiss?” he said, and she jerked to attention.

“Sorry, uh—here,” she said, and shoved the bag at him. “Clothes. You should be able to figure out how to get them on.”

Henry emerged from the bathroom several minutes later, mercifully dressed. Daphne had chosen the clothes he was wearing, had seen him in a hospital gown, and had seen him in just a towel earlier, so she should have been prepared. She should have been, but she wasn’t.

At. All.

It was a shame he lived in a time of three-piece suits, because he was born to wear a Henley. Those forearms were poetry worthy, honestly. His hair curled above his ears as it dried, and he eyed her warily.

Daphne couldn’t blame him. It was easier for her with everyone else around, too.

Henry looked around expectantly. “Where are they?”

“They had to leave earlier, remember?” Daphne prompted. Maybe he does have a major TBI, after all, if his short-term memory is this bad.

“Not them.” Henry sighed.

“Then who?”

“Your servants. I assumed, given the other dwelling was unoccupied, that they had traveled with their employer to her other estate, but you ladies must certainly employ some? A charwoman, perhaps?”

Daphne snorted. She had no idea what a charwoman was, maybe someone who ... charbroiled things? That didn’t seem like it would be a whole job, but maybe it used to be. “No, we don’t have servants .”

“I thought Ellie said you weren’t poor?”

There was something about his haughty tone that irritated her, and she rolled her eyes. “No one has servants anymore unless you’re like, royalty or some shit.”

“Truly? Then how do things get done?”

“We do them ourselves, believe it or not.”

“So you aren’t ladies, then?”

This was easily the most annoying conversation she’d had with him yet, and that was saying something. “I honestly don’t even know what that means.”

Henry sighed, equally irritated with her. “Women of quality.”

“You think having live-in servants is a sign of inherent morality? That we’re beneath you? What sort of fucked-up time do you come from?”

“That’s not what—”

“No, it is what you said. And look, I get that you’re really freaked out, but that doesn’t mean you get to insult my morals or whatever. I could have just left you on the street, you know.”

“I know, my lady, but—”

“And that’s another thing. Stop calling me my lady . If you want to be formal, you can call me Dr. Griffin, and if you can’t bring yourself to address a woman as doctor , then just call me Daphne. But enough with this my lady shit, okay?”

He glared at her. “I do not mean to offend,” he started.

“And yet you do, constantly,” she grumbled.

Henry ignored her. “I cannot undo years of good breeding overnight, my lady . But I did not mean to impugn your character or manners. I simply meant where—when—I am from, people of higher social status, such as I believed you and your friends to be, have servants. As you do not, I was forced to assume that here, now, this must be poverty?”

“Jesus, no.”

Another glare. His eyes flashed when he did that, and she felt an answering tug in her belly that didn’t quite match her annoyance. “Then explain it to me, rather than sneering at my ignorance,” he said.

Okay, that was fair enough. Daphne leashed her temper as best she could.

“In the twenty-first century, we don’t have servants.

Almost no one does these days, aside from like, people with way, way too much money.

Ellie and I make more than a lot of people, but nowhere near that much.

We just do stuff ourselves, rather than have servants live with us. ”

“And do all women work, regardless of social standing? Or are you and your friends an anomaly?”

“Mostly, yeah. There’s other reasons women don’t, but it’s not because it’s like, improper or whatever.”

“And are you ... ladies? By your standards?”

“That’s not a thing anymore. But we’re perfectly moral, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I wasn’t. You have been very kind,” he said, and then muttered something that sounded like at least some of you under his breath that she decided to magnanimously ignore. “Thank you for explaining that, my lady.”

“I said—”

“And I said I can’t undo years of habit overnight. In my time, calling you Daphne would imply an intimacy we haven’t earned. For now, I implore you to let me keep that, at least.”

His earnestness caught her off-guard. Daphne hadn’t really considered why he kept calling her that, just that it bugged her. But she gave him a nod and pointed to the hoodie clutched in his left hand. “Is there something wrong with the sweatshirt?”

“Is that what this is? I must confess I found it baffling.”

“What’s confusing about it?”

“The mechanism.” He held it up and pointed to the zipper. “How does this work?”

Daphne stared at him. “You don’t know how a zipper works?”

He sighed, a sound that was rapidly becoming familiar to her. “For now, let’s just assume that I do not understand anything about your world, yes?”

Daphne fought a losing battle with a grin. “You put it on like a jacket and then—I’ll show you.”

Henry shrugged into the hoodie and Daphne stepped closer, catching his scent, at once familiar and different. “You—here, is this okay?” she asked, motioning to the bottom of the zipper.

He made an affirmative noise and she hooked the two sides together, now acutely aware of how close they were standing. “You put this piece in here, and then just pull up,” she explained, focusing a lot harder on zipping it up than was warranted.

She reached the middle of his sternum and stopped, glancing up. There was a ring of brown around his pupils, making the blue surrounding it all the brighter. Her mouth went dry and she licked her lips. “And there you go. Easy-peasy.” Easy-peasy? When the fuck have I ever said that?

“Easy-peasy,” he repeated, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Is that a common saying here?”

Warning sirens sounded deep in the recesses of her brain, and Daphne stepped back, abruptly flustered. “Uh, yeah, uh, sometimes,” she stammered, and decided that if she had to learn everything there was about astrology in the next week, she would. Because Henry needed to go home, stat.