Nate laughs. “Hold still.” He pinches the end of it and pulls it away. A drop of blood pools on my knee.
“Eww!” I fly off his lap and bolt into the kitchen, hopping up on the counter by the sink and turning the water on hot while I douse my leg with soap and scrub it with a sponge.
Nate saunters into the kitchen, still holding the weapon between his fingers. I nearly vomit. He drops it in the trash.
“Wash your hands! That’s so disgusting. Who leaves their gnarly, razor sharp, fungus toenails on the sofa?”
He pumps the soap into his hand. I cease my scrubbing for a second to pump the foam soap three more times.
“Are we good? Will this suffice to remove the toenail fungus germs?” He smirks, scrubbing his hands in the other side of the sink.
“It punctured my skin. I should probably get a tetanus shot or something.”
He bites his lips together and narrows his eyes at my frantic scrubbing motions while he dries his hands with a paper towel. “I think you’ve got it covered. It just nicked the skin.”
“It was like a dagger in my kneecap!” I run my leg under the hot water. It burns, but I need to kill the bacteria, fungus, Ebola … whatever might have been living on that toenail.
Tearing off several more paper towels, Nate shuts off the water and guides my leg over the edge of the counter. His eyes find mine as he presses the towels to my knee—where the injury is undetectable. I try to keep a straight face after my meltdown over a toenail, but a minuscule grin pulls at my lips. Nate doesn’t even try to hold back.
“I’m not sure he’ll refund your deposit when he sees the cracked tile, but you might be able to make a case for calling things even if you tell him about the toenail and show him the extensive damage to your kneecap.”
“Shut up.” I roll my eyes.
He shifts to the side and nestles himself between my spread legs, keeping one hand pressed to the towel on my knee while his other hand moves a few strands of hair away from my eyes.
“I’m …” I glance away. “Sobering up a bit. Now I’m a little …” My teeth dig into my bottom lip and my nose wrinkles.
“You’re a little what …” He brushes his lips over my cheek, letting his hand slide to the back of my head.
I draw in a shaky breath and whisper, “Nervous.”
“Have you gone a decade without having sex?”
I pull back an inch, eyes narrowed. “No. Have you?”
He nods slowly. It makes my chest hurt.
“Why?”
He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Morgan. When she turned two, we left. And we haven’t been back to Madison in eight years. Traveling with a young daughter doesn’t bestow that many opportunities to be intimate. And never staying in one place very long makes it even harder.”
“So … not once? Not a quick hookup after she was in bed? Nothing?”
He chuckles. “Nothing.”
“Do you even …” I can’t say it. I’m not sure why I even started to ask the question. Of course, he does. Right? Surely all men do.
His face turns a vulnerable shade of pink as he scratches his forehead and tips his chin down. “Uh … yeah. I’ve done that.” He sets the wad of paper towels aside and fiddles with the clasp of my white gold bracelet that Brandon gave me.
Surely my dead boyfriend has something to say now. I wait for his voice in my head—although it never sounds like it’s in my head. The clarity and volume always sound like he’s in the same room where anyone else in the room could easily hear him.
“How’s your book coming along?”
Nate’s lips corkscrew as he continues to fiddle with the bracelet, head bowed. “I’m trying to figure out how to end it. I thought the ending might be our arrival back in Madison at the end of summer. Sometimes I wonder if the book ends when Morgan goes off to college, but I’d have to cut a lot from the book if that were the case, and only include major events and highlights.”
“Will Gabe, Mr. Hans, and I be in it? Will we make the cut?”
With a grin sliding up his face, he lifts his head. “I’m not sure about making the cut, but all three of you have made an appearance.”
“What’s my name?”
He gives me a funny duh look. I recognize it as Gabe’s resting face. “Gracelyn.”
“What happened to changing the names to protect the identities of the innocent?”
“That would require you to be innocent.”
“Jerk.” I narrow my eyes.
He smiles a second before kissing me again. It’s not an upgraded version of our second kiss. It’s a third kiss. A standalone. And it’s slow, like the slide of his hands up my bare legs.