She nodded into her arms. The room fell silent a moment. Two moments. Finally, she sensed a whisper of a touch on her neck. Feathery light fingers that trailed upward into her loose curls. She shivered as he raked through the hairs on the back of her head slowly. It was like nothing existed but her head and his hands parting through her hair. She fell into a sleepy trance, more relaxed than she had been all week.

As he reached the sensitive patch behind her ear, he stroked the soft skin there. The soft skin where no hair grew. That was a caress. She should put a stop to this. Now.

But as he continued to the top of her head, warmth enveloped her whole body, all while his touch, barely there, reminded her exactly what was happening, and who was making her feel this good. This was heaven. The deep serenity eased her mind and calmed her soul.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

“You found some?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think so. You should use the treatment shampoo and let me comb out your hair, just in case.”

She closed her eyes again, leaving her head in her arms. Another blow to her battered life. It didn’t seem fair that this one came with boneless tranquility and soft fingers stroking the back of her neck.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Reena had endured much in her thirty-one years on the planet. As a short, middle-born, socially awkward visible minority, she’d had birthdays forgotten, been bullied at school, been dumped on the subway, and even once had an ex-boyfriend post a picture of her sated, after-sex face on social media—with a self-congratulating caption. But having insecticide shampoo thoroughly applied to her hair by a brown Captain America type felt like a new level of humiliation. She managed only with her eyes squeezed shut—because this stuff apparently stung like the dickens if it came into contact with eyes, and so she wouldn’t catch a glimpse of this in her bathroom mirror.

Surprisingly, though, sitting on the sofa with a man close behind her carefully dragging a narrow comb through her hair turned out to be an oddly intimate experience. Intimate, but not sexual. The comb was hard metal, and Nadim’s enthusiasm about the process of looking for bugs in her hair didn’t do much for the sensual allure of the experience.

“Don’t you find that gross?” she asked after he wiped the comb on a damp paper towel.

“Not at all. I grew up in Africa, remember? I have nothing against creepy-crawlies, unless they carry malaria. Lice are annoying but harmless.”

Reena shuddered, closing her eyes. Only way to survive this was to pretend to be in Tahiti. Or Siberia. Anywhere but here.

“We’re never going to speak to anyone about this, right?” she asked.

He moved her head to get behind her left ear. “I have no intention of telling the world I picked up lice from a hookup. Or that I may have passed them to you, of all people. I don’t even think we should talk to each other about this again.”