The Kiss Principle (Hazardverse: Sidetracks)

5

The drive home, parking, running into the house—they were all a blur. I was distantly aware of the flush of heat roaring through my body, the way my hands trembled, how far off the house seemed, like I was seeing it through a telescope. I had to try twice to get the key in the lock. Then the door swung open, and I stared.

He—whoever he was—was sitting on the couch, rocking the baby in his arms as he sang quietly to her. He glanced up at me, and some of that tumbling mass of hair hung in his eyes, but he didn’t speak. He turned his attention back to the baby, still singing. It wasn’t Spanish. Portuguese, maybe; it had the sound of Portuguese, anyway.

The song ended. With a grunt, he scooted forward on the sofa, shifted the baby to one arm, and used his free hand to get to his feet. He glanced at me again and then down at the baby. She was asleep, her tiny chest rising and falling slowly. When I held out my hands, he passed her to me, and I carried her into her room—Augustus’s room—and laid her in her crib.

He was standing by the door when I got back to the living room. I stared at him, trying to think of what to say. How to explain. To myself as much as to him. The exhaustion. The desperation. The brain fog.

But before I could put words together, the rush of adrenaline faded, and exhaustion rolled in. I rubbed my eyes, and a yawn caught me. That made him smile, but it was gone again in an instant.

And instead of anything I’d planned, what I said was “Holy Christ, I need a beer.”

“It’s nine o’clock in the morning.” The words were quiet and held that faint accent I’d heard the first time.

“You’re right. I need to smoke.” I found my vape and hit it. The spiky, earthy taste filled my mouth, and I held the vapor in my lungs for as long as I could before I blew it out again. I held the vape out to him, and he shook his head.

“I don’t think you should do that. Not in the house. Not with the baby.”

I scratched my eyebrow. “No,” I said, and a laugh unraveled inside me. “No, I guess I shouldn’t.”

And then it all hit me at once: Mom and Cannon and Chuy, the surprise of finding the baby, the disappointment, yet again, of giving in and giving up. The exhaustion of the last couple of days, the fog inside my head, the memory of standing there, staring at the two different car seats, trying to make a decision and wanting to cry because my brain seemed to have shut off. Everything from this morning, from the moment I’d opened the door and seen him standing there, and how badly I’d screwed up. I remembered being eight years old and Augustus wouldn’t stop screaming and I didn’t know what to do.

“So,” I somehow managed to say. “You’re not the nanny.”

He shook his head.

That ought to have made me laugh. “I thought—” But I had to stop because my throat tightened. I fought to get the words free. “I thought, you know—” I had to stop again, and I choked the last words out. “Wow, I am really fucking everything up today.”

He stared at me. He shifted his weight. I blinked to keep the tears from spilling. Tears, I had learned a long time ago, didn’t help.

The weed started to hit me, and that helped. The familiar waves of warmth rolled through me, and I could feel myself getting heavier, like my body was more solid. When I had myself under control again, I managed a rough “All right” and cleared my throat. “I’m sorry about that. About all of this. I’ll, uh, pay you for your time.”

He pushed back some of his hair, and his lips curved in a half-smile. “It looks like you need help.”

I barked a laugh. “I bet.”

“When was the last time you got some sleep?”

“Does it count if it’s when I’m in the shower?”

This time, I got the full smile, unrolling lazily across his face. “When was the last time you ate something that didn’t come out of the microwave?” He must have seen the question on my face because he shrugged. “I looked in the fridge.”

I shook my head.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll make you something.”

“Huh?”

“You need to eat something.”

“No. You don’t—huh?”

Hands on my shoulders, the touch light but confident, he steered me into the kitchen. After settling me in a seat at the table, he went to the fridge. He didn’t limp, not exactly, but each step seemed cautious. He rummaged around and came up with the bag of kale Mom used for her smoothies, some of those precooked strips of chicken Mom keeps around the house when she goes keto, and a bottle of lemon juice.

“Olive oil?”

“You don’t have to make me something to eat. I’m fine.”

He waited.

Eventually, I pointed.

After washing his hands, he went to work. He stripped the kale, and then he added olive oil and salt. He worked each piece of kale between his fingers. He had strong hands, the knuckles defined and prominent, and the oil glistened on his skin.

“What are you doing?”

“Massaging the kale.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s worked hard all week.”

