Page 91 of The Edge of Never

I got dressed, being careful as I tugged the boxers over my ankle.

Kit grabbed the brush and made me scoot forward so they could sit behind my back up against the headboard.

They picked up the towel we’d brought in and dried my hair further. Then they got to work, starting from the bottom. My hair had been a mess after all that time we spent in the tent. I was glad to be clean now. Not that I minded camping in the wild and not being able to wash for a couple of days but doing it in the winter was no fun at all.

Kit hummed as they brushed my hair. As the minutes ticked by, my shoulders relaxed and the tension in my body faded away. It had been a trying time. Being somewhere safe hadn’t felt like an option before. Now I was home, I could let it all go under Kit’s gentle touch.

“Your hair is really soft,” they said after a while. “I’ve kind of been desperate to run my fingers through it but asking felt weird.”

My hair was relatively thick and naturally wavy. I’d done my best to take care of it since I started growing it out after asking for some advice from my barber. I saw him regularly as my undercut took some upkeep.

“I dinnae mind if ye dae. It feels… nice.”

“Oh? You like this?”

I nodded, feeling embarrassed about admitting that.

Kit continued and said nothing else about it, maybe sensing that I was feeling a wee bit vulnerable. They reached the top of my head and were able to brush through the entire length of it over and over. After a few minutes, their hands dropped from my hair. I turned my head to see them set the brush down on the bedside table.

“There… though, I’ll be honest. I kind of don’t want to stop.”

“Dae ye know how tae braid?”

Kit stared at me with those fucking beautiful icy eyes of theirs.

“Yeah. Sienna used to make me braid her hair all the time when we were kids.”

The mention of their friend added tension lines to Kit’s face. I didn’t want them thinking about Sienna. A part of me wanted to replace all their memories of them with ones of me, so they wouldn’t have to associate things with her.

“Would ye braid mine?”

Kit nodded as their face cleared slightly.

“My comb and elastics are on the sink counter.”

They jumped off the bed and went to get them. When they got back, Kit sat crossed legged on the bed.

“It might be easier if you put your head in my lap,” they said with a shrug, giving me a half-smile.

Without thinking too hard about it, I laid down on my side and put my head in Kit’s lap. No one had ever braided my hair for me. It was something I taught myself to do. It took months of practice to get it perfect, so the braids weren’t wonky on the sides of my head.

Kit carefully sectioned out the hair by my hairline, making use of the comb before starting on braiding. They hummed again as they did it. I closed my eyes, soothed by the sound and the motion of their hands.

“Would you let me do this every day while I’m here?”

“If ye want.”

Having someone else do this for me was a novelty. Having Kit want to take care of me was one too.

“Jenna didnae like it when I started growing mah hair oot.”

I don’t know why I told Kit that. Maybe to help them understand that this was really fucking new for me.

“No? How long ago did you start?”

“Five years. She always preferred it short, but I wanted a change. Just one of the things we didnae see eye tae eye aboot, but she didnae stop me even if she would make cutting remarks aboot it from time tae time.”

Kit paused in their braiding for a moment. They were going slow, but I figured they wanted to get it all lined up nicely. It had probably been a while since they’d done this.

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