The Kiss Principle (Hazardverse: Sidetracks)

12

When we got home, Mom and Cannon were gone. I pulled into the garage and got out of the Escalade. Zé limped around to meet me, pain shadowing his face until he saw me. Then it vanished like a magic trick, and I wondered how long he’d been doing that, how long he hadn’t been letting me see.

“Go sit down,” I said.

“I’m fine.”

I worked on the buckles. Igz was staring up at me with her dark eyes.

“It stiffened up on the ride back.”

“Go sit your ass down before I have to yell at you again!”

Four on the roar scale.

He was laughing as he went inside. Not loud, but I could hear him.

But when I rescued Igz from a million straps that seemed like they were actively trying to behead her, I found Zé in the kitchen, pulling out a cutting board.

“Hi,” I said. “You might remember me from such tender moments as shouting at you in the garage and screaming at you in front of a surf shop.”

“Don’t forget that time I made you eat radicchio.”

“It’s purple, Zé. Nobody in their right fucking mind eats things that are purple.”

“Actually—”

“Go sit down!”

That one was closer to a seven. Igz started to fuss, and Zé frowned. He reached for her.

“Believe it or not,” I said, “I can take care of her for five minutes. Let’s get you on the couch—do you want an ice pack?”

“But I’m fine—”

“Love to hear it,” I said as I steered him—gently—toward the living room.

When I planted him in front of the couch, though, he didn’t sit. “How are you going to make dinner while you’re holding Igz?”

“In the first place, you do that every day.”

He opened his mouth.

“Every day, Zé. And in second place, she’s got a swing, or I can put her in her pack-and-play, or I can even put her on a blanket on the floor. See how resourceful I am?”

“I’m getting a lot of masculine energy from you right now. Is this how you sound when you talk about tools?”

“And in the third place, I’m not making dinner, pigeon-dick. I’m going to order us dinner. On my phone. Which I can use with one hand.” I took a deep breath and smiled. “Sit down. Igz and I will get you an ice pack.”

The struggle showed in his face. Finally, he said, “Maybe I’ll soak it in the tub for a few minutes.”

“That sounds great. Now I won’t have to murder you.”

“Somebody else might find this confusing, just so you know.”

“José, I swear to God, I am this close.”

That slow smile, the one I thought of as mine, spread across his face. He put a hand on my arm to steady himself, bent to kiss Igz, and then limped toward the bathroom. I watched him go. I wasn’t a card-carrying member of Homo eroticus like Augustus, but let me tell you, those board shorts weren’t doing his ass any favors.

You might be shocked—shocked!—to learn that Zé had thrown away all my takeout menus, even the good one from Imperial Kingdom, and that one still had a coupon on the back I hadn’t used. I thought about getting Imperial Kingdom without the coupon—or, maybe pizza, since it had been approximately an eternity since I’d had pizza. (Okay, to be fair, that’s not including all the meals with doctors when I cheated, which Zé didn’t need to know about, although, come to think of it, he probably did.)

After a few minutes of pulling my pud, though, I found a Greek place that delivered, and I ordered us some salads and, because I’m a hardass motherfucker alpha male, and nobody tells me what to do, a side of falafel.

I was rocking Igz when I heard the thud from the bathroom, and then Zé’s pained cry.

It took me approximately ten seconds to get Igz into her swing and sprint down the hall. I swear to God, I’m not sure my feet touched the floor. When I threw open the door, Zé lay on the floor. He was wet and naked, and whatever I’d seen (and, more vigorously, imagined) during my spank sessions, it was nothing compared to having the real thing in front of me. His body was defined and masculine and healthy and young. He had muscles that would probably never see the light of day again on my body. Everything seemed to register at once: the hint of tan lines, the dusting of dark hair on his thighs, the rose-brown of his nipples. And his dick, yes, because God help me, I looked.

But it all happened in an instant, because he sounded like he was hyperventilating, or about to cry, each inhalation ragged, and he was still lying on the floor.

“Are you okay? What—”

That was when I caught a look at his face, and I remembered the night I’d figured out he was sleeping in his car: when he’d stumbled and, for a moment, he thought he’d hurt his knee. That was nothing compared to this. This was unadulterated panic, his face blank and registering only that all-consuming fear as he lifted his head, trying to get a better look at himself.

