“I’ve missed your tongue.” My voice was laced with innuendo, which he duly picked up. “And how are you so good with your tongue, anyway?”
“Easy,” he said. “It’s twenty percent skill and eighty percent paying the fuck attention. And if it doesn’t look like a demon is being exorcised from your body when I go down on you, then I’m doing it wrong.”
“What?” I feigned outrage. “Is that how I look when I reach peak orgasmos?”
“Pretty much.” His smile was full of cocky confidence. “Speaking of which, when can you have sex again?”
“According to my release forms, I can resume sexual activity in six weeks.”
“Six weeks? Like my children would’ve grown up, raised children, died, and those children would’ve had children—that’s how long six weeks feels like.”
“Hey, you stole that line from me.” I bit back a laugh. “But yeah, six weeks feels like forever. Although, Dr. Prasad did say that six weeks is more of a ‘one size fits all’ caution to take it easy post-op.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s okay to have sex when I feel I’m physically and emotionally ready.”
“Is that what she said?”
“Those were her words.”
“What about showers?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do I smell?”
“You do not.”
“Well, seeing that I can’t lift my arms above my head and I’m not supposed to get my stitches anywhere near water, showering is off limits for at least a week.”
“I can wash your hair in the backyard with a hose and a bucket.”
“Are you serious?”
“No. But how about I give you a shallow bath? Just to wash the lower half of your body.”
I didn’t have to think twice. Baby wipes had got me through the past couple days, but a bath sounded wonderful right now, even if it was a shallow one. “Actually,” I said, beaming blissfully. “That would be really nice. And can you wash my hair, too?”
“Of course.”
“Now?” I asked. “Like right now?”
“Right now,” he said, lifting me off the bed. “Let’s go! It’s bath time, baby.” He adopted a paternal tone. “Now don’t get any water outside the tub, okay?”
“Shut up!” I scoffed and snorted at the same time. “I’m not a toddler, Edric!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Edric
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU doing?” Lucy shrieked with laughter. “Oof, that hurt, that hurt! Quit making me laugh.”
“Then you need to quit moving, baby,” I chided. “Keep your head tilted back now.” I rinsed her hair with a cup, careful to avoid getting water near her incisions. “And what’s so funny?” I frowned. “I don’t get why you’re laughing like a loon.”
“You.” Her tone was light but accusing. “You wash my hair like I wash my dog.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You keep pressing down on my hair, like you’re trying to see how dirty the water is.”
“Err, the water is pretty murky.” I worked my fingers through her long, silky strands, squeezing out the excess water. “It’s actually really soothing to see all the dirt and grime come out of your hair.”
“Soothing, you say?” She wrinkled her nose. “Stop teasing me.”
“Stop moving.”
Eyes closed, she kept her head tilted back as I rinsed her hair and soaped her back. “Edric?” she said after a time.
“Mmm.” I pressed my lips together, fully concentrating on the task at hand. I didn’t want even a trickle of water touching her incisions.
“My poor legs.” She sighed. “They’re starting to feel like a forest.”
“Don’t worry, Chewbacca. I’ll help shave your legs after this bath.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Lucy sat completely still as I bathed her, letting the silence grow. Her eyes remained squeezed shut. Earlier on, I noticed she’d averted her gaze when she shuffled past the floor-length mirror in the bedroom. Even in the bathroom, she’d looked away from her reflection. And every time I cleaned her drains, she’d looked up. Always up, and never down at her chest.
“You’re beautiful.” I spoke into the silence.
“You’re lying.” After a quiet beat, she added, “It’s hard to look at them. My incisions... they scare me. The scars... you’d think I was attacked by a mountain lion.” She exhaled a long breath. “And it’s not just the scars. It’s the lumpy skin... so unsightly, so disgusting.” A harsh laugh. “My boobs aren’t even boobs right now... just blobs of saggy skin, all stitched-up and bruised.”
“It’s only temporary. You’ll be getting a boob job in a few months.”