“Ha.”

A smile turned the corner of his mouth as he continued to work. “It breaks down some of the fibers, makes it tender. And less bitter.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

When he finished with the kale, he washed his hands again. The sound of the water was pleasant, but it felt startling loud after nothing but the scrape of the bowl across the counter and the rustle of the kale between his fingers. He added some of the precooked chicken. Then lemon juice. Then more salt.

“It’s better if the lemon is fresh,” he said as he brought the bowl over to the table.

I took a bite. The lemon juice was a bright note against the richness of the olive oil, and although the kale was still bitter—he’d said less bitter, I reminded myself—it still tasted better than any kale I normally ate. The chicken tasted like refrigerator chicken, and all in all, it wasn’t a masterpiece of culinary invention. But it tasted clean, if that made any sense, and the simplicity was actually part of what made it so good. It probably didn’t hurt that the weed was working now—I wasn’t high, or not very, but every bite tasted so goddamn good.

Before I had time to feel awkward about eating in front of a total stranger, I had finished. At some point when I’d been devouring the salad, he’d sat at the table, and now he had his phone out and was looking at it.

“Thank you.”

He looked up and reached for the bowl.

“I’ll wash it,” I said.

“I don’t mind.”

I gripped the bowl. “No.” And then I forced myself to add, “Thank you.”

We sat there, silence filling up the space between us. I was full of salad (which was strange, considering it wasn’t even ten yet), and my body was clearly appreciating the protein and veggies, because I felt like I could put my head down and sleep for a week. The weed probably wasn’t hurting either. And he sat there, looking at me, not saying anything.

“Who are you?”

“Zé Teixeira. Well, José, but I go by Zé.”

“Why did you knock on my door this morning?”

His jaw tightened, and he looked at the floor. “I go door to door.” And then, in a rush, “Offering massages.”

“What, like the kale?”

His eyes came up.

I arched my eyebrows.

After a moment, a wry smile touched his mouth.

“For real?” I asked. “Door-to-door massages? Do you get a lot of customers at eight-thirty in the morning?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said drily. “Can’t start much earlier or the husbands are home.”

I raised an eyebrow.

A blush caught fire under the dark brown skin. “Oh God, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Uh huh.”

“No, I promise.” His blush deepened. “I’m gay.”

The pause was interesting, like he was building himself up to it. And the fact that it made him blush. This was southern California, and nobody cared if you were gay. They cared if you were ugly, and that definitely wasn’t this guy’s problem.

I gave him another look; now that I had some food in me, I felt like I was thinking clearly. Or more clearly, anyway. The board shorts had been expensive once, but they looked well worn. Same with the Baja jacket. He wore Hurley slides that were starting to crack along the sides. His feet were like his hands: big, masculine, strong. So, either he didn’t care about appearances (a possibility), or he didn’t have money. I thought about the beater he was driving. And I thought about the fact that he didn’t have a massage table, didn’t have a flyer or a business card to leave with prospective clients, about the fact that he was going door to door even though he’d clearly had some sort of surgery to his knee. All of which meant he was broke.

The baby started to cry. Zé pushed back his chair, but I waved for him to sit. I put the bowl in the sink and made my way to the baby’s room. She was unhappy about being wet, she told me—loudly—so I changed her. I rocked her for a few minutes in case she was ready to go back to sleep, but she kept crying.

“She might be hungry,” Zé said from the doorway.

“She’s always hungry.”

But we made our way back to the kitchen, and he sat again, wincing slightly as he stretched out his leg. He held out his hands, and after a moment of consideration, I passed him the baby. It would be easier to make the bottle while I wasn’t holding her, and—

And she stopped crying. Immediately.

“You son of a bitch,” I said. “What did you do?”

Zé wasn’t doing anything, as far as I could tell. He held her in the crook of one arm, her face resting against his chest. Looking up, he let out a quiet laugh.

“I’m serious. What the fuck kind of bullshit is this?”

He covered her ear with his free hand. “You can’t talk like that around a baby.”

“Fuck that. Trust me, she’s heard worse. How did you make her stop crying?”

“I didn’t make her stop crying,” Zé said. He rocked her slowly. “She just stopped.”

“Because you’re holding her.”

I got the full smile again. Almost a smirk.

“Fuck that,” I said again. “That is so fucking unfair.”

