Page 39 of The Kiss Principle

When I stepped out of the dressing room, Zé took one look at my face, smirked—an actual, honest-to-God smirk—and said, “None of your business.”

“Fuck you, you dicked-down horse dildo.”

The fancy boy gasped. Like, a Broadway-quality gasp.

Zé, though, only smirked some more and went to work inspecting the clothes. He ran his hand down my chest, smoothing the polo. He fixed the sleeves. He ran his fingers inside the waistband of the chinos and tugged, and for a moment, I had this weightlessness in my gut, and I remembered how he’d gripped my hips the other night, how easy it had been for him to move me. Zé pronounced the clothes acceptable and sent me back to change.

I took extra long, but I only managed to get myself down to a semi, and I was pretty sure the fancy boy noticed. Sue me. They were mesh shorts; what the fuck was I supposed to do?

“You’d look good in this,” I said, picking up a T-shirt at random. I handed it to Zé. “Try it on.”

He held it, and he was still as he looked at me.

I grabbed a pair of shorts. They weren’t board shorts, but that was a purposeful decision on my part. Zé had great thighs, and what the fuck good were they swimming around inside a pair of board shorts? These were black, and they had a nice cut, and they’d hit him mid-thigh, which was about perfect. “And these.”

He took the shorts. He still hadn’t said anything.

“Okay, I know it’s getting close to summer,” I said as I picked up a lightweight hoodie, “but you’re always cold in the mornings.”

“Fernando,” he said quietly. Not his usual quiet. This was ultraquiet, so low I was sure he didn’t want the fancy boy to hear us.

“I bet they have slides.”

“Fernando.”

His voice pulled on me. I looked him in the eye.

“This is sweet of you,” he said. “And I appreciate it. But I don’t need you to buy me clothes.”

“I didn’t say you needed me to buy you clothes.”

He was holding the T-shirt and the shorts all wrong, letting them hang from his hands like he didn’t know what to do with them.

“You helped me out,” I said. “The fashion advice, or whatever you want to call it. Let me pay you back.”

“Fernando,” he said again, this time with a note of exasperation.

“I want to do it.”

“Thank you, but no.”

“Why not?”

“I appreciate it. I do. You’re a generous person.”

“You wear the same shirt three or four times a week.”

“Fernando.”

“Your clothes all have holes in them.”

The fancy boy was drifting closer, drawn to the bloody chum of my rising voice.

“If you don’t like the style, fine. Pick out something else. Or we’ll go to another store.”

Zé turned to the fancy boy. “We’re ready to check out.”

“No,” I said. “We’re not. We’re having a conversation.”

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