“Breast reconstruction is not a boob job, Edric.”
“It’s not?”
“No.” She bit down on her lip, considering. “Picture a pillow in a pillowcase. A boob job is like adding an extra pillow. Reconstruction is taking the pillow out of the pillowcase, changing the size of the pillowcase, then putting in a new pillow and adjusting the fit further. Remember, these expanders are not implants. They’re just stretching out my skin and muscles to prepare them for my final implants.”
“Try to focus on that, then.”
“On what?” Her eyes popped open.
“The final implants.” I began humming the tune to The Final Countdown. “And for now, remember what I said?”
“I know.” She sighed dramatically. “Boobs are boobs are boobs are boobs.”
“Right.” I kept my expression light and turned the conversation to other matters. “I have to do a quick run to the store to pick up more groceries in a bit. Do you need anything?”
“A will to live,” she said glumly.
“Lucy,” I said meaningfully.
“What?”
“When I get back from the store, we are going to sit in bed all day and binge a bunch of true crime shows, or we can watch whatever you want, and we can do whatever you like. Today’s going to be a good fucking day, okay?”
I waited until she gave me a slow, determined nod. “Okay.”
COME WHAT MIGHT, I was going to cheer her up and boost her spirits today. And I went about it with the single-minded, unwavering determination of a mating salmon, but without any actual mating or fornicating, of course.
It was mid-afternoon when I got in bed next to Lucy. I propped up the pillows before settling back with my laptop on my lap.
“What are we watching?” she asked as I fired up my MacBook Pro.
“You decide,” I said.
“Hmm.” She pursed her lips, considering. “Can you Google something for me first?”
“Sure can.” With two clicks, I pulled up the search engine and said, “Ready when you are.”
“Look up Caffeine Calculator,” she instructed.
“Roger. Affirmative.” I tapped at the keyboard, looking fiercely efficient. “Good to go. Now what next?”
“For the drink, type ‘Cherry Coke’ and for the weight, type a hundred and sixty-five pounds.”
“Done,” I announced and swiftly clicked ‘Calculate Your Limits.’
“Let’s see here,” she said, reading the results out loud, “Daily safe maximum. It says my maximum is thirteen cans a day. And a lethal dose for me is three hundred and thirty- two cans.”
“Interesting,” I said.
“Very.” She nodded sagely. “I was planning on drinking three hundred and thirty-two cans of Cherry Coke today, but now—”
“You’ll only be drinking three hundred and thirty-one cans?”
“Yes!” she cried with gusto. “How did you know?”
“Well-intentioned idiots think alike.”
“Of course we do.”
“And why the sudden obsession with Cherry Coke?”
“Mixing alcohol and pain meds is a deadly combo, so I figured Cherry Coke would be an acceptable substitute until I can drink wine again. Besides, a Cherry Coke is like a f
ruit smoothie, you know... with all the cherries in it and what not.”
“Rigghhhht...” I let my voice trail off. “So last night, you were muttering gibberish in your sleep.”
“Oh,” she said with some surprise. “What was I saying?”
“Something about mesothelioma. That if you or a loved one has been diagnosed with it, you may be entitled to financial compensation.”
“No way!” She snorted. “I said that?”
“Yep,” I said, popping the P sound. “You must have been high on painkillers and mayyyybe some wine?”
“No,” she said at once. “I would never do that. It’s just the pain meds. They make me loopy.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I was so out of it last night. That might explain why I ordered a bunch of useless shit online.”
“What’d you order?”
“Look at my phone and open my emails. You’ll see all the order confirmations.”
“All right.” I reached for her iPhone and scrolled through her Gmail account. “You ordered a sixty-dollar rose quartz egg?” I was incredulous. “For what?”
“I don’t know,” she said a tad defensively. “To awaken my sexual chakras or something.”
“Why?”