“Don’t worry,” he said softly, combing her hair with one finger. “She still loves her dad.” The grin flashed out again. “She just happens to also have great taste in men.”

“I’m not her dad,” I said. “She’s my brother’s. I think. It’s a long story.”

Zé was quiet for what felt like a long time before he said, “You’re taking care of her. I think that makes you her dad in any way that counts.”

“It makes me a sucker, that’s what it makes me.”

He looked at me, and I couldn’t read whatever was written in his eyes, so I turned my back on him and got the water running.

“You thought I was a babysitter,” Zé said.

“A nanny. Uh, manny. Look, I’m sorry. And I will pay you.”

“I have two younger sisters.” The words burst out of him. “And a younger brother. I know how to take care of babies.”

I turned around.

It was another new expression, a strange mixture of defiance and—what? Vulnerability? Fear? “I could take care of her.”

“Are you licensed?”

“Nannies don’t have to be licensed in California.” Some of that dark ruddiness came into his cheeks again. “I checked.”

“Are you a serial killer?”

He didn’t seem like the eye-rolling type, but he was clearly tempted. “And you need the help. You can’t do everything yourself.”

I opened my mouth, and then I closed it again.

He wasn’t wrong about that; the thought of reliving the last three days made me want to run into traffic. And while part of me knew that I could, in theory, do this—there were single parents all over the world who did this—another part of me realized that most of those people managed because they had some kind of support system. And what did I have? Chuy was gone, and even if he was here, I wouldn’t trust him alone with an infant. Mom would be gone for at least a week, and I still had a vivid memory of when Augustus, who was crawling, pulled her curling iron off the counter. The nanny service wouldn’t be able to provide anyone until the end of the month, and that’s assuming whoever they found was willing to take a long-term position with me. Zé, at least, seemed unfazed by my particular brand of crazy.

You already left her alone with him, I thought, and what did he do? He got her ready for her nap, like you told him. He rocked her. He sang to her. She wouldn’t stop crying until he held her again. And he was worried about you. He made you a salad. When was the last time anyone did anything for you?

“Please,” Zé said, his voice small. His shoulders curved in, and he looked as tired as I felt. With something like a start, I realized he was young. He might not have been any older than Augustus. He must have taken the silence as a negative, and it was like a cloud moving across his face. His voice was stiff, as though he were fighting for every word. “I need this.”

I thought about how early he must have gotten up so he could drive out here from wherever he lived. About going door to door. Making his pitch over and over again. And, if they said yes, the casual humiliations. He was handsome. Plenty of people would expect more than a massage. I thought about what I’d want someone to do if it were Augustus.

“You have to pass a background check.”

“Yes.” His voice was husky with emotion. “Of course.”

“Fingerprints, the whole deal.”

“I can do that. I’ve never been arrested. I’ll pass. I promise I’ll pass.”

“Drugs?”

“Huh? Oh, no. I don’t use anything.”

“Not even weed?”

“You offered me a vape.”

“I asked you a question.”

“No, not even weed.”

“A Xanax you got from your friend, and it’s only this once, and you need it to calm down. You never do addies, but you’re so tired, and so this one time it’ll be okay. You hurt your back, and your mom never finished her pain pills from when she had surgery.”

He shook his head. “I don’t use any drugs.”

“I’m serious, Zé. If you’re on a prescription, we can talk about it, but otherwise I do not want that shit in my house. I don’t want any connection to that shit. It’s bad enough my brother—” But I stopped myself. “This is your last chance.”

His face was hard, and I realized, with a kind of shock, how much I’d pressed him. “I don’t use.”

“All right. Then we’ll see about the background check.” I didn’t know how to do one myself, but I knew someone who did. “I can pay you twenty dollars an hour, and I’d need you here from eight to five on weekdays.”

His jaw sagged. And then, maybe because he didn’t have anywhere else for the emotion to go, he hugged the baby to him and nodded as a tear slid down his cheek. He shouldered it away. He was smiling, and he didn’t seem to know it, and somehow, that made the smile go through me like an arrow.

“Thank you. Thank you. I’m going to take such good care of—”

He hesitated and looked up at me.

I stroked the baby’s hair, and my fingers brushed his. I didn’t mean to say it; a part of me knew I was making a mistake. But the words slipped out anyway. “Isabela. It was my grandmother’s name.”