“By the way, Hawkeye, I have more questions.”

“Go ahead,” he said. “By the way, did you ice it down earlier?”

She hadn’t. He went to the kitchen. When he returned she asked him to remind her how he’d met Claire. She’d forgotten, she said. Which was true.

He wasn’t sure about her motives though.

“Oh Claire,” he began, hoping that she wouldn’t delve deeply. Knowing he’d been involved with Claire might color their own affair.

“I met her in Lisbon,” he said, studying Sylvia’s knee. There was a small cut at the edge of the contusion. “By the way, can I use a piece of your aloe plant?”

She said yes and he returned from the living room with a leaf, which he sliced down the middle, creating two halves that glistened with off-white flesh. He wiped a cotton swab across the meat, dipped it in some hydrogen peroxide, and dabbed the nick.

“I met Claire in Lisbon, remember? I went there to live with Ian after leaving Brazil.”

The contact made her wince. He blew on the cut to soothe her, directing soft streams up her thigh.

“And you were painting in Lisbon?”

“No, trying to write a book.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, applying the ice now.

The coolness stoked her awareness of the heat between her legs.

“You make writing a book sound like something you just get up … and … feel like doing … and just do … like mowing the lawn or something.”

“Oh, I never feel like mowing the lawn,” he quipped.

“You know what I mean.”

She kneed him in the forehead. He pecked her on the thigh.

“So … did you ever finish it? That book?” she asked. She was harboring a smile in the corner of her mouth.

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever get it published?”

“No,” he told her, reminding himself to pull the manuscript out and revisit it when he got back to Kingston.

He made a monkey face, and she began to laugh and lost her balance, falling in the tub—a bundle of flailing arms and legs. He began to laugh as well.

“Help me up, Fire,” she asked, stretching toward him.

“Mr. Fire,” he replied in an Oxbridge accent.

“Okay … Mr. Fire, help … me … up, please.”

He was standing now, clasping his hands behind him. “Actually, it’s Sir Fire.”

“Okay … Sir Fire, help me up, please—why am I even doing this?”

“Because you have no other option. By the way, has anyone ever called you turtle before? Turtle.” He placed his index finger across his lips. “Hmmmh, now why did that come to mind.”

“I said Sir, didn’t I?”

He leaned over her with his hands on his knees. “Sorry, I meant King. Did I ask you to say Sir?”

“Oh … I’ll show you king,” she said, grabbing the edge of the tub to get some leverage. But he was quicker. As she raised herself to come out he turned on the shower and drenched her.