(I'm doing nothing but waiting so here's a post about nothing.)
Lochlan reaches up and turns on the light on the chest of drawers. My face is illuminated in the mirror. Delirious eyes, wild hair. Pink cheeks. He kisses my shoulder, without taking his eyes from mine in our reflection.
Bathtime.
I close my eyes and he leads me into the big ensuite and I am put on the chair to not fall over while he runs the water in the tub. He adds a capful of rose oil and a capful of bubbles and then one of salts too (which takes away a lot of the bubbles) and then he comes back and takes off the Hello Kitty pajamas I am still wearing.
We can burn these.
They're my favourite.
I'll get you a new set. He kisses my forehead (should we burn that too? I feel like I already am, from the inside out) and I'm neck-deep in bubbles finally. I lie back against the little pillow and instantly slide down so that just my face is visible.
Good? Lochlan appears upside down above me.
Come in with me.
After I wash your hair.
He sits on the little stool by the tub where I normally keep my phone and washes my hair for me before stripping down and sliding into the tub behind me. The water is now up to my shoulders and I'm still sitting up. He lies back and I use him as a pillow. I offer sleepily to wash his hair and he says he doesn't want salt in it.
Salt should be in everything, I point out.
Tomorrow you can have a saltwater bath then.
I don't know what he means but I close my eyes and breathe in the steam and my throat feels a little better. The doctor is coming after lunch today. He would have been over first thing but he is flying back. It's fine. I'm not going anywhere. Other people have far worse problems. Get to me when you get to me, I think and before I know it our time is up in the tub, because Lochlan doesn't want me to overheat.
I could live in the bathtub.
Come on, mermaid. Let's get you dry. He steps out and towels his skin off quickly, giving me the most wonderful show while he's doing it. His milk-pink skin, freckles scattered everywhere like sun stars, hair still tied back, woodchopping/fire throwing muscles threatening to blow his white-collar cover, as ever. Tattoos damned never everywhere now and I love it. He was late to the game, but took it up eventually.
What are you staring at?
You.
Let me return the favour then. He holds out his hands and I take them, stepping ungracefully over the very high side of the tub. He wraps me up in a giant towel and lets the water out of the tub and then comes back.
Oops. Forgot your hair.
It's fine.
Another towel and he blots my whole head. (One of the advantages of being with a man with super crazy curls is he doesn't rub your head dry like he's polishing wax off a car. My hair used to be straw for a while there, right through the Cole/Jake/Ben years, but now it's shiny and soft again. God, my brain's going everywhere. It's probably a prion disease).
I am combed and dressed in clean clothes. A warm baggy sweater and comfortable soft jeans. Matching Lochlan only his sweater is a navy and mine a robin's egg blue. Our jeans are the same shade of dark indigo and he goes back, after a thought, and gets socks for me. Thick cream-coloured wool socks that feel so nice. I am the barefoot princess, usually.
I wait for a hat and a coat, possibly, but he seems satisfied at last.
Breakfast-
-I'm starving.
God, I love it when we can read each other's minds. Good girl, he says, and I go weak in the knees.