Page 73 of The Kiss Principle

“You know he doesn’t do Botox.”

“Don’t think I missed that fucking tank top. I’m burning it before you leave.”

“I swear to God I told Theo you were going to say that. I even recorded it. I’ll play it for you later.”

“Where is your pet dinosaur?”

“He couldn’t take off work.” Augustus cooed as he ran his hand over Igz’s head, and because she’s completely heartless and treacherous and has absolutely zero loyalty, she smiled at him. “He said I should come by myself. Believe it or not, he didn’t even turn on the tracking app on my phone.”

“He has a tracking app on your phone?”

Augustus looked at me.

I subsided into the couch, muttering, “I knew it was a joke.”

“This,” Augustus said in a baby voice to Igz, “is why we’re going to have to take you to Missouri. To get you away from all the crazy.”

I tried to hit him, but he used Igz like a shield (coward), and he was giggling, and Igz was smiling, and I had to think of something, so I said, “You need some coffee,” and then all I could do was stand at the sink, my knuckles aching as I wrapped my fingers around the stainless-steel apron. I looked at a far-off point of dusty green on the side of the valley. I tried to breathe normally.

I didn’t hear him come into the kitchen; when he touched my back, I flinched.

“Fer,” he asked quietly, “what’s going on?”

I told him. We ended up on the couch, coffees forgotten, and I went through all of it. As much as I could, anyway. I couldn’t tell him about Mom, not all of it. And not everything with Chuy. Not that horrible thunk when Igz had fallen. Not coming home, again, and finding her crying in her swing.

I didn’t tell him about Zé, either. The rational part of my brain knew that Augustus, more than anyone, would be unfazed by the fact that (it turns out) I apparently enjoyed the occasional dick. After all, I’d been the parenting genius who had once told him sexuality was like a buffet, and he ought to try as much as he wanted. He would have been annoyingly excited, of course, and unbearably supportive. He would have listened.

But the part of me that had spent my whole life protecting him with shadows and half-truths and evasions and outright lies, the part of me that had built him a better world to grow up in—that part of me wasn’t ready to tell him. Because even though the rational part of me knew he’d be happy for me, it felt like too much. Like a burden. And, if I were being honest with myself, I’d already cried three times since he got home, and I was sick of feeling vulnerable.

“I knew something was wrong,” Augustus said when I finished. “I knew it. I told Theo the minute I sent you a picture of those sneakers with the Swarovski crystals all over them and you didn’t blow up, I knew something was wrong.”

I barely remembered the message he was talking about—some sort of hideous, crystal-encrusted sneakers he’d pretended to want for Christmas. “I’ve been busy.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He bounced Igz on his knee. “Do you think that manny was stealing from Mom?”

“Jesus Christ, Augustus.”

“What? I’m asking.”

“No. If I had to bet, I’d say that underage micropenis took her shit while they were fighting and then tried to cover for it when they made up again.”

“But the manny could have—”

“It wasn’t Zé.” I tried to bring down the volume of my voice. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure, okay.” But he was looking at me differently, and I didn’t know why. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll be fine, Augustus.”

His smile was silver and darting. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Because you had your foot in a diaper bag when I showed up today. And your hair—uh, when was the last time you washed your hair? And you don’t have any food in the refrigerator. And—”

“All right. I get it. I didn’t know you were coming, you ungrateful excuse for a stool sample. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a fucking cake.”

Augustus gave me another of those un-fucking-bearably adult looks and took out his phone. He placed a call and said, “Hey. Yeah, everything’s okay. I made it to the house. I slept a little, yeah. How are you? How’s Lana?” And then thetreacherous little weasel cunt said, “I’m going to have to stay out here for a while. Um, everyone’s okay, I guess. Fer squirted out a baby.”

---