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“Our tuxes.” He gives me an appraising look. “I assume you aren’t planning to get married like that.”
I look down at myself and grunt, opening the door wider so he can come in. Curse settles himself in the room while I head into the bathroom to shower. I’ve got plenty of time, but I still find myself rushing, eager to get out of there and get the day rolling. I’m experiencing a new sort of paranoia that I do not fucking like. A paranoia that tells me Deirdre could vanish any moment, and that I won’t really, truly have her until she’s said, “I do.”
Thank fuck Valentina planned a morning wedding. The ceremony is scheduled for 10am, then there’s some big brunch thing and a dinner thing and a dance thing. I don’t care about any of the stuff that comes after.
I just care about making that girl my wife.
When I get out of the shower, it’s only 7:48, and I swear, pacing the room as I scrub a towel over my head.
“Don’t do that shit. Your hair’s gonna be crazy,” Curse admonishes me. I blink at him, then hurl the wet towel his way. He catches it easily out of the air then hangs it on the back of the chair at the desk in the room.
“What, you gonna do my hair for me?”
“Yeah. If you shut up for a second and sit the fuck down, I will.”
It’s then that I see all the shit Curse has on the desk beside that chair. A full shaving kit is splayed open, along with combs and various jars.
“Are you serious?” I ask, more stunned than anything. “Where’d you get all this?”
“Valentina helped me out. She knew you’d be too wound up to have Uncle Vinny’s barber working on you this morning.”
“She is too fucking smart for her own good,” I say, crossing the room and heaving my body into the chair. Curse stands there for a long moment, just studying me.
“Are you gonna just stand there or do something?” I grunt. “I don’t wanna be late.”
“We have more than two hours.”
“Yeah, two hours for you to fuck something up.” I eye the straight razor gleaming on the desk. “Deirdre didn’t change her mind, did she? Didn’t convince you to come in here and cut my throat this morning or something?”
Curse makes a gruff sound in his throat, about the closest he gets to a laugh.
“I’ll only cut you if you don’t stay still and keep talking shit.”
I hold my hands up in a gesture of surrender. I’ve already got my gloves on. Put them on first thing after getting out of the shower.
Curse doesn’t start with the shaving, though. He starts with my hair, muttering something about not letting it dry wrong. He spreads some kind of spicy-smelling pomade between his fingers, working it through the strands before combing everything back. He’s surprisingly thorough. Or maybe it isn’t that surprising. He’s always been methodical and detail-oriented. I just didn’t realize that extended to styling another man’s hair.
When Curse is satisfied with my hair, he moves onto the dark shadow lining my neck and jaw. He smears shaving cream with firm, efficient strokes, then handles the razor the exact same way.
Despite my joke about him cutting my throat, I don’t feel even a hint of anxiety with Curse holding a blade to my jugular. For one thing, the man knows what to do with a knife. He’s probably slit more throats than anyone I know. He won’t make a mistake.
And for another thing, he’s Curse. The boy I pulled from the flames. The man who I know would do anything for me now.
Titone men. We don’t talk about our feelings much. So I don’t know how to address the odd way this act touches me. It fucking means something, what he’s doing right now, helping me with this shit on the morning of my wedding.
When he’s done, and he wipes a warm, wet towel over my jaw, I thank him.
“I’ll do the same for you on your wedding day,” I tell him.
“I won’t have a wedding.”
I snort.
“Yeah, well, that’s what I always said too. And look at me now.”
“No,” Curse says, quietly emphatic. “I won’t have a wedding.”
“Why not?”