I yanked a towel down and dropped to my knees next to him. He was still doing that awful breathing, still trying to sit up, so I said, “Hey, hey, Zé!” His eyes cut toward me, but I wasn’t sure he was seeing me. I shook out the towel and laid it over his waist—I mean, the cat was out of the bag, so to speak, but I figured I didn’t have to sit there and drool over him. He was still trying to sit up, so I put a hand on his chest. He was warm, his skin still slick with water from the bath, and I thought I could feel his heartbeat going a hundred miles an hour. “Hold on,” I said. “Don’t move for a minute.”

After another moment, I could see him behind those glassy eyes. He was still sucking in those panicked breaths. “My knee—”

“In a minute,” I said. I slid my hand behind his head and probed around. “How hard did you hit your head?”

“Oh God, my knee.”

“José,” I snapped. “How hard did you hit your head?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. I couldn’t find anything worrisome on the back of his head. Not even a bump, actually. I rubbed his chest with my free hand.

“Slow down,” I said. “Slow, slow. We’re going to take care of your knee in a minute.”

He nodded, and slowly, his eyes opened. Tears spilled down his cheeks, and his voice was thready as he said, “I didn’t hit my head.” He gestured. “I caught the toilet like this—” He threw out his arm. “—and it slowed me down.”

“Okay, that’s great. Where’d you take the fall, then?”

“My arm,” he said. “And my ass.”

I checked his arm. There was no visible sign of a broken bone, but since I’d loaned my X-ray specs to Augustus when he was seven and (big surprise) never gotten them back, I couldn’t tell for sure. “Do you think something’s broken?”

He shook his head.

“Do you want me check your ass? That was a joke, sorry.”

“Fernando, my knee. Oh God.”

I shushed him. Together, we got him into a sitting position, propped up against the tub. I looked at his knee. Aside from the scar, though, there wasn’t anything I could see. I took out my phone and then realized I had no idea what to Google. “What was the procedure?”

He had both hands over his face, and his chest was still rising and falling more rapidly than I liked, but he sounded surprisingly steady when he said, “ACL reconstruction.”

“Okay. Let’s see what Dr. Google has to say.”

Well, it turned out, not a whole lot. Most of the articles were about the actual process of injuring your ACL, which usually involved a fall.

“Let’s get you to the ER,” I said.

He dropped his hands. “Fernando, no.”

“Zé, yes.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t afford it.”

“Don’t worry about that right now; we’ll figure it out.”

“No.”

“It won’t be charity. We can find a way—”

“No!”

It was the first time he had yelled at me. He was trembling—and, I noticed, about to cry again.

“Okay,” I said. “No hospital.”

“I need to—” He twisted around like he wanted to get up. “I need to get to my room.”

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m—”

“It was a rhetorical question.” He reached for the side of the tub, like he might push himself up, and I caught his hand. “Unh-uh. Nope.”

“Fer—”

“If you don’t want to go to the hospital, that’s fine. Actually, it’s not, but I’m quickly running out of fucks. But I don’t want you dragging your lanky ass all over the house, fucking up your leg in the meantime.”

He wiped his eyes. I wasn’t sure a single word had made it through his panic.

“Just wait a minute,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Okay?”

He nodded and wiped his face again. He clutched my hand.

I found Kennedi James in my contacts and placed the call. It rang a few times, and then a woman’s husky voice said, “You’d better not be trying to make an appointment.”

“God, I wish. I’m sorry to bother you, but I need some advice. Do you have a minute?”

“I’ve got hundreds of them. I’m stuck at the clubhouse playing nice while Duncan schmoozes on the golf course. I swear to God, if this bitch tells me one more time about how hard it is to find the right nude for her skin tone, I will not be liable for my actions.”

“Uh huh. Sorry, listen, I’m in a weird spot and I’m kind of in a rush. My friend had an ACL reconstruction—how long ago?”

I could see it in Zé’s big brown eyes when he thought about lying to me, but then he sagged against the tub and whispered, “Five and a half months.”

I repeated it into the phone.

“How’s his recovery going?” Kennedi asked. “How much is he using his cane?”

The question didn’t seem to make any sense. And then I saw the look on Zé’s face, the way he closed his eyes like that might make him invisible, and I knew.

