xxv. In which Arthur does a brief stint as a barber
Arthur didn’t know how much farther they walked, but it was too far. His legs ached, a stitch burned in his side, and the
canopy was dark overhead. He missed the open sky above Maud’s pool, though he didn’t miss the pool itself. He imagined the
stars reflected in that silver expanse of water.
Then he imagined them at home, as he lay in the heather on the hillside with Sasha and Jonas on either side of him and taught
them constellations like his father had taught him and Charlotte. He sighed.
Ira glanced at him without speaking. As he’d recovered from his dunking, Arthur hadn’t thought much of the moss creeping across
the left side of Ira’s face; in fact, he’d confused it for stubble. Now he couldn’t help noticing it. By the time they’d stopped,
and Ira had built a fire, the moss had thickened. It trailed over Ira’s left cheek and jaw and down his neck.
“Ira,” Arthur said, and paused. Ira hadn’t mentioned the growth, but Arthur didn’t know how he could be unaware of it. “You
have. Er. Well.”
He gestured helplessly. Ira ran a hand over his face. His jaw tightened; then his expression smoothed into resignation. He
shrugged.
“Nothing to be done about it.”
“No, surely there’s—” Arthur cast his mind around. “You might shave it off?”
“I didn’t pack a shaving kit.”
“I did,” Arthur cried, nearly tripping over himself in his eagerness to be useful.
He dug through his knapsack, throwing things aside. Freya glared as his heating pad narrowly avoided beaning her in the head.
“I— Oh, I’ve forgotten a mirror.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m used to shaving without one.”
Arthur produced the shaving kit with an air of triumph. “I know it wasn’t strictly necessary, but I’m, er, well, it bothers
me. The stubble coming in, I mean. Every time I’ve tried to grow a beard, it’s come in all patchy and horrible anyway. Just
another thing I’m bad at.”
Ira sat on the ground, removing his knee brace. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know.” Arthur gestured at nothing in particular. “I’m bad at all the things I’m supposed to be good at, that’s all.
The things men are supposed to be good at. I can’t fish, or hunt, or chop wood, or repair the roof in such a way that the
shingles don’t go flying off the second there’s another storm . . . I can’t even grow a beard properly, and for that matter
I don’t shave very well, either. I always miss a spot. Or cut myself.”
Arthur handed Ira the shaving kit. “The things I can do are things I’m not supposed to do, or not supposed to want to do, and all the rest I can’t do. I’m really quite useless.”
He said it matter-of-factly because it had so long been a fact of his life, but Ira frowned.
“You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”
“That’s not—I don’t—” Arthur’s skin prickled. “What makes you say that?”
Ira spread a fur on the ground and laid the items in the shaving kit out in a line. “That’s the third time you’ve told me how useless you are.”
“Well—I am.”
Arthur tried to smile, to make light of it, but Ira, gazing at him earnestly, said, “You’ve been good company to me, you know.”
Arthur pinkened. “I’m not sure being good company counts.”
Ira ran a hand over his face, grimacing at the moss growing from below his eye to halfway down his neck. Glancing at Arthur,
he added, “I wouldn’t have left the vale if not for you. I wouldn’t call that useless.”
Arthur opened his mouth to respond, had no idea what to say, and closed it. He wasn’t sure that counted, either. Freya lay
at his side, close to the fire.
Ira settled into shaving uncertainly. What he was shaving was moss, not hair; it hadn’t grown in the shape of a beard, and
the new claws and fur made holding the razor awkward. He grunted as he nicked himself. A clump of moss dropped to the ground.
Arthur opened a book, but he couldn’t help staring. Watching moss fall from Ira’s face, as he held the blade with a hand that
had become more like a paw, was oddly fascinating.
Nicking himself again, Ira swore: The cut bled this time. He set the razor aside, opened his hand, and sprouted a small leaf.
He plucked it and smoothed it over the cut with a growl.
“This would be easier if my fingers were fingers.”
“Would you like some help?” Arthur asked.
Ira held out the razor. Arthur sat beside him but rethought it immediately. The angle was terrible. And with Arthur sitting
on Ira’s left, every stroke of the blade would come as a surprise.
“Can I . . . ?” He shifted. “I think it will be easier if I’m . . .”
“Whatever you need.”
Arthur straddled him. Ira swallowed as he settled into place.
Of course, Arthur thought. I have just told him I always cut myself shaving.
“I won’t cut you,” he said gently. “I promise.”
Ira nodded. Arthur lathered him in shaving soap from his neck to his left cheekbone; he’d save the bit below the eye for last.
He worked up one side of the cheek and down the other.
Closing his eyes, Ira tilted his head back. Wisps of hair had dislodged from his knot. Arthur tucked them behind his ear.