“Because Gwyneth-stick-this-expensive-egg-in-your-vag Paltrow told me to! It’s supposed to help me feel connected to my pelvic floor and the website claims it was used by queens and concubines to strengthen their pelvic muscles for better sex. That’s a good reason right? Better sex. By the time we can bone again, it is going to be transcendental, and you’ll be thanking the quartz egg.”
“What dogshit drivel.” I shook my head. “And you paid for overnight shipping.”
“I told you,” she cried. “I was completely wack-a-doo on painkillers.”
“Lucy,” I said in all seriousness. “I don’t think you should be using this egg.”
“You think I’m crazy? Of course I’m not sticking a porous rock in my vagina, even if it’s pink. I don’t wanna risk getting bacterial vaginitis.”
“Or toxic shock syndrome.”
“Exactly.” She rolled her eyes. “D’oh, I was just messing with you.”
“So what are you planning to do with the rose quartz egg?”
“Give it to my mom for Easter. I’ll decorate it with some jewels and tell her it’s a Fabergé egg.”
“You’re evil.” I snickered.
A subtle smile curved her lips. “In my med-induced haze, I ordered my parents something really cute.”
“What?”
“Matching stoner hoodies,” she said and we burst out laughing. “And the best part is, they won’t even know they’re wearing stoner hoodies.”
“Someone should nominate you Daughter of the Year.”
“I know, right?”
“What do these hoodies even look like?”
“Oh, you’ve probably seen ’em before... those poncho hoodies that look like drug rugs.”
“They look like rugs?”
“Yeah, bathroom rugs with stripes on them. You could almost mistake them for jergas.”
“Jergas?”
“Ya know,” she said feebly, “they’re twill weave blankets.”
“Now you’ve got me confused. Do these stoner hoodies look like bathroom rugs or do they look like weave blankets?” Of course I knew what they looked like, but it was fun to rile her up. “Which one—rugs or blankets?”
“Ugh.” She expelled an annoyed groan. “All you need to know is they have front pockets that are the perfect size for overstuffed Ziploc bags.”
“Did you order a stoner hoodie for yourself, too?”
“No!” She huffed. “I already told you I’m not a stoner.” A pause. “Although I’ve kind of always wanted one, you know?”
“For street cred?”
“For shits and giggles.”
“Of course.” I chuckled. “So what did you order for yourself, aside from the vag egg?”
“A whole buttload of face masks—clay, charcoal, mud, honey, cucumber—you name it, I ordered it. Speaking of which, I know what I want to watch now.”
“All right.” I set her phone aside, righted my laptop and started logging in to my Netflix account.
“No,” she cried. “It’s not on Netflix.”
“Huh?”
“Pull up YouTube,” she ordered. “I want to watch Dr. Pimple Popper videos.”
“No, thanks,” I steadfastly refused. “I’d rather bathe in bleach.”
“Can we, please?” she begged.
“Can we not?”
“But, but....” She gazed at me with those soft, pleading eyes. “They’re so soothing.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. There’s something so insanely satisfying about watching a Mount Vesuvius pimple vanquished in one pop and seeing all the pus ooze out and drip down. I’m obsessed with those videos. Obsessed. They give me little hits of pleasure.”
“Ugh.” I made a face. “I can’t watch those videos.”
“Why not?”
“I get too grossed out. You don’t find them stomach-churning?”
“No, not at all. And you know what? I can help you, Edric.”
“You can?”
“Yes, I believe I can. A whole spectrum exists out there and I think you just need to graduate from, say, blackhead extractions to popping cysts and boils. And then you slowly work your way up to popping abscesses before crossing over into the heavier stuff like earwax extractions and the removal of botflies.”
“Dude, that’s fucking disgusting.” I felt the bile rising in my throat. “But for you, and only you, I’ll watch it.”
“Good!” she exclaimed. “Now click on that video. The second one. Yes, that one.”
“Great! Grand! Excellent!” I kept on talking to distract myself from the nasty, nauseating, close-up, graphic image splattered across the screen. “Anywhoo.” I cleared my throat loudy. “Why the sudden change from true crime?”
