Sooo I saw that comic by @hoax1918 and had some thoughts
Joe jumped when something was dropped on his lap. “Hey!” Then he groaned when he registered just what the object was, shaking his head and laughing as Nicky moved away from the back of the couch and toward the kitchen.
At Nile’s inquiring glance he held up the wrapped square for her inspection. She furrowed her brow in confusion.
“What—wait. Is that a bar of soap?”
At her innocently confused question, Andy barked out a short laugh and there was a distinctly amused snort from the kitchen amongst the sound of bags being unpacked. Even from some ten feet away Joe could practically feel Nicky’s smirk.
Joe leaned forward to make his case. “As a young man—“ he paused to eye Andy warningly. She made an exaggeratedly serious face. Joe continued, “Both madly in love and rather young, I would often find gifts to give to Nicolò. Some of them were…perhaps…not well thought out. Such as very nice, rather expensive, bars of soap.”
“They were very nice, my heart,” Nicky chimed in.
“So, Nicky thought that you thought he smelled,” Nile concluded.
Joe felt a familiar presence behind the couch, then Nicky’s hand settled on Joe’s shoulder. “I was,” he said very seriously, “distraught.”
“Confused, at best!” Joe protested.
“For weeks,” Andy chimed in.
“I can’t believe you made Nicky cry,” Nile said, shaking her head sadly.
Joe pitched the bar of soap at Andy, pouting slightly when she caught it easily. “And now,” he said, turning his head slightly to include Nicky in his mock ire, “he torments me with the memory at every opportunity.”
“Seems fair,” Nile shrugged, looking at Andy and grinning when she sniffed the soap curiously, then made a face. “You at least get him the good stuff, right, Nicky?”
Now it was Nicky’s turn to look sheepish. “Ah…I should start dinner.”
As Nicky fled back to the kitchen, Nile leaned over toward Andy to look at the packaging on the soap. “Nicky? Is this Irish Spring? Oh, that’s just wrong!”
“See?!” Joe exclaimed, throwing his hands up. “Torment.”
