Isla does exactly as I say, not arguing which is suspicious in itself. My girl is fiery, even when she’s crying over the pigeons.
I set down one pan and take the other with both hands, gently tipping it over the edge of the bathtub and repeating the motion with the other. After placing the pans down near the doorway, I pick up my secret parcel and kneel by the tub. Emerald green eyes stare me down, the unspoken question burning into me.
I allow my mouth to form a wide grin.
My girl may be an emotional rollercoaster but I don’t mind, in fact I love her even more because of it. You don’t spend seven years surviving in an apocalypse and come out of it zen — well, most people don’t anyway.
‘Blue or pink?’ I ask.
‘What?’
‘You heard me, princess. Blue or pink?’
‘Is this some sort of test?’ She furrows her brow as if trying to figure out what shit I’m chatting now and half of me doesn’t blame her.
‘No, baby. It’s as simple as picking a colour.’
‘Fine,’ she huffs. ‘Blue.’
‘Hmmm, nice choice.’ Dropping the pink parcel, I bring up the blue box I hand-wrapped myself and hold it out for Isla to take.
She looks at it, then looks at me, then looks back at the box.
‘It’s not a bomb, you can take it.’ I rattle the box a little, as if trying to entice her to take it. ‘It’s for you.’
Hesitantly, she lifts her hand from the water and takes it from my grip. The sound of tearing tissue paper follows, and I watch as she manoeuvres the packaging open.
Inside, nestled in a bed of more tissue paper, is my handiwork.
‘You made this?’
I sit up straighter, pride blooming in my chest as she inspects the pamper hamper I constructed.
‘Do you like it?’
She'd better like it. I went into some insanely colourful and borderline nauseating shop in the centre to make this thing up. And it took an insane amount of time. The names of some of those bath bombs were nuts and then trying to pick something nice for her to use as a skin softener and hydration was next level mind-blowing.
‘I… I love it. Where did you find it?’ Isla says, sounding a little choked up again.
Panicking that she is about to burst into tears, I begin my rambling spiel about all things smelly bathroom products.
‘… and did you know there are all types of things for your skin. There is body oil that comes in a bottle but also the hard kind that you get on a stick — that one I brought back but left out of the box. I didn’t think it would be easily accessible with it being pamper bathtime and all.’
Isla giggles, ‘Pamper bathtime, huh?’
I rest my forearm on the side of the tub. ‘You deserve a good pamper baby and the tub is the best place to start.’
‘Where did you find this thing anyway?’ Isla asks, tapping the tub.
‘I think this room used to be some form of ice bath situation for the players, it already had all the drainage pipes, I just moved out the old metal tub,’ I point to the corner where I moved it to, ‘and put in a fancier looking one.’
‘And you just found a fancy one lying around the stadium?’
‘One scouting mission we found a warehouse with a bunch of furniture. It’s actually where a lot of our stuff has come from, that and things we’ve just picked up along the way.’
What I don’t tell her is that the tub only made it out of said warehouse and back home with me last week. Fortunately, a big masked guy walking down Maryhill with a tub probably isn’t the strangest thing to grace those streets, hence why I got no bother from anyone else on that trip.
Isla finishes unwrapping the blue bath bomb. Okay,technically, I lied about there being no bomb in the present, but it is made with soap, and she's excited, plopping it in the water, watching as it begins to fizz, so it was worth it. Blue dye spreads through the tub and Isla is so transfixed she doesn’t even realise my little fib anyway.
