Page 79 of The Kiss Principle

“No, I meant—” I stopped. “You ass nut.”

He looked up at me. The Ray-Bans made it impossible to see those dark eyes.

“I miss you,” I said.

“I can tell. I’m surprised you weren’t hiding in the back seat of my car.”

I winced, but mostly for show. Then I sat.

He gave me another, longer look.

“You didn’t say no,” I reminded him.

“I didn’t say yes.”

“You’re not going to make this easy, are you?”

“What do you want, Fernando?”

“I want to apologize,” I said. And then my voice was too thick to continue. “I want to say I’m sorry. And I want to tell you I miss you. And I think I love you. Still.”

He put his hand on his forehead. Maybe like he was shading his eyes. Maybe like he had a headache. Maybe I was giving him a headache.

“You were right,” I said. “About a lot of things. About me. About how I’m living my life. Or not living it, I guess. About the—the shitshow I’ve got going with my mom and Chuy.”

It seemed like a long time before he gave a tiny shake of his head, and his voice softened into what I remembered as Zé’s voice. My Zé’s voice. “I shouldn’t have said those things. That wasn’t the time, and it wasn’t kind, and it certainly wasn’t my place.”

“But you were right,” I said. “And I needed to hear it. From you, I mean. Because it was your place, you know what I mean? You’re so important to me. And you’re the only person who I could hear it from, actually hear it.” He didn’t say anything, so I went on. “Chuy said I do this stuff—all this stuff with him, with Augustus, with my mom—I do it because I want to. God, that made me so angry. But, uh, I’ve been talking to someone, and I think, maybe, there might be a little truth to it. There’s a lot of shit with my dad I’m unpacking. Even more shit with my mom. Tubular shit.”

A startled laugh escaped Zé before he managed to stop it. His brows drew together like I’d tricked him somehow, and he said, “That’s not how you use tubular.”

“Well, I’m not a super-hot surfer bro, so I’m kind of playing it by ear.”

He pushed the glasses up onto his head. His eyes were the exact shade of brown I remembered. The red-tailed hawk. That last, final band of brown. He was watching me watch him, and something changed in his face: color coming into his cheeks, the lines of his mouth softening. He blinked and looked away.

“I’m glad you’re talking to someone, Fernando. I want you to be happy.”

“Well, I’m not happy because I fucked everything up with you, and you make me happy.”

He pulled his knee closer to his chest. He looked out at the water. Every inch of him was drawn so tight I thought he might snap.

“I’m sorry about everything, Zé. About my mom and how awful she was to you. About how I reacted when I went to pick up Chuy and you tried to help me see I was doing something stupid. But mostly I’m sorry that I was such a fucking shitheel when it came down to it. When my mom made that crack about us. When I found out about—”The drugswasn’t exactly the direction I wanted to take, so I settled for “—everything. I thought about that a lot. About how you lost all these people in your life by being yourself. I should have made sure you knew how important you were to me. How much I care about you. I should have told you I love you.”

I hadn’t meant to say those words. It had been so much easier to hide behindI think. But they popped out, and when I heard them, a flush ran through me, and fresh sweat broke out everywhere, and I had a panicked moment that I was going to be sick, puking on my hands and knees while Zé stared at those sassy tails on my back. But then it passed, and I felt…good. Open. Relieved.

He put his hand on his forehead again. The waves came in. The swash rode up the beach. Joel was still pounding his drum.

“I should have told you about…about everything,” he said, his voice clotted with emotion. “I should have told you that first day. But I was scared you wouldn’t give me the job, and I needed the money, and then I was so embarrassed. Embarrassed that I’d lied. Embarrassed that I was an addict. Embarrassed to tell you how lonely I’d been, and that the pills made it easier, and then they weren’t making it easier but I couldn’t stop, and I kept giving up one thing after another for those fucking pills.” His voice broke. His shoulders shook. I scooted closer and put my arm around him, and the T-shirt was hot against my skin.He jerked away, but I settled my arm again, and this time, he leaned into me. He kept speaking out toward the ocean, wiping his cheeks as tears fell. “And I knew about Chuy, and I knew how hard he’d made your life, knew how scared you were for him, and I couldn’t, Fernando. I couldn’t tell you. I liked how you looked at me. You’re so kind. You always treated me like I was special.”

“You are special,” I said. “I love you. Not because I think you’re perfect. I love you because you’ve worked so hard to build a new life for yourself after you lost everything. I love you because you’re so strong and calm and centered. I love you because you are such a fucking beautiful person, inside and out, that I feel like a human dumpster fire when I’m around you, but that’s okay, because I get to be around you, and that’s what matters. I love you even though you wear the same fucking Quiksilver shirt, like, eight days in a row, and I love you even though you have the absolute worst taste in TV shows—”

“I don’t even watch TV.”

“Exactly! And I love you even though you are the biggest goof on two legs. I love you because you are the biggest goof on two legs.” I had to blink my eyes clear. “I love you. And if you’ll give me another chance, I won’t let you down again.”

His voice was husky when he said, “I shouldn’t have run away. I’m sorry I did that. It was a lot. It brought back a lot. I’ve spent the last few weeks telling myself I did the right thing. I keep telling myself that I can do this on my own. That I don’t need anybody. That I’m better off alone. And you know what? I spent a lot of my life living a lie, and I know what it sounds like when I’m telling myself one more stupid lie.”

I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, my phone buzzed.

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