“The cucumber wash isright there, Peter. It’s already in the shower. It’s already dispensed. You can’t un-dispense a body wash. That soap is in play.”
“You can’t just replace a man’s soap.”
“I can and I did, and your skin is going to thank me within seventy-two hours.”
He stood in the kitchen doorway in his towel, holding the conditioner.
I stood at the island in my boxers and inside-out dinosaur shirt, holding my coffee.
We stared at each other like two half-nakedgunslingers whose hands itched on still-holstered guns.
“I turned your razor,” I said. “Just so you know.”
“I noticed.”
“And?”
“And I turned it back.”
“Of course you did.”
He went to get dressed.
The cucumber body wash stayed in the shower.
The coconut-argan conditioner stayed on his shelf.
By that evening, there was a new note on the fridge.
The conditioner is acceptable. This is not a concession. This is an observation.
— P
I wrote back.
Observation accepted. Next week I’m coming for your moisturizer situation, which is nonexistent and which constitutes neglect.
— B
One sparkle emoji.
I found his reply on the fridge the next morning.
I don’t have a moisturizer situation.
— P
I told the whole saga to the bar the next day, because the bar was my audience and my audience deserved content.
“He organized my shelf,” I announced while Jacks prepped garnishes and Finn did inventory and Rod assembled hismise en placein the kitchen with Ruthie asleep at his feet, her gray muzzle resting on her paws in the posture of a dog who had found her person and was not moving until her person moved. “He touchedevery singleproduct. He read the labels. He createdcategories, Jacks. Hair, face, body. In the correct order of application.”
“That sounds helpful,” Jacks said.
“It’sunhinged! The man is unhinged. It was the most aggressively thoughtful thing anyone has ever done to my toiletries. I can’t tell if he was trying to help me or assert dominance. Maybe it’s both. Can something be both?”
“With Peter, probably,” Jacks answered without looking up from the limes.
“So I replaced his soap and his conditioner. He came out of the bathroom holding the bottle like it was a piece of evidence and said, ‘It smells like a vacation,’ in this voice, Jacks, this completely deadpan Texas drawl like he was filing a police report abouthis own conditioner, and I almost died right there.”