Along the jaw with short strokes to avoid nicks, because it was usually along the jaw that Arthur nicked himself, then on
to the neck. Tilting Ira’s head back farther, Arthur pulled his collar aside. To his astonishment, Ira’s pulse thundered.
When Arthur brushed his fingers against it, Ira’s head snapped up so fast that Arthur almost fell off him. Ira steadied him,
a hand at his waist.
Arthur swallowed; his mouth was dry, for unclear reasons. The chill autumn air, perhaps, although why it shouldn’t have struck
him until now he didn’t know. Ira caught his wrist, gazing at him intently.
Arthur’s breath hitched. He thought of his romance novels—of the heroine’s first brush against the hero’s skin, of moments
of help and care more intimate than they’d been meant to be. Like the heroine with the love interest who was (anatomically)
a monster, tending his wounds after a run-in with a monster hunter.
Anatomically? Arthur heard Charlotte saying, and he blushed. Perhaps Ira’s wolfish anatomy extended up his legs, to his nether regions—
Arthur’s blush deepened. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought that.
He cleared his throat. “I have to get around your eye.”
Ira released him. Cupping his chin, Arthur bent his head to the side. He liked the press of Ira’s body against his, the way Ira did whatever he indicated. Something fluttered frantically in Arthur’s chest.
He let out a soft breath. Focus. Examining Ira’s scar, he bit his lip, the fluttering in his chest fading.
“Hold very still.”
“All right.”
Ira’s voice was lower and hoarser than ever. Arthur’s stomach dipped at the sound.
Focus, he told himself as sternly as he could (not very). He lathered fresh soap as close to Ira’s eye as he dared. Getting shaving
soap in one’s eye surely hurt whether it was blind or not, and Arthur was afraid of reopening his scar, or expanding it.
More carefully than ever, he scraped moss away with the shortest strokes possible. The scar he left. Its white flowers had
closed up in the darkness.
Arthur ran his hands along Ira’s jaw, neck, cheek. Feeling for any moss he might’ve missed, he told himself, but Ira was gazing
at him again and that made him want to keep doing it. Stomach swooping, he grabbed a towel and cradled Ira’s head in his hand
to wipe the remaining soap away.
Ira leaned into his touch. Face upturned, throat exposed. For one wild moment, Arthur pictured the women in nearly this pose
on the covers of his novels and the flowing-haired, muscled men leaning over them, ready to kiss them.
His ears pinkened. What a silly thing to think of.
What was it about the simple act of shaving that made his brain run amok with silly thoughts tonight? Now he was remembering
the old fisherman whose shack he had visited with his father on that impromptu house call. Not merely the fisherman touching
his sick friend’s hand, but the questions Arthur had asked his father about the two men afterward.
Why do they live with each other? Aren’t either of them married?
George had hesitated. They’re old bachelors, son. Neither of them is likely to marry at this point. Cheaper to keep one house instead of two, so
they live together.
Arthur had been satisfied with that answer—though he’d wondered, later, why there had been only one bed in the shack. By then,
his parents had gone to bed together, and he knew better than to disturb them. When everyone awoke in the morning, he’d forgotten
about it.
He wasn’t sure why he remembered it now, except that his brain had been doing funny things since Ira had handed him the razor.
He tossed the towel aside and scrambled away. “Done.”
Feeling foolish, he wiped the razor clean and packed everything back into the kit. Behind him, Ira ran a hand over his skin
with a sigh.
“Thanks.”
Arthur’s ears were pinker than ever. “It was nothing.”
Ira lay back on his fur, clasping his hands behind his head. He grimaced as his antlers touched the ground, leaving space
between his skull and the forest floor. Turning onto his side instead, he propped his cheek on a fist. His lips twitched.
“It was useful.”
Arthur’s face burned. “If you’re making fun of me—”
“I’m not.” Ira snagged his hand as he passed. “I’m not. Really. It was helpful. Thank you.”
Arthur nodded. Ira let go, but his gaze lingered as Arthur put the shaving kit away.
“I don’t like you because you’re of use,” he said.
“Then why?” Arthur asked, because he couldn’t imagine another reason someone outside his family might like him.
That was, in large part, the reason he tried so hard to be useful.
The reason he felt so defeated by his uselessness.
Surely, if only he were useful, people would see how worthwhile he was—surely he would be worthwhile—and he would have friends.
“I spent thirty years in winter.” The moss was gone, but Ira’s skin, where it had been, was faintly green. “When you came,
it felt like spring. Like you woke me up.”
Arthur opened his mouth but closed it again without saying anything. At every turn, he half expected Ira to stop speaking