Page 12 of True North

Misha reached up to touch the shaggy tangle at his nape. It was cleaner now after he’d showered, but still a matted, ungroomed mess, and if JT had all of that on his head, he would definitely feel better after a trim. Misha bit his lip and then nodded.

“Okay,” JT said. “Let’s go upstairs.”

He put his phone in his pocket for backup, but he didn’t need any words to lead Misha up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom at the back of the house, with its big windows overlooking the lake. JT had never bothered to hang curtains because he loved waking up with the morning light. He hadn’t made the bed that morning, and he regretted that now as he took Misha past the rumpled duvet pushed down to the foot of the mattress, baring the fitted sheet and the pillow still dented from JT’s head. Whatever: Misha lived in the woods and ate garbage. He didn’t exactly have any room to judge JT’s housekeeping skills.

The washroom was spotless, at least, thanks to JT’s once-weekly cleaning service. He started the water running in the tub and dug a fresh towel out of the linen closet. He used the tub a fair amount to soak the aches out after a hard workout, and he’d shelled out for a good one when he remodeled this bathroom, a big, deep basin beside a window, large enough that he could comfortably stretch out. For someone of Misha’s height, there would be plenty of room.

Misha was looking at the toiletries lined up along the counter beside the sink, none of which could possibly be interesting. “Hey,” JT said, and when Misha turned, he pointed at the closed toilet lid and then at Misha’s hair. “Sit down and I’ll give you a buzz.”

Looking presentable was part of JT’s job since he did so many interviews. During the season, he scheduled regular visits to a barber near his apartment in Toronto. But during the summer, he didn’t really care what he looked like and just used clippers to give himself home haircuts and otherwise let his hair do whatever it wanted until the curls got long enough to annoy him. He was no expert, but he knew how to do a decent fade along the sides and leave it a little longer on top, so it looked somewhat stylish. And frankly, anything would be better than the ragged mop currently half-covering Misha’s eyes.

Misha flinched at the buzzing sound when JT turned on the clippers, but he held still and let JT run the clippers over his head. Thick hanks of hair fell to the floor. Misha had big ears that stuck out from his skull, and JT realized ruefully that cropped short wasn’t a great look for him, but whatever. It would grow out fast enough, and who was going to see him? The woodland creatures?

When JT was done, Misha looked about a decade younger, big-eyed and big-eared. He smiled up at JT tentatively, and JT felt his heart do an unexpected roll in his chest. Misha looked so vulnerable and sweet.

Flustered, JT turned aside to put the clippers back in their case. The tub was full; he turned off the tap. Misha could take it from here.

But when JT moved toward the doorway, Misha said his name. JT turned to look at him. Misha’s cheeks were faintly pink, and he extended his hand and said something. After a belated moment, JT realized what he wanted and handed him the phone.

Misha spoke into the microphone. JT hadn’t heard him string so many words together before; his voice was deep and pleasant to listen to. The phone said, “Could you help me clean my back? It is hard to achieve.”

“Oh, uh,” JT said, profoundly taken aback. Was that a normal thing to ask for? Misha seemed a little embarrassed, but not nearly as embarrassed as JT thought was warranted by asking a near-stranger to wash your back for you. Shifters had different customs, maybe. “Sure?”

Misha stripped off his shorts and climbed into the tub. There was plenty of room for him to sink down until he was submerged to his chin. He bent his head and blew a couple of bubbles below the waterline, a childlike gesture that made JT smile.

This didn’t have to be awkward. He could just—scrub Misha’s back for him. Totally normal.

“Okay,” JT said. “Uh. Let me get a washcloth.”

The washcloths were in the linen closet. JT took a moment, concealed behind the open closet door, to close his eyes and draw in a few deep breaths. All of this was fine and normal. He had a bear shifter sitting naked in his tub, waiting for JT to bathe him. Just an ordinary Thursday afternoon.

He closed the closet. Misha had ducked down into the water to wet his head, and he sat dripping as he watched JT approach, water droplets matting his eyelashes and trickling down his bare shoulders. He looked like a painting of a water nymph ready to drag a man to his doom.

