“I’m not cutting your hair, I’m cutting the hair tie that’s tangled up in it.”
“Ohh,” I hummed. “Okay, but please don’t leave me with a chunk that’s an inch long. I like my hair, and it’s taken me years to get it to this length and for it to still be healthy.”
It was relatively easy to grow your hair out, but what wasn’t easy was keeping the strands healthy, especially if you colored it or it was curly. Granted, some people were blessed and didn’t have that problem, but most people didn’t.
Sure, you could smooth it down with products and straightening irons, but the key word was ‘healthy.’ I’d had it cut every six weeks without fail while growing it out, and even now, I stuck to that schedule and had the ends trimmed off every six to eight weeks. It hit just above my ass right now, and I knew I would have to get a couple of inches cut off it the next time I had an appointment because it was irritating me.
But a couple of inches from the length versus only having a chunk at the front an inch long that stuck up in the air? I’d never survive the heartache that would cause.
Mark quickly cut through the hair tie and then worked on untangling it all. It wasn’t until he lifted the scissors again and I heard the snip as they cut through something that it happened. His eyes widened, and he lowered his hand with some hair sticking out.
“Shit, Layla, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I was just looking at it, and my hand slipped.”
“No,” I cried, grabbing his hand and moving it closer to see. “What did you do?”
“It was an accident,” he replied, looking at me guiltily.
I pushed his hand away, trying to think of how I was going to repair it, when a sharp pain bit my scalp, making me yelp.
Dropping the chunk of hair that was still thankfully attached, Mark winked at me. “Gotcha. Now let’s get your ass in the shower and make you smell like roses instead of Cole’s sock.”
I’d smelled my brothers’ socks a lot growing up. I’m pretty sure the nauseating odor had permanently embedded itself in the walls of their former bedrooms and the downstairs closet where we’d kept our shoes as kids. I could never even hang a hoodie or a jacket in there during the winter because it came out smelling like sweaty ball feet.
Suddenly feeling self-conscious about how I smelled, I tried stepping away from him. “It’s okay, I can do that myself. It’s not a bi—”
Mark closed the space between us and leaned down until we were nose to nose so quickly that I froze. “I want to do it, and I was only kidding about you smelling like one of his socks.”
Licking my lips ended up with my tongue skimming across his own, and with the way his face softened, I couldn’t have said no to him helping me even if I’d wanted to. Which, of course, I didn’t. I mean, sick or not sick, my mama didn’t raise a fool—only my brothers who were close enough, I guess.
That didn’t mean I wasn’t nervous, though. He hadn’t seen me naked in four years, and bodies changed in that time. Age does stuff, gravity does worse stuff, food gets stuck in different areas of your body… it was a whole thing.
But I wanted him enough to get past that, so I said with false bravado, “Are you getting in with me?”
“Wouldn’t be able to wash you if I wasn’t, would I?”
Taking a step back, I pulled the t-shirt from my pajamas over my head, making sure to do it slowly. The only issue was, when I got to the base of my armpits, a mental image of hairy pits flashed through my mind, so I lowered them and tried to pull my head through without showing him what would likely be stubbly skin.
Let’s get real, it’d been four days since I’d last managed to shave them, and there was going to be very noticeable stubble.
Once my head was clear, I dropped it to the floor and pushed down my pajama bottoms. The stubble on my legs would only be an issue if he got close to them or brushed against me, so I didn’t panic as much removing them.
Holding my eyes, he stripped off his clothes, none of the issues I’d dealt with holding him back. For men, it was okay to have hair under your arms and on your legs, no one gave a shit, but for me, I was now afraid to move my arms, so I had them pressed tightly against my sides.
Keeping my eyes above his waist, I waited until he was naked and then moved to turn the shower on. Yes, I could have done it while he was stripping, but I hadn’t wanted to miss it, even if I’d censored the areas of his body I was allowing myself to look at.
In all of my musings and with a fuzzy head still, I forgot that the water came out of my shower like ice that’d just melted, and when it hit me, it almost took me down to my knees.
“Shit,” Mark clipped, catching me when my legs gave way and turning me away from the spray. “Give it a second to warm up, Layla.”
“Why does it hurt?” I whimpered, rubbing my hip and thigh where it felt like I’d been hit by a car.
“Having the flu makes your body ache, and the temperature of the water has made your nerves send out messages saying it hurts even more, is my guess.” Shoving his hand into the spray, he finally looked satisfied with the temperature. “Under you go. It’ll help the area settle.”
He was right, but he’d also adjusted the strength of the spray while he was waiting for the water to heat up. With a sigh of relief, I leaned back against him and just enjoyed feeling the water flowing over me for a moment.
However, I couldn’t dilly dally because he had to go to work—shit balls.
Mark carefully spun me around until I was facing him, then with his hand supporting my shoulders and the other one at the base of my back, he slid his leg between both of mine and slowly tipped me backward until my hair was under the water.