Page 71 of The Kiss Principle

“I fell asleep!”

“I know you fell asleep, shit-bird! It’s two in the fucking afternoon! Why the fuck are you sleeping?”

He stared at me from those dark, sunken eyes, and I couldn’t stand looking at him anymore. I took Igz out onto the deck and walked her. It was almost June, and the day was warm, the sun licking my skin. Below us, the valley looked like it was on the other side of a piece of smoked glass, but everywhere else, the day was clear and bright with crisp shadows. I walked Igz, and I wanted Zé. Wanted him like it was the only thing I knew how to do, every inch of me turned toward that wanting. Like I could make him appear if I tried hard enough. Like a prayer.

He’d had fans and friends and a life, I thought as I walked Igz in the sun, in the shade, making a loop around the porch, the air smelling like sage. He had a family. He believed all those peopleloved him. And he lost all of them, all at once. And he kept going, somehow. But you—the thought was scathing. You, the first time things get a little scary, you sell him out as fast as you can. You all but said you’d throw him out if you needed to. You said you didn’t know what she was talking about.

I remembered the look in his eyes. The devastation. And how he’d said,I am not going to do this again.

But it happened anyway, I thought. I blinked to clear my eyes, but the valley was a smear of green and gray now. You did it. He trusted you. He took a chance on you. And you took everything away from him again.

Igz was settling down, so I carried her into my room and shut the door. We lay on the bed in the dark. My work phone rang. I turned it off.

He’s gone, I thought as I stared up at the ceiling, smelling Igz’s Johnson & Johnson, watching the afternoon shadows move. He’s gone, and he’s never coming back.

The next day, my back was killing me again. I had an opening that morning, so I booked a massage—somewhere local, a place I’d never been before. I drove halfway there in shorts and a tee, and I saw myself in the mirror and thought, What am I doing? I turned around and went home.

When I got out of the Escalade, I could hear Igz crying. I ran to the door. He let her fall again, and this time it’s bad. He’s high, and he rolled over on her. He’s high, and he dropped her. He’s high.

I found Igz in the living room. She was in her swing, rocking gently, and her crying sounded like annoyance that had escalated, over time, into genuine worry. I scooped her up, and almost immediately she began to settle into hiccups and discontented noises, telling me how angry she was with me, beating me up with her little fists.

“Chuy?”

He wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the bathroom.

I stopped in his doorway. I knew what his bedroom looked like when he ran. I stared for a moment at the emptiness.

Shushing Igz, I stroked her back. Her tiny body quivered with relief and fear and whatever else was working its way through her.

“It’s okay,” I whispered. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

And then I shut the door.

18

I dropped meetings and canceled appointments and lied my ass off. Somehow, I limped to the weekend.

Saturday morning, I was half-awake as I made coffee and fixed Igz’s bottle and realized that, somehow, she’d already wet herself. I started toward the living room with Igz in one arm and, in my other hand, a mug for myself and a bottle for her. Then I remembered the diaper bag was in the kitchen, and I was all out of hands. Somebody else, some genius (meaning, somebody who’d gotten more than four hours of sleep at a stretch) might have thought of putting Igz down, putting the coffee and bottle down, and then getting the diaper bag. Instead, I put my foot inside it and dragged it along with us.

When I stepped into the living room, Augustus was there.

I stared.

He stared.

It wasn’t a dream, because in my dreams, he wasn’t such a fucking wiener. He stood there in a pair of slides, a pair of jersey taint-tickler shorts that made it painfully clear Augustus had been cheated in the dick department by his fuck-up of a father, and a tank top that saidDaddy Said So.It showed the silhouette of a face that was mostly a beard. He looked like a man, broad shoulders, lean muscle, even some stubble on his jaw. He looked like a walking, talking public service announcement for mandatory vasectomies.

“Is that a baby?” he asked. “Why is your foot inside that bag?”

I started to cry.

It only lasted a moment, and then I had myself under control again. But the horror on Augustus’s face told me I hadn’t been fast enough. I tried to wipe my cheeks and couldn’t because I was holding everything in the fucking house. Somehow I managed to say, “Of course it’s a fucking baby. What the fuck did you think it was? Get your ass over here and help me.”

Aside from his addiction to daddy dick, he was a decent kid. He ought to be; I’d brought him up that way. He took the mug and the bottle, and he offered to take Igz, but I shook my head. I did kick the diaper bag off my foot, and he carried it over to the sofa. I sat, and Augustus sat, and he was staring at Igz and staring at me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

The confusion and concern on his face evaporated. “Surprising you.”

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