“This needs stitches,” I found myself saying.
He huffed out a breath. “I’m aware. I’m gonna teach you how to do it.”
I scoffed. “I’m not doing it.”
“You are,” he disagreed. “It’ll take no time.”
I blinked at him. “I’m not a doctor, Tide.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I am, and I can teach you. It’ll take two seconds once you know what to do.”
The bleeding in the cut had stopped. But the wound still looked bad, and sadly, it looked like Tide was going to have to shave part of his beard.
Which I told him next.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I had a feeling when I felt his ring scrape against my jaw that I was going to have to do that. But it’s okay. I’m fine with it.”
He might be, but my insides cried out in denial.
Tide without a beard was appealing. Tide with a beard was godlike.
I’d seen it all over the years, ranging from short and neat to burly and bushy to nothing at all but smooth skin. But by far, my favorite was the beard. The clean, sculpted beard that looked like he had about a week past having a fresh shave. That was when I could still see his dimple.
And not two dimples.
One.
Sometimes I wanted to poke it with a finger. Other times I wanted to plant my fist in it.
But every time he flashed it at me, even when he was being a bully, I wanted to kiss it.
“What are you thinking about so hard up there?” he asked curiously.
I looked down at him, then away, unable to make eye contact.
“I was thinking about what, exactly, I needed to do here. It’s obvious this is going to need…” Before I could say shaved, he pushed me back using his hands on my hips, then moved me to the side so he could get up.
He walked toward a cabinet and started pulling out supplies, ending with a razor that he pulled a head for out of a sterile bag, and handed it to me.
“You’ll have to do this, too,” he admitted, handing it over.
I took it from him, feeling my tummy swirl with fear.
The thought of hurting him didn’t sit right with me.
At least physically.
Verbal abuse was okay when it came to us.
“Come on.” He hopped up onto an exam table and gestured for me to stand on the step that usually helped shorter people climb onto it. “Get my face shaved, try not to take more than you have to, and then we’ll see what we’re working with.”
I glanced at the table of supplies, then at the man, before sighing and saying, “I can probably shave you while standing there, but it’s an awkward angle since you’re so tall. It’d be better if you were in the chair.”
He tilted his head, then moved so that he was on the doctor’s stool instead of the table.
He lowered the stool as far as it could go, then said, “If you were only about four inches taller.”
I was five foot three… on a good day.
Sometimes, when I went to the doctor’s office, they lied and said that I was five foot two. But those nurses didn’t know how to read a tape measure.
At least, that was what I’d always told myself.
Now, Tide? He was six foot three and a half. He was tall, but all of his brothers were over six feet. He was one of the tallest, but I think Shine had an inch on him.
He was well over a foot taller than myself.
Needless to say, anything would seem short to him being as big as he was.
“It wouldn’t matter because you’re still gigantic,” I grumbled as I wondered how to do what I would have to do next.
“Just grow a pair and get it done,” he ordered.
I grumbled under my breath, walking closer to him with the electric razor held out in front of me like a weapon… as if it could help protect me from Tide.
“Dun, dun. Dun, dun,” he hummed the Jaws theme song.
I narrowed my eyes at him and moved close, so close that I was almost touching him.
He chuckled darkly, and I wanted to stick my finger in his wound just because I knew it would hurt him.
In the end, I decided to help shave his face and not hurt him any more than necessary. You know, because I was the bigger person and all.
“You look like you’re that emoji that my sister always likes to use when she tells me about her morning sickness. The green one with the puffed-out cheeks.” He chuckled.
I felt my eyelid twitch.
Turning on the razor, I got to work shaving around his wound, doing my best not to disturb the clotted cut as best as I could.
In the end, though, it was futile.
He started bleeding all over again, the blood running down his neck and into the waistband of his jeans.