“Oh my God,” she said after a few seconds. “That feels amazing.”
I had never washed anyone’s hair before, and I didn’t know what had possessed me. I mean, partly it was that I was ready to move on to the indoor portion of our evening. But mostly I just… wanted to take care of her. Not to make up for what Scott did to her, but to show her that… I don’t know, that she was worth caring about. Even if she was happily on her way to cronedom.
Sourplum: she was confusing. But I was used to it now. I could exist inside the confusion.
Eventually she submerged herself to rinse, and when she came up she asked, “Are you doing the conditioner, too?”
“Sure.” I got started on that and said, “I’ve never really understood the point of conditioner.”
“You don’t use it?”
“Nope.”
“How is your hair so shiny and pretty, then?” I chuckled, and she added, “I assume your masculinity isn’t so fragile that you object to having your hair called pretty?”
“Nope. Remember I’m the guy who gets his nails done at strip malls in Cincinnati. So I’m fine having pretty hair. And as for why it is that way, I don’t know. Conditioner wasn’t something we had lying around as a kid. These days, they definitely put it on me when I get my hair cut, and sometimes I buy a bottle, but then it seems like an extra step that’s just a time suck, and I fall off the wagon.”
“Isn’t your hair hard to comb through when it’s wet, though?”
“Sure is.”
“Well, this will help.” She swatted my shoulder, seeming to want me to turn around. I did, and damned ifshedidn’t start shampooingmyhair. “Uhn,” I said. It wasn’t like I didn’t know, objectively, that having someone massage your scalp felt good, but there was something extra about Gretchen doing it in a lake under the moonlight. Something that felt very close to what I’d been trying to make her feel: cared for.
She didn’t linger, though. “Rinse,” she ordered, and after I did, she combed conditioner through my hair with her fingers. “You’re supposed to let it sit for a while, but I’m impatient.”
“You are, are you?” I teased. “Why?”
“Because you’re making sex moans as I’m washing your hair.”
“You started it.”
She swatted my shoulder. “Rinse.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We both ducked—she still had her conditioner in. It took me longer to rinse—I guess my hair was thicker and longer—and when I came back up, she was soaping her armpits. Why was that so hot?
“You want this?” She held up the soap. “It’s biodegradable and approved for lake use—so was the shampoo and conditioner—in case you were wondering.”
I had not been wondering. It had never occurred to me that products used to clean would somehow be bad for nature, but as was well established, I was not a natural—pun intended—when it came to nature. “I’m good, thanks.”
“All right,” she said, plunking the soap in her caddy. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
She suggested we go to her cabin, where she said she hadsome spray detangler that she wanted to use on me, so we crept across the road.
“You’re missing your oh-so-effective hoodie disguise,” I teased.
“Eh,” she said. “I’m pretty sure everyone’s onto us. Maiv and Jack, anyway.”
Maiv I wasn’t surprised by. Even if Gretchen hadn’t told her, Maiv was perceptive. I suppose it was her painter’s eye. “Jack knows?”
“Yeah. That time I came over to your place with a condom, I’d gotten it from him.”
“Well, damn.”
“He’s never said anything, though.” She wrapped her towel around her hair as we walked. “You know, I’m starting to wonder if I’ve misjudged him.”
“I read his book,” I said.
