Page 9 of The Kiss Principle

Before I had time to feel awkward about eating in front of a total stranger, I had finished. At some point when I’d been devouring the salad, he’d sat at the table, and now he had his phone out and was looking at it.

“Thank you.”

He looked up and reached for the bowl.

“I’ll wash it,” I said.

“I don’t mind.”

I gripped the bowl. “No.” And then I forced myself to add, “Thank you.”

We sat there, silence filling up the space between us. I was full of salad (which was strange, considering it wasn’t even ten yet), and my body was clearly appreciating the protein and veggies, because I felt like I could put my head down and sleep for a week. The weed probably wasn’t hurting either. And he sat there, looking at me, not saying anything.

“Who are you?”

“Zé Teixeira. Well, José, but I go by Zé.”

“Why did you knock on my door this morning?”

His jaw tightened, and he looked at the floor. “I go door to door.” And then, in a rush, “Offering massages.”

“What, like the kale?”

His eyes came up.

I arched my eyebrows.

After a moment, a wry smile touched his mouth.

“For real?” I asked. “Door-to-door massages? Do you get a lot of customers at eight-thirty in the morning?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said drily. “Can’t start much earlier or the husbands are home.”

I raised an eyebrow.

A blush caught fire under the dark brown skin. “Oh God, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Uh huh.”

“No, I promise.” His blush deepened. “I’m gay.”

The pause was interesting, like he was building himself up to it. And the fact that it made him blush. This was southern California, and nobody cared if you were gay. They cared if you were ugly, and that definitely wasn’t this guy’s problem.

I gave him another look; now that I had some food in me, I felt like I was thinking clearly. Or more clearly, anyway. The board shorts had been expensive once, but they looked wellworn. Same with the Baja jacket. He wore Hurley slides that were starting to crack along the sides. His feet were like his hands: big, masculine, strong. So, either he didn’t care about appearances (a possibility), or he didn’t have money. I thought about the beater he was driving. And I thought about the fact that he didn’t have a massage table, didn’t have a flyer or a business card to leave with prospective clients, about the fact that he was going door to door even though he’d clearly had some sort of surgery to his knee. All of which meant he was broke.

The baby started to cry. Zé pushed back his chair, but I waved for him to sit. I put the bowl in the sink and made my way to the baby’s room. She was unhappy about being wet, she told me—loudly—so I changed her. I rocked her for a few minutes in case she was ready to go back to sleep, but she kept crying.

“She might be hungry,” Zé said from the doorway.

“She’s always hungry.”

But we made our way back to the kitchen, and he sat again, wincing slightly as he stretched out his leg. He held out his hands, and after a moment of consideration, I passed him the baby. It would be easier to make the bottle while I wasn’t holding her, and—

And she stopped crying. Immediately.

“You son of a bitch,” I said. “What did you do?”

Zé wasn’t doing anything, as far as I could tell. He held her in the crook of one arm, her face resting against his chest. Looking up, he let out a quiet laugh.

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