Lucy kept her eyes glued to the laptop. “I need a break from them. The other night, I woke up thinking I was being attacked by a serial killer. But nope, it was only a mini-earthquake... just Mother Earth stretching her early morning legs.”
“I felt it, too. I heard that one registered at a three point seven magnitude. You get used to it after you live here a while.”
“Mmph.” She grunted, far too enthralled by what she was watching. “I’ve never felt an earthquake in Wisconsin.”
“What do you guys have?” I asked. “Tornadoes?”
“Yeah,” she muttered distractedly. “Floods, blizzards, snowstorms, wildfires. You should come home with me sometime.”
“Maybe I will. I’ll get to meet the fam bam.”
“Hah. My mom and dad are already in love with you and they haven’t even met you yet.”
“Well, d’oh. Everyone loves me.”
“Edric,” she said with a certain degree of irritation. “You’re gonna miss the best part if you keep yapping. Oh, there it is. Look. LOOK.”
“I’m looking. I’m looking.”
“Look at that string of pus oozing out of such a teeny-tiny, pinhead-sized pore. Wow.” She breathed. “So much puss gushing out now. And the pus... it has a sort of cheesy and gooey consistency, don’t you think?”
“Uh-huh.” I grunted, feeling all sorts of queasy.
“Pay attention now! This next pimple she’s about to pop looks like an apse.”
“A what?”
“An apse. You know, those semicircular recesses with half domes in temples and basilicas.”
I shot her a quick sideways grin. “Baby, are you using medieval architecture terminology on me? And are you gonna compare the next sebaceous cyst to a flying buttress?”
“Oii!” she cried reproachfully. “Stop making fun of me and watch!”
My eyes. MY EYEEESSSSSS. What in the actual fuck was I watching?
I could hardly bring myself to look at the screen. The videos—every single one of them—were horrific to w
atch from start to finish. I shook my head and drew in a deep, steadying breath, trying to dispel the grotesque images that had been burned onto my retina.
“Edric,” she chided. “You’re not watching. She’s about to pop a massive abscess on that guy’s armpit. Look at it! It’s so red and inflamed and I’m pretty darn sure it’s about to rupture. Eww.” She held her breath as the camera zoomed in on the abscess. “Ewwwwwww. It’s infected.”
“Good God.” I quickly reconstructed my features so it didn’t appear as if I was about to projectile-vomit across the room.
“You doing okay over there, Edric?”
I took a moment to compose myself. “Yeah.” I blew out a breath. “Come to think of it, I can actually draw parallels between that video and my own life.”
She looked at me, puzzled and mildly amused. “What sort of parallels?”
“The abscess,” I said. “It took over that guy’s armpit like you took over my heart—quickly, painfully, unexpectedly, but removable with surgical excision by Dr. Pimple Popper.”
A beat passed.
And then another.
“Wait a hot minute.” She blinked rapidly and her lips formed a small smile. “Did you just declare your undying love for me?”
I stared at her long and hard, my gaze steady. Challenging. “What if I did?”
“Besides the fact that you compared your love to an abscess on an armpit, I’d say it was monumentally remarkable.”
“You’re remarkable.”
“No, you! You can walk into a room and there’s something you bring into it, this energy that makes everything warm and playful,” she marveled. “And then when you leave, it all goes away.”
“So I’m like the dial on the thermostat,” I stated. “Turn up or down to control the temperature.”
“Basically. Sometimes, I like to turn the dial all the way up for heat,” she said saucily. “You make me so hot.”
“Same, girl. Same.”
“Look,” she said. “I know this ‘thing’ between us started off with a stupid wager and believe me, I thought it was a bad idea at first.”
Everything inside me grew still as I waited for her but to come next.
Here it comes. “But...” she went on, “it became a good idea.”
The Good Mistake (Hemsworth Brothers #3) Page 26