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I nodded like that was a reasonable conclusion to the conversation.

There was a plastic chair beside the tap. I sat, and he crouched in front of me.

He took the towel from my hands, turned the water back on, and held a clean corner beneath it.

“Which knee’s worse?” he asked.

“The right,” I told him.

He started there, easing the wet cloth over the mud. When I flinched, he stopped.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

I had wanted an apology from him. I hadn’t expected it to hurt to get the wrong one.

His free hand steadied my leg. This time he barely pressed.

I kept my eyes on his bent head.

“I can do that,” I said quietly.

He glanced up and held out the towel.

I could have taken it. I knew how to clean a scraped knee.

I left my hands in my lap.

After a moment, he went back to it.

By the time he’d cleaned me up, the front of my shirt was damp and my shorts weren’t much better.

He shut off the water but didn’t stand. He took my hand instead, turning my palm toward the porch light.

A few minutes ago, he’d held me against him and asked what would help.

I could still hear the way he’d said it.

That was the part I couldn’t defend myself against. Not his anger. Not even his cruelty.

The tenderness.

The fact that it was still in him, that he could still give it to me, and that I never knew when he would decide to take it back.

His thumb rested against the inside of my wrist.

Nothing he’d said in the kitchen had stopped hurting.

I didn’t pull away.

You do whatever the hell you like, Hazel.

I would have liked to stop loving him.

Just for the rest of the night.

I couldn’t.

My sex life was doing very well without me.