Nikolaus #2
“You don’t know how.” His certainty is sharp enough to be insulting.
I arch an eyebrow. “I once removed a sliver of glass from Constantine’s eye with tweezers and vodka while being shot at from a balcony. I can wash your hair.”
Charlie stares at me incredulously. “You—no, you didn’t.”
My lips twitch up. “I assure you, I did. Do you want me to call him in here to tell you himself?”
He does not seem to know what to do, and just looks at me, water beading on his lashes, lips parted around an argument he cannot quite form.
“Not that I’d let him see you naked, of course. He can tell you from behind the door.”
“Are you real?” he mumbles, bending his head when I gently guide it. His confusion and disbelief at my statement have apparently overrode his concern about me washing his hair.
“Last time I checked,” I answer lightly, cupping my hand against his forehead to shield his face and wet his hair, pouring warm water from a little silver bath pitcher until the strands darken and cling together.
He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, shoulders hunched, and fingers digging into his own knees beneath the water.
“Maybe I went into a coma and am imagining you,” he says.
I laugh. “Why do you think that?” I work the shampoo in from the crown down, fingertips firm but gentle. His hair is finer than it looked dry, neglected but not hopeless, and after a minute of careful massaging, the scent of clean citrus begins to rise through the steam.
“‘Cause you don’t seem real. You’re like one of those over-the-top characters in the books I read.”
I chuckle, “And what books are these, baby?” Then, after a particularly indulgent pass of my fingers over his scalp, he makes a tiny sound that he immediately tries to swallow.
I pause, and mortification blooms across his face.
“You didn’t hear that,” he grumbles.
“I’m not sure what you mean, baby,” I say, playing along. “I’m just waiting for you to tell me what books you’re reading.”
Charlie makes another embarrassed little noise, but this one has less misery in it. His fingers worry at his knees beneath the water.
“Books,” he mumbles.
“Yes, sweetheart. Most people are familiar with the concept.”
He huffs.
It is tiny. Barely there. A scrap of sound, more breath than laughter, but I hear it, and the greed that rises in me is almost indecent.
I want more of it. I want every small, involuntary thing he gives away before he can stop himself.
Every softened syllable, every embarrassed glance, every flare of temper that proves there is still something alive under all that exhaustion.
“What kind of books?” I ask, massaging slowly behind his ear.
His shoulders loosen by a fraction before he catches himself and stiffens again. “Nothing.”
“Nothing is a difficult genre to shelve.”
“Just… romance.”
“Romance,” I repeat, and let the amusement warm my voice. “You read romance.”
He turns red enough that even the steam cannot be blamed for it. “Sometimes.”
“Mm.”
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not. I read it too.”
“You—huh? You… read romance books?”
“I do,” I say, smiling.
Charlie goes very still beneath my hands, as if that answer has disturbed him more than if I had laughed. His blush lingers, but something else moves underneath it now, wary and exposed, like he has accidentally handed me a piece of himself and wants it back before I can look too closely.
“No,” he says, and the word is small at first. Then his fingers tighten around his knees, and he lifts his chin with a fragile spark of defiance. “No, don’t do that. Don’t act like we’re the same just because you read some books. You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know some things.”
“No, you don’t.” His hands curl into fists around his knees. “You think you do because you saw me at the club and because I—because I acted stupid, but you don’t. You don’t know me.”
I work my fingers carefully through a knot near the nape of his neck. “Then tell me.”
The water laps quietly against the porcelain. Beyond the bathroom door, the suite remains silent, cut off from the rest of the hotel by money, height, and men with guns stationed outside.
“I’m not telling you anything,” he says, voice nothing more than a whisper.
“Then I’ll learn another way.”
His breath catches. “What does that mean?”
“Your wallet already told me your age, your address, and your full legal name. A doctor will tell me what I need to know medically. Your apartment will tell me what you do when no one is looking. Your body has already told me much.”
The back of his neck flushes under my hands.
“That’s horrible,” he whispers.
“Yes.”
