I grabbed the pen and paper, writing out a reply. Why?
“Because that’s what gentleman do,” he replied, dropping into the seat and looking kind of pissed as he took his coat off.
You don’t look like a gentleman.
He laughed low in the back of his throat. “I was once, if you believe that.”
I don’t.
He laughed again and a smile pulled at my mouth, drawing his gaze there.
He carved his hand through his long hair, holding it back from his face. “Can you see him clearer now, baby doll?”
A laugh tumbled from my throat, genuine and pure and something that hadn’t left my body in such a long time.
“Oh fuck,” he growled, releasing his grip on his hair so it fell around his face again. “Now I’m gonna want you to make that sound again, Winter.”
Heat rose in my cheeks and I realised I was blushing. This was new. And I liked it a lot.
I wrote out a reply to him. You’d better show me more of the gentleman beneath all of that hair then.
He released a breath of laughter, sitting back in his seat. “I would, baby doll, but I’m about as good at doing my own hair as a fucking wildebeest. I’m used to professional barbers in another life, if you believe that. I wish to fuck I could do it myself, trust me.”
My gaze roamed over his face and my fingers itched. I could do it?
He read my note with intrigue then shrugged. “It would be nice to get rid of this fucking mane.” He pushed out of his seat, heading into the bathroom and returned a moment later with a roll-up barber kit with clippers, scissors and a comb inside.
Are you sure you trust me with those? I wrote, a smirk pulling at my mouth.
He released a throaty laugh. “I’m sure you can do a better job than me or Tyson would. Besides, I’m hardly trying to impress anyone up here barring the odd sexy as fuck snowflake.” His eyes slid onto me, moving to my lips before he quickly looked away again.
I laughed, my whole chest lifting with the feeling and he growled in a way that made fire blossom up my spine. Not the hot poker kind for once. This type felt like a sweet form of torture.
He dropped into his seat and my gaze moved to his bare chest and the scars I desperately wanted to trace my fingers over. That was a language I understood better than English. Pain left marks on the heart, fractures along the soul. It moulded and shaped a person for better or for worse. It either built a fortress around your heart, or left you bloody and broken. Nicoli looked like he’d been forged by his pain. But there were always pieces which shattered along the way, and I could see those pieces as sharp as knives staring back at me from his eyes. I didn’t have to be able to speak to share that I felt it too. When he looked at me, I sensed he recognised it in me as well.
I plugged the clippers in and laid them down beside him on the table. So far as I knew, I’d never done this before, yet the movements were familiar as my thumb grazed over the on switch and I sensed I could do it. I picked up the comb and scissors as I laid the clippers beside him on the table, wondering what he’d do if I ended up making him look like a yeti who’d been dragged under a lawn mower. It was weird that I knew what those things were and yet I had no idea of specific memories which could pinpoint their origin. It was like all my knowledge of the world had been injected into my head without context. In my cell, it had been intolerable. In this cabin, with Nicoli, it made me ache to be more than just a shell. I wanted to have something real beyond my time in captivity. Something that allowed cracks of sunlight to break through the dark and spill into the centre of my being. At least I was making new memories every day, ones that held no pain, no torture. And I found myself stashing each of them away for later. Because if I ended up back in my cell then at least I’d have something to think back on that wasn’t bitter.