“If I was your age, I wouldn’t give a crap what my hair looked like anymore.”
“Ah, but you don’t have my hair,” he retorted with a playful grin. “And you don’t need to be my age, you clearly already don’t give a shit.” He made a show of eyeing the bird’s nest atop my head that I hadn’t bothered to comb out after my shower.
I slapped his shoulder. “The cheek! I’ll have you know that the not-giving-a-shit look is very in right now.”
“Well, you do seem to pull it off,” he acceded, placing his hand affectionately on my hip for a moment.
I glanced down, and he moved it away. Friendship was definitely going to be a difficult task for us. I told him to lean his head back into the sink, as I filled a jug with warm water. I poured it over his hair and glanced down to see him watching me. His hair felt like the purest silk beneath my fingers.
“Do you do that when you visit the barber?” I questioned.
“Do what?”
I shot him a meaningful look. “Stare.”
“No,” he replied. “But I’ve never had a barber quite like you.”
“I am very talented,” I agreed with a smirk.
“And pretty.”
A grin tugged at my lips. “Why thanks.”
I proceeded to shampoo and condition his hair. The conditioner might’ve been overkill, but a part of me wanted to prolong the experience. I liked doing this for him, caring for him. It was rare that I managed to get so close to Ethan. I poured water over his head to rinse out the last of the conditioner. Then I grabbed a clean towel off the rack and used it to dry his hair a little. He was smiling at me.
“What are you smiling about?”
“You’ve got a caring side. Who would have thought it?”
“I’m not the cold-hearted bitch you’ve come to believe I am. I can be very caring when I want to be,” I said defensively.
I removed the towel and grabbed a comb, brushing out the tangles in his golden locks.
“You’ll make a fine mother someday,” he went on, and I froze. It was the last thing I expected him to say. It took me off guard. It wasn’t so much the statement, but the way he said it. The way he looked at me like he was imagining me pregnant or something.
“Not sure I can see myself ever having kids,” I replied, letting his long fringe drift through my fingers.
“Wait a few years, and you might change your mind.”
At this, a sudden burst of curiosity hit me. “Have you ever had kids?”
His eyes moved across mine as he nodded. “Four.”
Say what?! I stared at him in shock. Ethan was old, but I just never pictured him with children. “Where are they now?”
“Three were dhampirs. They all died as infants. The other was a vampire, but he was killed by slayers before he reached his fiftieth birthday.”
“And the mothers?” I asked.
“Long gone. This all happened in my first hundred years. After that, though I longed for a family of my own, I grew weary of trying to create offspring. The heartbreak of losing them was too much, and it hardened me. I refused to open my heart, to allow myself to be that vulnerable again.”
His words made me sad. To lose one child was devastating, but four? I couldn’t imagine how difficult that must’ve been. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, standing in front of him, my hands still sifting through his hair. I remembered him telling me about the time when a witch trapped him in a mangrove and Whitfield saved his life. He said he’d been grieving at the time, and that’s why he’d wandered the forest alone. Had he been grieving for one of his children? The thought made my heart ache for him.
“This might sound silly, but during the months you were gone I often wondered if we could create a dhampir that would survive. Since you are power-blooded and half-witch, your genes would be far stronger than most human females.”
“You’ve thought about having a child with me?” I asked, shocked. I swear my eyebrows jumped all the way up into my forehead. At the same time, something warm filled my chest. I found I didn’t hate the idea of him thinking about us having kids together.
I wasn’t sure why he’d decided to open up to me, but I wished he’d stop. It made me want to curl myself around him and kiss away the painful memories.