JT cleared his throat and knelt beside the tub, his knees barely cushioned by the thin bath mat. He dunked the washcloth in the water and pointed wordlessly to the bottle of body wash positioned on the window ledge. Misha handed it to him and leaned forward, wrapping his arms around his knees, exposing the long span of his back. He was so thin that JT could count every individual knob of his spine, and his pale skin was mottled in places with darker patches of ground-in dirt. He needed a good scrubbing, and JT was here to provide, evidently.

He took a breath, squeezed some body wash onto the cloth, and got to work.

Six

JT didn’t go easy on him: he scrubbed hard, from the nape of Misha’s neck over his shoulders and down his back to the dip of his spine beneath the water. It felt good the same way rubbing against a tree did in his bear form, even as his skin went tender from the rough texture of the washcloth. Misha watched the tub water turn murky and was a little ashamed for JT to see how filthy he was, but he couldn’t hide it, and he was glad for the help and the care JT was taking with him.

JT drained the dirty tub water and filled it again as Misha sat naked and sodden. He drizzled more body wash over Misha’s shoulders and gave Misha another thorough scrubbing until Misha’s skin was tingling all over. At last, JT sat back with a groan and draped the cloth over the side of the tub.

“Okay,” JT said. He wiped his hands on his sweatpants and rose to his feet, and when he took his phone from his pocket, Misha turned so he could watch JT’s face as he spoke. The phone said, “Take as much time as you want. You can use clean water if you want. I will get your clothes and you can go down when you’re done.”

That was a little muddled, but Misha got the general idea. “Thank you,” he said, and he and JT smiled at each other before JT left the room.

Misha spent a long time happily splashing around in the tub, scrubbing himself with the washcloth everywhere he could reach, even between his toes. The water went cool and gray, so he let some of it down the drain and turned the tap on again to refill the basin. He washed his hair, the short bristle of it that remained after JT’s haircut, and delighted in scrubbing his fingertips against his scalp until it practically squeaked. He wasclean, truly, finally, and it was such a good feeling that he almost didn’t want to leave the tub.

But at last he had washed every millimeter of skin he could reach, and his fingers and toes were shriveled like rutted earth. He drained the tub, dried off, and inspected his reflection in the mirror. He was pink everywhere, and he looked ridiculous with his hair cropped so short because of the way his giant ears stuck out. He smashed them flat against his skull with his palms, but of course they didn’t stay like that and popped back into position as soon as he removed his hands. Well, there was no helping it.

He went out into the bedroom, looking for JT. There was no sign of the man himself, but a stack of clothing sat at the foot of the bed, which Misha assumed was meant for him: the shorts Misha had taken off before his bath, and a T-shirt, and even a pair of boxers. Misha put everything on and then spent a couple of minutes snooping around. Not intensive snooping; he didn’t open any drawers or look under the bed or anything like that. But he looked at the clutter on JT’s bedside table—lip balm, tissues, alarm clock, a dog-eared book—and the framed photographs on top of the dresser.

There were a lot of photographs, so many that the ones in the rear were all but hidden by the ones in the front. The older couple that showed up in multiple pictures were probably JT’s parents, based on physical resemblance—the man’s curly hair, the woman’s nose—and the fond, casual way they touched JT. In one picture, JT and his parents stood with a young woman wearing a cap and gown and another man with the same nose, possibly JT’s siblings. There were a few pictures of dogs, including an old, faded one of a much younger JT crouching in the snow beside a cocker spaniel wearing a sweater. The rest of the pictures were of JT with different groups of people, probably friends, except for one photograph of a frozen lake in winter. The overall impression was that of a happy, sociable person with a large circle of friends and family, which wasn’t necessarily what Misha would have assumed from JT’s solitary lake activities.

He went downstairs and followed the sound of the television into the kitchen, where JT was sitting at the table with his laptop open, typing slowly and awkwardly with the first two fingers on each hand. He glanced over with a smile when Misha appeared in the doorway and beckoned him over with a tilt of his head.

Misha shuffled over and tentatively sat in the chair beside JT when JT pushed it out from the table with his foot. JT had opened a text document on his computer and had managed to type quite a bit even with his hunting and pecking, so he must have been working on this since he left Misha alone in the bath. Misha had at one time been able to read simple sentences in English if he had enough time to puzzle through the words, but this was more than he was capable of dealing with, multiple paragraphs of text that blurred together into an incomprehensible jumble.