“He’s not using a cane,” I said. I thought about all the days we’d gone on walks. All the times I’d come home and found him and Igz nesting in the living room, with everything they might possibly need gathered in one spot. So he wouldn’t have to get to his feet. I thought about how I’d dragged him up and down Laguna Beach today. I felt like I was listening to myself from a long way off when I said, “At all.”

“Well, that’s stupid. I mean, he should be weaning himself off it, but it’s not like he needs to go cold turkey. Okay, what’s going on?”

“He fell, and we’re worried he damaged the reconstruction.”

“Take him to the ER.”

“Right, I know. We’re working on that. But is there anything we can do to check, you know, right now?”

Her silence lasted a beat longer before she said, “Does he have any pain in his knee?”

I asked Zé.

After a few tentative movements, shifting around, he shook his head.

“All right,” Kennedi said. “What about his range of motion?”

Zé raised his leg, flexed his knee, extended it, and repeated the whole process a few more times. Finally, he said, “I think it’s okay.”

“What about looseness? Does he feel any instability?”

It took both of us to get Zé to his feet (and, yes, you pervert, he managed to keep the towel around his waist). He took an experimental step. Then another. I’ve never seen somebody facing a death sentence, but watching hope rise in his face, I thought I might have an idea what a man being pardoned might look like. He smiled at me, and it was like the sun coming up. And then the tears came again, and he leaned against the sink and covered his eyes.

“Those would be my main areas of concern,” Kennedi said, “but you should still get him checked out.” She hesitated. “Why don’t you bring him by the office on Monday?”

“That would be amazing.”

“I’m charging you an exorbitant rate.”

That made me laugh.

“And I want lunch, Fer. At Di Bello’s.”

“Done. You got it.”

“Wonderful. Now stop bothering me; I’ve got to go accidentally tell this bitch we bought a villa in Tuscany.”

“You bought a villa?”

“God, no. Duncan is way too cheap. But she won’t know that.”

The call disconnected. In the silence that came after, Zé’s ragged breathing seemed to take up space in my head. He was wiping his cheeks now, trying to get himself under control. He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

“Let’s get you in your room,” I said.

“I can—”

Whatever he saw on my face made him stop.

I kept an arm around his waist as we shuffled into his room. I sat him on his bed.

“Clothes?” I asked.

“My joggers,” he whispered, face turned down, but he pointed to the dresser. “Bottom drawer. A tee.”

The joggers had split at one seam, of course. The tee showed a shark eating a surfboard. I threw them on the bed, and he flinched.

“Do you want help getting dressed?”

He shook his head.

“Where is your cane?”

“Fernando—”

“Where is your fucking cane?”

His voice was even smaller when he said, “In my car. In the trunk.”

“Keys.”

I thought, maybe, he was going to argue. Going to try to tell me he didn’t need it. Maybe say something stupid like, I’m fine . But he pointed to the dresser again, and I scooped the keys off the top.

In the doorway, I paused. “Do you understand what’s going to happen if I find your ass anywhere but on that bed when I get back?”

He nodded.

I found the cane in his trunk. He needed this. He was supposed to be using this. And instead, for weeks now, he’d gone without because—why? Because he’d thought I’d fire him? I stood there, holding on to the car, as black spots whirled in my vision. I couldn’t get enough air. My heart pounded. Sweat broke out across my chest and back. What if he’d hurt himself? What if he’d made it worse? What if it wasn’t the fall that messed up his reconstruction? What if it was a month of pushing himself? And then, more clearly, I thought, What about PT? Maybe he’d gone on the weekends, maybe, but I knew he hadn’t.

When I got back to his room, he’d managed to pull on the joggers and the tee. The wet towel hung from the headboard. I put the cane next to him and stepped back.

He still wasn’t meeting my eyes, but he opened his mouth.

I spoke first. “I’m going to tell you a few things, and I don’t want to hear you talk.” I struggled to master my voice. “We’re going to Kennedi’s on Monday, and she’s going to look at your knee. She’s an excellent orthopedic surgeon.”

Zé’s head came up. “No—”

“What did I say about not talking?” He shrank back at my shout. A few more long moments passed as I fought for control. “After that, you’re going to PT. Regularly.” I could hear myself, how short and shallow my breaths were. Once more, I tried for control, but it slipped away. “You could have gotten hurt! You could have hurt Igz! What the fuck were you thinking?”

He wiped his eyes again, but I couldn’t tell if he was crying. The silence grew and grew.

I left and shut the door.