AITA for using my friend’s nail clippers and kind of screwing things up with his girlfriend?

So this got way more dramatic than I expected and now I’m not sure if I actually did something wrong or if this is just completely blown out of proportion.

I (30M) was house-sitting for my friend (Tom, 32M) for a few days while he and his girlfriend were out of town visiting her family. It wasn’t a huge deal — I’ve done it before. I was feeding his cat, watering his plants, bringing in his mail. He told me I could crash there if I wanted and to “help myself” to whatever.

On the second morning I was there, I noticed I had a nasty split nail on my thumb. Like, one of those deep ones that keeps snagging on stuff. Of course, I didn’t pack my own clippers, and I didn’t want to leave it — so I figured I’d just borrow his. Not a huge deal, right? I’ve known the guy for 10 years. We’ve literally shared food and beers and stuff. It’s not like I used his toothbrush.

So I found the clippers in his bathroom drawer, used them once (just on my thumb, not like I went on a foot-trimming spree), ran them under hot water, wiped them off, and put them back where I thought they went.

Anyway. A couple days after he gets back, he texts me: “Hey, did you use my nail clippers?” I say yeah, sorry, had a split nail, cleaned them after, figured it was fine. He says “okay,” but then a little later he calls me and goes, “So… now there’s kind of a problem.”

Turns out his girlfriend noticed they weren’t where she left them (???) and asked if he used them. He hadn’t. But instead of just saying it was me, he says he “didn’t know” who used them — which now makes it sound like someone broke in or snooped around the bathroom while they were gone. She’s apparently super germ-conscious and now she doesn’t want to stay over until the bathroom has been deep-cleaned. She’s creeped out.

I told him, dude, just tell her it was me. It’s not like I was going through her stuff — I used one clipper, cleaned it, and left. He says no, because now he’s already lied and if he comes clean it’ll be “a whole thing” and she’ll think he’s gross for not caring that someone used them.

So now I’m weirdly trapped in this lie he made up, even though I offered to tell her myself. I get that I didn’t ask first, but I genuinely didn’t think nail clippers were that personal. I didn’t touch anything else, didn’t damage them, didn’t even mention it because I figured it was a non-issue.

But now apparently I’ve “violated trust” somehow and there’s this whole narrative that I disrespected their space and now she’s mad at him and everything’s tense.