He looks back at me, and I meet his eyes without apology.
“Yes, it is horrible,” I continue, because he is not stupid, and I will not insult him by pretending this is anything other than what it is.
“But it is also happening. You may continue fighting every breath of it until you exhaust yourself, or you may begin deciding which pieces of yourself you would rather give me, honestly, before I have to take them apart myself.”
His expression crumples with hatred and confusion. “You’re a bad person.”
“Yes, I am.”
The answer leaves him quiet.
Poor baby. It is difficult to argue with someone who does not need to be absolved.
I pour another stream of warm water through his hair, shielding his face with my palm. “Tilt back.”
He does, even though I can feel how much he resents himself for obeying.
“Good boy.”
“Stop saying that,” he murmurs.
“No.”
His throat works, and then, very softly, “Why do you care what books I read?”
“Because you care about them.”
He has no answer for that.
I rinse the last of the shampoo from his hair, taking my time because the repetition seems to soothe him despite his determination to resent it. His breathing settles. Not fully calm, but no longer frantic.
“Romance,” I prompt. “I remind you of certain characters in your books?”
He sighs, defeated. “Well, it’s… The dark romance ones.”
Ah.
I smile before I can stop myself.
Charlie catches it and glares, though the effect is somewhat ruined by the water clinging to his lashes and the soft, shampooed mess of his hair. “Stop it.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You smiled.”
“I’m allowed to smile.”
“Not like that.”
“How did I smile?”
“Like you’re about to be awful.”
I laugh, and he looks scandalized by the sound.
“Dark romance,” I say. “And you think I sound like one of the characters?”
“Not—not in a good way!”
“Of course not.”
“I’m serious,” he says, the words gathering strength around a sudden spike of humiliation. “That’s not a compliment. Those guys are insane.”
“Mm.”
“And controlling.”
“I bet.”
“And they kidnap people.”
I lift an eyebrow.
He stares at me, then his face twists, and he looks away so quickly I know he is fighting tears again. “I don’t want this to be real,” he whispers brokenly.
The humor leaves me.
I set the pitcher aside and rest my wet hand gently against the back of his head. His hair lies heavy and clean against my palm.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. You can’t. You’re just—” His voice breaks. He swallows, tries again, and fails to make it stronger. “You’re deciding everything like I’m not even here.”
“You are here,” I say. “That’s why I’m deciding carefully.”
He laughs once, wet and miserable. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does to me.”
“I hate you.”
“I know.”
“I mean it!”
“I believe you.”
He presses his forehead to his knees, arms wrapped tightly around his legs beneath the water.
For a moment, he looks so small that even my own certainty feels like too much weight to place on him.
Not guilt. I am not sentimental enough for that, and regret has never been a language I learned fluently.
But there is an awareness in me, a precise, clinical understanding that what I am doing is breaking his life open to rearrange it while he is still inside it.
The difference between better men and me is that I do not stop.
I only try to make sure he lands somewhere soft.
I pick up the conditioner. “Head back.”
He shakes it instead, forehead still pressed to his knees. “No.”
“Charlie, baby.”
“No.”
I wait, watching as his shoulders tremble. He expects me to force him. Not unreasonably. I have forced plenty already tonight. His nakedness. The bath. The truth, or a portion of it. But force is a tool, not a principle, and I dislike using the same one too often when another may work better.
“Would you like to hold the cloth over your eyes?” I ask, then reach to the rack, take a clean washcloth, dampen it with warm water, and fold it once. I hold it within reach without touching him.
He does not move for several seconds.
Then one hand emerges from the water, hesitant and pale, fingers wrinkling at the tips. He takes the cloth from me as if it might be a trick. When nothing happens, he presses it over his eyes and leans back a little, not really enough, but enough for me to work with.
“There,” I murmur. “Better.”
I condition his hair with unhurried, thorough strokes, working through the ends, separating tangles with my fingers rather than a comb. It requires a ridiculous amount of patience. More than I have given in most business deals. More than I have given to men begging for their lives.