Page 37 of Hot Mess Express
I look up at him, up his back. “Try.”
“Like everyone in the world’s on one side, and then there’s me on the other, and … and I can’t seem to … to …” He stops.
“Can’t seem to what?”
“Fuck this. Whole light needs to get replaced, and I ain’t cut out for that, I’m no electrician. No veterinarian, either. No soldier. Can’t even be a decent bachelor guy. All my work’s for nothin’. I’m such a useless p-piece of shit.”
I don’t know how much luck I’ve got left to press before he realizes who he’s talking to. “No, you’re not.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Doesn’t help anyone. Andyou shouldn’t be doing electrical work, anyway,” I add, getting more annoyed by the second. “You just said you’re not an electrician, so this isn’t safe. What are you trying to prove here anyway?”
“Prove …?” He twists around, struck by something, maybe the tone in my voice—and at last he sees me. “What the f—??”
His hand slips from the light on the ceiling.
Balance is lost.
As his body goes tumbling into me, I fling my arms out and grab hold of him—and down the both of us go to the floor.
I crash onto my back.
Anthony on top of me, in my arms, his fall broken.
We open our eyes together, and our faces are close.
Too close—waytoo close. Intimate-lovers close.
Yet neither of us move. Neither of us let go.
“Why you always gotta go ruinin’ my damned day?” he moans in my face, his sleepy blue eyes like wet crystals. “What did I do to you? Why do you hate me so fuckin’ much?”
“Why doyouhate you so fuckin’ much?”
Anthony stares back at me, speechless.
Barely an inch from my face.
Those frustratingly blue, intensely sensitive eyes I don’t think anyone in this town’s gotten a proper looking into.
Not the way I’m looking into them right now.
“I don’t …” Anthony’s breaths come short. He’s having trouble speaking. “I don’t want … don’t wanna do this. Not again. I’m tired. I haven’t slept in days. And I’m so … I’m … I-I’m so …”
“You’re so … what?” I ask, annoyed.
“Goddamn you, Bridger.”
He grabs hold of my shirt, aggressive suddenly, and I have no chance to prepare for the fist I know he’s about to throw at me.
But it isn’t a fist that comes for my face.
It’s his lips.
Crashing into mine.
Fully and intentionally.
