“It’s like silk,” he said. “So straight.”
“I know,” I said. All the attention felt pretty amazing. “It won’t curl at all.”
“Why would you want to curl it?” he asked me.
“Curly hair is prettier. But no matter what I do, it just goes straight.”
“I love your hair,” Luke told me. “I have lain right here in this bed thinking about your hair.”
“Oh yeah?” I pushed myself on one elbow to look at him. “And what were you thinking about?”
“You, naked, running your hair all over me. I was alsonaked.”
“That’s something that could be arranged,” I said. He laughed and rubbed my back again, and I collapsed on my stomach. “Keep doing that. Forever.” Luke leaned down and kissed the nape of my neck. “That, too.”
“Do you want to know what I was doing when I was thinking about you naked?”
I could feel myself blush. “I have a pretty good idea.”
He laughed again. “Did you ever think of me?”
“I’m too tired to masturbate.”
Luke put his forehead down on my back, shaking with laughter. “Sorry,” I apologized. “I’m not very good with sexy talking.”
He picked up his head and resumed kissing me. “How’d you get this scar?” he asked, tracing the thin white line on my shoulder blade with his finger.
“I fell off the kitchen counter when I was a kid.”
“Climbing on the counters? That sounds like something I would have done.”
“I was trying to find something for dinner. I remember being really hungry. I reached too far and I fell backwards and hit my shoulder on the freezer door handle. I remember that really well too, because the downstairs neighbor heard the crash and came up to help me.”
Luke traced the scar with his finger. “How old were you?”
I thought. “About three. Maybe four.” It was one of my earliest memories.
“Why were you making your own dinner? With no one there but a neighbor?” His finger had stopped tracing.
“My mom wasn’t so great as a mom. You know the story, I’m sure. That’s how I ended up coming up north. Some more stuff happened, and a social worker found my dad’s name somewhere in my file and tracked him down.” His name sure wasn’t on my birth certificate, so that social worker had really done some due diligence. “Loretta made him come get me, I think. I haven’t seen my real mom since.”
I turned my head to look at Luke. His face was like stone. “It was a long time ago,” I said. “She just was too young to be a mother.”
“How old was she when she had you?”
I put my hand on his jaw, rough without a morning shave. “Eighteen. Can you imagine having a baby at eighteen?”
“How old were you when Cassie had Charlie and you took care of him?”
“I was…hmm, I guess I was eighteen.” I had never thought of that.
“How old was Tara when she had her daughter?”
“Eighteen. Ok, I get it. My mom was a bad mom. She was a bad person.” I turned my head away from him on the pillow.
“I’m sorry,” Luke said. “It made me angry to hear you excusing her for letting you get hurt. I don’t want you to be hurt. Ever.” He kissed my back again, rubbing until I felt my muscles relax.
“It’s easier to think that she was too young to be a mom, rather than say she just didn’t love me,” I heard myself admit.
