Page 23 of The Infinite Light of Dust

“It’s your turn,” I said, kissing him softly on his bare chest.

He didn’t say anything or try to refuse; he just moved around me to stand under the water, and I squeezed the body wash onto the loofah and rubbed it across his wide chest, down and under each arm. He was surprisingly ticklish and kept moving, which made both of us laugh. The trauma of the evening felt like it had happened a month ago. I bent down on my knees to wash Kael’s legs and he jerked back, hitting his head on the metal part of my showerhead.

“What happened?” I looked up, my heart racing.

“I don’t . . . I don’t want you to touch my leg. Or even see it . . .”

Huh?

“What are you talking about? I’ve seen your legs a hundred times,” I told him, looking at the bottoms of his legs in front of me.

What in the . . . ?

“See—” He groaned, not looking at me.

I raced through all the times we had been undressed in front of one another, all of the time we’d spent in bed, all of the massages, and it all clicked in my head. This was why he always hid himself.

“I can’t see anything.” I closed my eyes. “Now let me wash you, it’s only fair since you did me.”

My heart raced, aching and ripping apart all at once. The burned skin, the healed but still inflamed skin, the idea of him suffering nearly made me sick on the spot, but I refused to show him that. I refused to make him feel like he had anything to be ashamed of, like every part of him wasn’t absolutely, unquestionably exquisite.

I knew he had an injury but he kept it shielded from me, so I guess my mind had filed it away and I hadn’t thought much about the appearance of it. I didn’t care how it looked; I only cared if he was in pain. And I wanted to kill whoever had done this to him. As I swirled the bubbly soap around his skin and down to his feet, I remembered back to our first meeting, that fateful massage when he wore sweatpants and I just thought he was uncomfortable, to the party at my dad’s and how he was about to reveal that part of himself to me but we were interrupted.

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. Not with me.” I looked up at him and his eyes were blazing, intense yet careful, as he watched me.

I leaned in a bit and kissed his scarred skin, making him gasp, and stood back up to face him.

“You’re perfect,” I assured him, meaning it to my core.

Chapter Fourteen

Kael

When we woke up in the morning, I had four missed calls from Phillips. Assuming he hadn’t been arrested, I wondered what the fuck had happened to him, and where he’d slept. No matter how hard I tried to recall, I couldn’t remember leaving Mendoza’s last night. I remembered glimpses of the fight, of the gun, of my memories taking me back to deployment, the way Karina had looked at me like I terrified her, but I blanked on the end of the party. Next thing I knew, I was in Karina’s bathroom with her and now in her bedroom, her body wrapped around me, hugging me from the side.

“Hmmph,” she murmured in her sleep, a noise that usually meant she’d wake up soon.

Without moving her an inch, I carefully reached for my phone on the nightstand and texted Fischer, making sure he and Elodie had gotten home safely.

After a few minutes, he responded.

We’re in the living room. Elodie is still asleep. How’s my sister?

She was really shaken up, but she’s okay.

I sent it, then typed,I think.

Elodie, too, she was really fucked up after what happened.

Did Phillips get picked up by the MPs?

No. They never came.

I didn’t know if I was relieved or pissed. The MPs were usually slap happy to come enforce the little bit of power they held over the rest of us, but I guessed it was Phillips’s lucky night.

I put my phone down as Karina stirred awake. Her eyelids were swollen as she blinked them open, her bloodshot eyes full of lingering anxiety as I watched her come to.

“Where’s my brother?” she asked, voice strained. “I had a dream that he—” She didn’t finish the sentence, but she didn’t need to.

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