Page 64 of The Fighter

He made to move out of the bathroom, and I stopped him with my hand on his forearm. “Where are you going?”

He frowned. “To get dressed. You want to cut my hair in the kitchen?”

“No, I want to cut your hair right here. I need the mirror.”

His forearm flexed beneath my palm, and I didn’t miss the tick of a muscle in his jaw. “Why?”

I was pushing something, and maybe this could blow up in my face, but I’d committed now. “So I can make sure it’s even. Have you never been to a hair salon? There are mirrors all over the damn place.” I pointed in front of the sink he usually used. “Wait here. I’m going to get a chair.”

Tav

I waited in the bathroom with my hands fisted at my sides while Con left to get a stupid chair to cut my stupid hair. I eyed the trimmer on the sink. Maybe I had enough time to buzz it all off so I could avoid this whole thing?—

But Con was back in seconds with a chair that he placed on the tiled floor right in front of the sink I usually used. My sink. With my toothbrush and the face wash and lotion he now insisted I used.

He pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

The way he studied me made my hackles rise. He was up to something, and I wished he would just come out and say it rather than putting me through the anxiety of waiting until he flayed me open and poked around at my insides. Because that was what life was like sometimes with Con. He rooted around in my bones like a little pig, sniffing out all my secrets. I wondered if he even realized he did it.

My nerves already frayed, I turned around sharply and dropped into the chair. The force of my body weight made the legs creak, and I winced, wondering if he’d have something to say about me almost breaking his chair. But instead he reached for a towel and swiped away the remaining fog on the mirror. I looked away, focusing on the tinted glass bottle of cologne that Con kept behind his sink.

He stood behind me, and his hands settled on my naked shoulders. “How are you feeling? I heard you hit the heavy bag.”

I was pretty sure he was looking at me over my head in the mirror, but I refused to meet his gaze to confirm. “I’m fine,” I said gruffly. “My head doesn’t hurt anymore. My ribs barely ache at all.” I prodded at my face. “I’m not swollen at all either.”

His fingers shifted to the skin under my right eye. “You’re still bruised here.”

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I said nothing.

“Tav?”

I clenched and unclenched my fists over the towel around my thighs. I didn’t like this. I felt vulnerable.

“Tav.” His voice had dropped to the one that meant he wanted me to obey. My chest felt tight. “Look at me.”

I twisted in my chair, but his hands gripped the sides of my head, not hard butinsistent. With purpose. He didn’t let me turn around.

“Look at me in the mirror.”

I inhaled deeply. Exhaled. Tried to quell the rising panic in my chest. My heart flapped and fluttered like a caged bird. I forced my gaze to shift, skittering over the mirror’s reflection, ignoring my face, to meet Con’s in the mirror. I focused on the blue of his eyes. The perfect arch of his nose. His full lips with prominent cupid’s bow. He had the best lips. His fingers dropped to curl around the bottom of my chin. “Now look at yourself.”

My bird in my chest took flight, and I surged to my feet. The chair went toppling to the right, but before I could turn around and get the hell out of this prison bathroom, Con was at my back, pressing me into the sink with a firm hand around back of my neck. I went still even though my instincts screamed at me to rear back, to dislodge the threat, to send Con smashing through the wall behind me so I could flee.

But I didn’t. Because I wouldn’t hurt Con. So I froze every muscle and stared at the faucet of the sink below me while Con’s heat blanketed my back. The knot of the towel loosened and pooled at my feet. The cool fabric of Con’s pants rubbed against the back of my thighs and my ass. I deep breathed through my nose, not trusting my mouth to open.

“Thought so,” he said softly.

And I didn’t like it. He was so damn perceptive. I gripped the edge of the marbled sink and gritted my teeth.

“You don’t look at yourself in the mirror, do you, Tav?”

And there it was. He’d sniffed around inside and ferreted out my secrets like a thief. I refused to answer him. And I also didn’t have a good explanation for why I was this way. This past week with Con, I’dlikedmyself for the first time in a very long time. But that didn’t mean I was ready to face my own eyes.

“Do you know why?”

I didn’t. Maybe he could tell me. I gave him a response this time and shook my head.

His hand squeezed the back of my neck. “I want you to see you how I see you.”