I loved this man. I loved listening to him. I loved watching him. I loved being near him. Even when he was having a rough time, being able to comfort and soothe him filled me with joy.
“One to two capfuls of liquid,” I read from the bottle and then set it down and looked at him. “I think you dumped half the bottle in.”
“Well, it’s your fault. All your psycho-babble talk about choices had me distracted.”
There were so many bubbles that Ryan wasn’t able to lean his head back on the tub pillow right away. I watched him try to move some of his bubble wall down to his feet. When he finally leaned back against the pillow and closed his eyes, I folded up a washcloth and soaked it with cool water. The cool cloth would help him relax, but as I pressed out the excess water, I began to second guess it. Given the fact the dream he had in the car included him being whipped with wet dishtowels, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure this would relax him, but rather cause more anxiety. I decided to see how he reacted verbally to the idea. If he balked, I’d leave him be. I didn’t want to startle him by setting a damp washcloth over his eyes. Something of this magnitude after his dream would most certainly cause a negative reaction.
“I’m going to put a cool washcloth over your eyes to help you relax,” I advised him. I leaned against the counter and looked at him. Ryan hadn’t moved, but his eyes were open and on me.
“You’re just going to set it over my eyes?”
What else would he really fear me doing?He couldn’t actually be worried about me harming him with this … could he?I waited another moment before moving or speaking, mostly to give myself time to consider his words.
“I mean, I like being flogged by the flogger things, but I don’t want to be flogged or whipped with wet cloths. Not even towel snapped with those.”
He wasn’t afraid, but in order for him to feel better, he had to voice his fear.
Relax him.
“Ryan, I would never strike you with any sort of wet cloth.” I held up the folded, damp washcloth. “This simply sits over your eyes for about fifteen minutes to help relax you.”
He smiled, and when he nodded, bubbles clung to his chin.
“Sounds good. Even though we slept in this morning, I feel tired,” he explained. Ryan closed his eyes as I walked toward him. I gently set the washcloth over his eyes and then leaned over and kissed his forehead.
“I’m going to go to the living room and make our reservations for dinner at one of the restaurants downstairs. They have a steakhouse, an Italian restaurant, and a fine dining one that would require jackets and ties. Which would you prefer?”
“Three options, I like it. Steakhouse!”
In the living room, I was able to make the reservations from the iPad the hotel had perched on the coffee table. They had a time available in forty minutes, but nothing else until eight forty-five. I felt, given the day we’d had, that was a bit too late for us to eat. As soon as I made the reservations, I went back to the bathroom to take a shower before we went out.
“Doing all right?” I asked as I entered the bathroom.
“Yep, I’m doing just fine. While you were gone, I farted, and it made a funny noise on the bottom of the tub. I kept waiting for a burst of peppermint scent, but it didn’t happen.”
I smiled and shook my head as I crossed the room to the shower and turned it on.
“I’m going to take a quick shower and then we can get dressed for dinner. Our reservation is in about forty minutes.”
“Okay, you didn’t pick the place with the ties, did you?”
“No, my boy. The steakhouse sounds good, and the jackets and ties requirement didn’t sound appealing for tonight.”
“When would a jacket and tieeversound appealing?”
While I showered, Ryan quietly relaxed in the tub. Our room had a hot tub outside on the patio, and I thought it would be nice for us to sit and soak in it tomorrow after the day on the slope. By the looks of the weather radar, the snow was expected to fall overnight and into tomorrow, making the day of skiing a majestic scene out of a movie.
As soon as we arrived in the restaurant, we were seated. Water and a basket of fresh rolls were brought to our table before either of us could pull our chairs in. Ryan immediately pulled back the cloth covering the basket of rolls and grabbed one.
“Ever wonder why they wrap the rolls in the fancy cloth napkin? It’s like some highly anticipated unveiling of … cue dramatic music … der der derm, dinner rolls!” He sliced the roll open and began to butter it as he continued. “Or are they in the back, huddled around a counter, figuring out how to make their restaurant more exciting than it really is and to keep them ahead of the competition? Like, ‘I know! Let’s wrap the rolls in this cloth napkin andthenplace them in the basket!’ The others will praise him and hail his idea as nothing short of brilliant. ‘They’ll be so surprised!’ And ‘They’ll have no idea what’s in the basket!’ Other restaurants will be jealous and will try to mimic it.”
Ryan’s imagination to create fictional conversations always amused me. I thought he’d probably been creating conversations in his mind since his youth.
“Imagine the restaurant that one upped the rolls in the cloth and a basket when they came up with—” I gestured to him. “Cue your dramatic music…”
“Der der derm!”
“Thewarmbasket.”
