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“What is that?”
She gasps, twisting around to face me, water splashing to the floor. Her hair, filled with what’s likely entirely too much conditioner—an amount I didnotlook up—piled on top of her head, falls slowly. “You don’t know Men in Black?”
“Should I?”
She rolls her eyes. “It’s aclassic,Ronan. Oh my god, how many movies do you not remember? Because you’ve definitely seen them. I don’t care who you are; you’ve seen Men in Black at least once.”
I try not to smile at her newfound energy.
“I don’t remember ever seeing that one, no. Who’s in it?”
She stares at me, her eyes wide. “You really haven’t seen it, have you? It’s Will Smith? Tommy Lee Jones? There’s a weird talking pug in one of them?”
I shake my head.
“We’re watching it,” she says, turning back around. “After we’re out of here, we’re curling up and watching Men in Black. I’ll look up where we can find it online.”
I chuckle, giving in.
But we don’t leave for a long time. Instead, I massage her shoulders as we talk about the good parts of growing up for her. There weren’t many, but there were some.
Her aunt’s house, where she only went a couple times. The dollhouse her mom got her for her birthday one year, only to go missing the next. I asked her about her favorite movies growing up—a funny romcom about a girl playing on a boy’s soccer team—and she asks me about things I had to rediscover I loved, like sci-fi movies. When I told her that, her mouth dropped open, incredibly confused as to how I still hadn’t seen Men in Black.
She wanted to get out soon after that, asking me to pull it up on my TV.
I leave her in the bathroom to dry off, set up the movie, and then ask her what I can do to help her cramps. She holds her stomach, a frown on her lips.
“Back at home, I had a rice sock,” she says, and I stand there, a deep v between my brows, trying to understand what she’s getting at.
“A rice sock?”
She nods.
“A sock. That’s full of rice.”
“Okay…”
“You warm it up for thirty seconds or so in the microwave and put it over your uterus. Well, notyouruterus. You get what I mean,” she smiles.
I think I do.
“It’s heavy, so the weight feels nice, but the warmth feels great, too.”
“I’m on it,” I assure her, heading to my sock drawer. I think about choosing an older one, but I feel like she deserves one that isn’t practically threadbare, so I choose one of my newer, thicker ones instead.
“You don’t have to—” she starts.
I go back to her, sock in hand, and kiss her lips, shutting her up. “I’ll be right back. Get in bed and get comfy.”
Leaving the room, I take the steps two at a time, heading for the kitchen. Grabbing our giant bag of rice, I find a funnel and pour two cups into the sock, tying the end off before placing it in our microwave. Thirty seconds later, I have a hot sock full of rice and a bag of almond joys in my hand, heading back to her.
We fall asleep to Tommy Lee Jones’ voice.
TWENTY-THREE
SYDNEY
I don’t knowwhat to think.
