"I will need help." She lifted her injured hand and grimaced. "I can't squeeze toothpaste on the brush with one hand."
He reached past her and retrieved her toothbrush from the cup by the sink, then squeezed a line of toothpaste onto the bristles. She took it from him with her left hand and raised it to her mouth with the careful concentration of someone attempting brain surgery.
The first stroke was acceptable. The second veered sideways and smeared toothpaste across her cheek. The third nearly went up her nose.
She glared at the toothbrush.
"This shouldn't be this hard." She tried again, and this time managed to actually brush her front teeth before the brush slipped and poked her in the gum. "Ow."
Dimitri's lips were pressed together, and his eyes were doing something suspicious.
"If you laugh, I will stab you with this toothbrush," she said around a mouthful of foam.
"I would never laugh at your discomfort." His voice was remarkably steady for a man whose shoulders were shaking.
She tried one more time. The brush skidded across her bottom teeth and launched itself out of her hand, bounced off the edge of the sink, and clattered to the floor.
That did it.
Dimitri's composure cracked. He tried to disguise the laugh as a cough, which only made it worse because the cough turned into a snort, and the snort turned into a cackle.
Mattie felt a smile tugging at her own mouth.
She was standing in a cramped bathroom with toothpaste on her cheek, defeated by a toothbrush, and the man she loved was laughing so hard he had to brace himself against the door.
It was absurd. The whole situation was absurd.
She tried to pick up the toothbrush, but Dimitri got there first.
"Let me." He rinsed it under the faucet and reloaded it with paste. "Open."
"You're going to brush my teeth?"
"Yes." He tilted her chin up with one finger. "Open."
She opened.
He brushed her teeth with the same precision he brought to everything, careful, systematic, thorough. Top teeth, bottom teeth, the sides, the molars. His free hand cradled her jaw, holding her head steady with gentle fingers, and he was so close that she could smell the minty toothpaste on his breath.
"Spit," he said.
She did.
"Rinse."
She did that too, and when she straightened up, she caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror. The pale skin wasmarred by the bruise, dark circles, and hair that desperately needed to be washed.
"I need a shower," she said.
"I was working my way up to suggesting that."
"Are you saying that I smell?" She sniffed at her armpit but smelled nothing that was overly gross.
"I said nothing of the sort," Dimitri said. "You'll just feel better after a shower, and I'm offering my services as the washcloth guy." The grin was back, the cocky one that did things to her pulse even when she was in pain.
"How am I going to shower with this?" She lifted her bandaged hand.
"Wait here." He disappeared and returned a moment later carrying a strip of plastic wrap. She recognized it as the cling film that covered the trays delivered from the kitchen to the lab.
