Page 20 of The Kiss Principle

The yellow light from the garage painted the side of his face and left the rest in shadow. He moved some hair off his forehead. When he spoke, I didn’t understand what I heard in his voice, but all he said was “You called me. Of course I came.”

I told him what happened. And then he had to check Igz himself, even though she was still asleep. He tried to go down on his knees, but then he wobbled, and he only caught himself by throwing out a hand and grabbing the side of the house. It was hard to tell in the weak light, but I thought his face was red.

With my free hand, I steadied him and helped him stand. The spring night was cool, and the air smelled like Calla lilies from the Hensons’ garden. It smelled like sage, like the wild parts of the world that lay out there in the dark, beyond the reach of streetlights and subdivision. It smelled like a warm body,like coconut wax and something earthier that made me think of driftwood. A warm male body. And even though the night was cool, I felt warm too.

“Come on,” I said, surprised by the roughness of my voice. “Igz and I will walk you to your car.”

Zé let me walk him a pair of steps before his whole body locked up. When I tried to tug him forward, he wouldn’t move.

“I’m okay,” he said, and for the first time since I’d met him, I heard panic instead of his usual calm. “I’m fine. You need to get Igz to bed. Let me help you—”

My first thought was junkie. And then, liar. Chuy was both, and I’d spent enough time with him to recognize the flailing effort to redirect, to avert.

And so I did what I always did with Chuy: no fucking mercy.

“I don’t need help getting Igz to bed,” I said, and I gave another, harder pull. It was cheating because I was using his bad leg against him, but I didn’t care. He was lying to me. About something. Somehow. I had a sixth sense for it. And all my fear, all my adrenaline, everything that still needed an outlet—it flared up in the white-hot heat of my anger. “I want to make sure you’re okay.” Yank. “In your car.” Yank.

Zé was taller, but I had more muscle (well, more mass, anyway), and more importantly, he was off-balance. He made a few objecting sounds, but all he could do was stumble along.

I stopped at the car. Enough light filtered in from the street that I could make out the interior. The sleeping bag. The jugs of water. The clothes piled on the passenger seat.

How long, I wanted to ask. And why didn’t you tell me?

“All right,” he said, and his voice was an imitation of its usual easy happiness. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow—”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shook him by the arm. And like that, two weeks’ worth of struggling to keep my mouthshut flew out the window. “You should have told me, you stupid nut-rabbit!”

I don’t know if he was trying to get free or if I simply shook him too hard. Whatever the reason, he stumbled back a half-step, and then his knee folded, and he let out a sharp breath.

“Zé, Christ—”

“I’m okay. Oh shit. Oh shit, my knee.”

Holding on to him turned into holding him upright. He wouldn’t—or couldn’t—put any weight on one leg.

“I need to sit down,” he said, fumbling in his pockets. “Could you open the door—”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re coming inside.”

“No, I’m fine—”

“No, you’re right. It’s a fucking fantastic idea for you to crawl into your fucking car and be left alone right now.”

He ran the back of his hand across his mouth. The reflection of the streetlights made it hard to read his eyes, but I could feel how pain tightened his body.

“Inside, jack hole. Right fucking now.”

Maybe I couldn’t read his eyes, but they definitely got a little wider.

We made our way inside, the three of us—me balancing Zé on one side, and Igz swinging against my leg on the other. She didn’t help at all, of course; after nearly giving me a heart attack, she was sleeping peacefully.

I got Zé to the sofa, helped him lie down so that he could keep his knee straight, and retrieved an ice pack from the kitchen. He propped himself up on one elbow, mouth open to protest, so I said—a little too loudly—“Oh, I’m sorry, did you have another great fucking idea?”

He shrank back down to the cushion.

I sat next to him and placed the ice pack on his knee. Then I didn’t know what to do with my hands. It felt strangely intimate,sitting so close to him, touching him. The Quiksilver tee rode up to expose a band of smooth skin and the hint of his treasure trail. His belly rose and fell slowly. His arm came up, and he put his hand on my thigh. He doesn’t know what to do, I told myself. He’s scared, and he’s touching you because he’s hurting.

But I didn’t see pain on his face. Or fear. I saw something unreadable. It made me think of sun catching the snowpack.

---