He watched blood swirl down the basin with the same sort of mild regret a normal person might feel emptying out a bottle of wine that had gone flat. But Rhine had moved closer, and his attention refocused, fixed. Typically, cirque employees were a little worse for the wear by the end of their shifts. Not Rhine. She looked rested. This close, she smelled like a long night inside the Burlesque tent, yes, but there was the lingering scent of the festival kill, some perfumed musk he quite liked, and a complete lack of fear at the current state of him. For the moment, that was his favorite.
"Clever." His eyes ticked up to hers when she'd settled. "Who was it? The accordion player who kept drowning out the pianist actually worth a damn with folk tunes, or the asshole shoving crawfish at everyone who couldn't take a 'no?'" Maybe it was neither, but those would have been his choices. He dragged the washcloth across the back of his neck, a smile coming easily at the idea of her taking him up on driver duties. "Where'd we run off too, with all that cash?" He had yet to meet anyone here who dreamt of staying with the cirque for the rest of their lives.