Page 36 of The Kiss Principle

I left him out on the deck. In the kitchen, I packed Igz’s diaper bag. The sound of Mom’s crying filtered in from her bedroom, competing with the cartoon voices from the TV. The door behind me opened. Zé padded barefoot across the kitchen. When he came back, he’d slipped into his cracked Hurley slides. Today’s outfit was a graphic tee with a stylized wave. I’d seen him wear it at least a dozen times; the hem was frayed to tatters. The board shorts were turquoise and printed with birds of paradise, and he had to knot the drawstring because if he didn’t, they’d slide right off his ass. He watched, and when I slung the bag over my shoulder, he settled Igz against his chest and followed me out to the SUV.

We drove for a while in silence. The May afternoon felt hot inside the car, so I lowered the windows, and the air smelled like exhaust, so I put them back up again. Zé didn’t say anything. He faced forward, but he had one arm contorted behind him so he could keep a hand on Igz’s leg. In the rearview mirror, her little face was unreadable, but I could tell she wasn’t thrilled with this change of events.

“He’s a mile-long trench of boy pussy,” I said. “And I swear to Christ he stole that watch.”

We rocked over an uneven patch of asphalt. I looked at Zé.

“Maybe,” Zé said. “He’s insecure. You’re older, smarter, more established. You’re much better looking. He’s competing with you for your mom’s attention.”

I had to pretzel my brain around that one before I said, “What kind of hot-dogging psycho-bullshit is that?”

“Is that something Americans say? Hot dogging?”

“I am not trying to fuck my mom.”

Zé wasn’t bitchy, which was a real downside in his character, but he did do something dramatic with his eyebrows, and then with his eyes, and then I thought maybe he secretly was bitchy, and I needed to work harder to bring out this side of him. With exaggerated patience, he said, “He doesn’t think you’re trying to fuck your mom. He doesn’t like how much attention you get.”

“What attention? Here’s how my conversations with my mom go: either she talks nonstop about herself and whatever new mumbo-jumbo horseshit she’s trying, like coffee enemas, and her flavor of the week—sorry, Cannon—or she’s asking me for money. That’s it, Zé. That’s the deep, rich relationship I have with my mom. You know what? If that goose-fucker wants all that attention, he can have it.”

Igz began to fuss, and Zé turned around in his seat to murmur to her, his hand rubbing her tummy. I drove, taking us out of our neighborhood and toward—well, I hadn’t decided yet. The beach, maybe. Laguna Beach. I started in that direction. I figured if I changed my mind, I could always drive us off a cliff later.

After a while, Igz settled down, and Zé turned forward.

“You don’t have to say anything,” I said.

He looked at me.

“I shouldn’t have raised my voice.”

I zipped through a yellow light. He still hadn’t said anything.

“I’m an asshole.”

“You don’t need to apologize for getting angry.” His hand rested on my forearm, the touch light, casual. I thought about his hands on my sides, pulling my body. I saw, in my mind, the cock-drunk look of that kid in the video. Oh no, I thought. Abso-fucking-lutely not. Zé was still speaking. “Anger is important. Anger helps us set boundaries. Your mom crossed an important boundary, and it’s good that you let her know how you feel.”

I was still so fixated on not thinking certain things—like how that messy, tousled hair would feel if I plunged my hand into it—that I forgot to watch my guard, and the words slipped out. “Augustus gave me that watch.”

“I heard you say that.”

I shook my head as Zé rubbed my arm, and I was surprised that my eyes stung. “I don’t even know why I care. It wasn’t a great watch. And it was my fucking money; the little wiener just picked it out. But he wanted to give me a Christmas present, and what was I supposed to tell him?”

Traffic thickened as we made our way to the beach, and our progress slowed. In front of us, a Bentley idled at a red light. A bumper sticker said STUDENT DRIVER.

“You have got to be shitting me,” I muttered.

Zé laughed. Then he said, “It sounds like he loves you a lot.”

“He’s an unretracted foreskin. Who the fuck knows what he’s thinking?”

We drove some more. Zé’s hand moved lightly on my arm.

“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have dragged you out of the house. It’s your day off, and you’ve got stuff to do.”

“Not really.”

“I can drop you off at the house.”

“I’d like to spend the day with you.”

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