Page 28 of Scythe & Sparrow
I take a sip of my lemonade, trying to swallow the dread that’s crept up my throat as Sandra scrutinizes Rose’s pattern with afurrowed brow. “That depends,” she says. “What are you making, dear?”
“A sex swing.”
Lemonade shoots up my nose and burns. I cough and sputter my way through what would otherwise be a moment of suspended silence. But that only lasts for a blessed few seconds before I’m surrounded by a flurry of voices that tosses me into an alternate reality.
“You’ll need a softer heft for that. Maybe try the MillaMia merino.”
“You might want to consider a tighter crochet stitch.”
“Is it for you?” Maude asks without looking up. “Or does it need to take the weight of an adult man? Like, say”—her eyes flick to me—“maybe the doctor’s size?”
I drag a hand down my face as though it will scrape away my blush. “Jesus, Maude—”
“I don’t know,” Rose says as she looks toward the ceiling, tapping her lip with the end of her crochet hook. “Maybe …? I’m not sure.”
“What about Tencel bamboo yarn? Softandstrong.”
“Did you find a pattern?”
Rose shrugs. I die a little. “I was just going to wing it.”
“I have a pattern for a pot hanger,” Liza chimes in, pulling her bag onto her lap so she can rummage through the contents. She finds a magazine and flips it open, pointing to a photo of a crocheted hanging planter. “You could use this, maybe make leg holesright here. Ooh, and what about an extra pair of hanging handles and ankle braces?”
Sandra leans over to scrutinize the pattern, adjusting her reading glasses. “My Bernard could make you a wooden frame. It’llhave to be good and strong, don’t want something like that collapsing when you’re taking it for a ride, you know?”
“Yeah,” Rose says, taking the magazine from Liza, her smile barely subdued, her eyes glinting with amusement as they flow over the page in her hands. In a sudden flurry of motion, she tosses it in my direction and it smacks me in the face, falling open on my lap. “What do you think, Doc?”
I should probably give her a sharp glance, a cutting look. Say something about how I’m technically still her doctor, or at least offer a bland and noncommittal response. But as I look down at the photo of the crocheted hanger, I can actually picture it. Pictureher. Her tongue leaving a trail of moisture across her lower lip. Her legs spread wide, her pussy glistening with arousal in the dim light of my room. Those dark eyes of hers, full of desire, feral with need for my—
“So? Think it’ll work?”
When I look up, it’s the first time I see a glimmer of apprehension flash across Rose’s face. I clear my throat, the trace of a burn still lingering from the lemonade. “I think …” I trail off, drawing out her doubt before I finally give her the barest hint of a conspiratorial smile. “I think you should use a thermal stitch for the base. It’s sturdy. Could support the weight of a six-foot-four adult male. Theoretically.”
Rose’s eyes dance in the morning light that streams through the blinds. “Even all Beast Mode muscly?”
I swallow a laugh as I set the magazine aside and resume my stitches. Though I try not to blush, I’m probably failing, judging by the heat coursing beneath my skin. “I mean,theoretically.”
There’s a single beat of silence, and then the women around mecackle. Though it takes a minute for my smile to really break free, it still does when I spot Maude dabbing at tears with the tissue she always keeps folded beneath her bra strap, or when Tina wheezes “sex swing” and laughs so hard she has to shuffle to the bathroom.
“Well,thank God,” Liza says as she pulls a flask from her bag and dumps a generous splash of vodka into her lemonade, stirring the mixture with the end of her crochet hook. “We were starting to wonder if you were going to run off back to Ireland and join the priesthood.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not joining the priesthood.”
“Valid concern.” Liza shrugs and downs a third of her glass. “We’d be heartbroken to lose you. Especially when you’ve finally come out of your shell a little bit these last two weeks.”
I try to think back on last week’s meeting and what I said or did that was any different than the times I’ve been here before. I know I didn’t explicitly say anything about how Rose broke into my clinic, or how I rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital. But maybe I did open up a little more than usual when I told them about scrubbing in for a surgery. Maybe I did say something about a patient I was worried about. A case that was weighing on my mind.
Liza smiles as though she can see where my thoughts have gone, and the conversation eventually veers to other topics, other gossip. We spend a couple hours there, and I finish the blanket I intend to donate to the hospital and then start a new one, soliciting guidance from the group for the difficult jasmine stitch. When noon rolls around, everyone packs up, and I help Rose to her feet before Itake her bag alongside my own and we leave to a chorus of final advice about the sex swing.
At first, we walk in silence. It’s hard to know how to start. What to say. I know I’m good at diagnosing illnesses and treating injuries and the precision and science of medicine. But with Rose, I feel out of my depth. Do I start with the Suture Sisters? Or the whole sex swing fiasco? Or do I go head-on with tackling the subject of Eric Donovan?
But while I’m overthinking my options in silence, Rose just dives right in. “Hey,” she says.
A brief smile passes my lips. Maybe it doesn’t have to be so complicated. “Hey.”
“I like the Suture Sisters.”
“Yeah. They’re … entertaining. Not what I expected when I went to my first meeting. I thought I’d be stitching up wounds for a women’s fight club or roller derby, not … just …stitching.” I glance down my shoulder at her and Rose is grinning, clearly pleased with herself. “How’d you find out about that?”
