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I can’t stop thinking about what happened to him the week he ghosted on me. Did he really say he saw this guy—his friend’s brother—shoot his dad? And he…what? Lost his mind and shot the guy in return? I don’t fully understand the story. Now I feel like I can’t ask.
I feel stupid standing in his kitchen in a woolly blanket, hugging myself as I watch him get a coffee cup out. My eyes move over the pink scar that wraps around his left hip and covers the lower left part of his back. For a moment, that question is on my tongue, but I lock it away. Not my business.
His lovely muscles ripple as he pours a packet of sugar into the mug. Then he turns more fully to me. “You can go.” He gives me this smile—it’s the smallest smile I’ve ever seen. “I’m okay. Sorry I uh…” He shakes his head, like he’s clearing cobwebs. “I don’t talk about it…ever, really.” Again, a little sad smile. Like he wants to reassure me everything is fine.
“C’mere.” But he doesn’t wait for me to do that. He steps to me quickly, just one stride and then he’s got his arms around me, hugging me against him. God, it feels good. It feels so good. I hug him hard, closing my eyes.
He squeezes tighter, so hard that it almost hurts. “I still love you, rosa. Sorry if I shouldn’t say it.” He swallows so his voice is less rough. “I want you to know that nothing…” He shakes his head. “That shit wasn’t you. You were perfect. I fucked up.” His chest swells on a deep breath as he squeezes me again. “I didn’t mean to. I never wanted to mess shit up for you.”
His hand smooths down the back of my hair, and I feel his lips brush my head. “You go be a damn good D.A. Do whatever you have to. Find somebody that’s not Jace, okay?” His hand rubs over my back. “Don’t keep running early mornings outside. I don’t think that’s safe enough now. I like to shadow you, since your detailing, but sometimes it’s really fucking cold.”
I pull back so I can see his face, and he’s got this crooked, half-abashed smile.
“You did that? Or…do that?”
He looks guilty but pleased.
“Every weekend?”
“And the holidays, once I caught on.”
“Is that why you got near me that morning? New Year’s?”
His eyes shut just for a heartbeat. “That morning…I fucked up. I thought I might”—he shakes his head—“say congratulations. Something.” He shakes his head once more. “Stupid.”
No, it wasn’t. “Why’d you have me slap you?”
He grins, looking rakish. “Just to feel it after I left.”
“Was anybody really watching that day?”
“I don’t think so.” He looks thoughtful.
“Why are you here this weekend?”
He hugs me again, less urgent and more gentle this time. I can’t help a little shiver at the way our bodies fit together.
“Go back next door,” he murmurs near my ear. “Don’t worry. Read a book…whatever you do by yourself when it’s so fucking cold out. Get under the heating blanket—your place got one of those old ones? Get a new one. I think the one I’ve got here is a fire hazard.” His face presses into my hair. “You won’t see me around again. I remember what you said that one time in the elevator.” He sounds almost like he’s teasing.
“Don’t remind me of the elevator. Please,” I whisper.
His lips press against my hair again. “I never even put Mederma on it.”
I look up to find him smiling like he’s teasing.
“I hate that it scarred.” I have to swallow back tears.
He pulls me closer than maybe he ever has, like he’s hoping we might merge into one form. “I hate that your sister…” He shakes his head. “That week. Talk about shit you hate…I don’t have any words, la mia rosa.”
“How’d you find out?” It’s a raspy whisper.
“I looked you up…when you were in college.” He breathes deeply. “Before that, I hadn’t known.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t. If you lived there…at that house,” I tack on awkwardly.
“Yeah, well, they didn’t tell me.”
I step back a little. He lets go of me, but finds one of my hands with his. He threads his fingers through mine.
“Not because of what you think, though,” he says.
“How do you know what I think?”
He shuts his eyes. “Isa was…worried. For me.”
“She was so ‘worried’ that she wouldn’t let you even hear about me?”
“It’s not what you think, rosa. Isa wanted me until she heard me—I would cry at night…with nightmares.” He presses his lips together, looks down at his bare feet for a moment. “She would come into my room. I wouldn’t let her touch me. Sometimes…in my sleep…I’d—I don’t know.” He rakes a hand back through his hair.
“I’d try to talk to you, or want you,” he says in a whisper. “You know. She’d come in, and she would ask me can she call you. I would always tell her ‘no.’ So she knew I didn’t want it. I was trying everything to stop it. When she heard about—” He shuts his eyes, like he can’t stay my sister’s name. “Roberto and her, they said they would keep it quiet. He was talking to your dad on the regular. All those shots were getting called, and it wasn’t by me.” He looks up at me, and his jaw is tight again, his face is locked down. “No one’s in control except the management. I was the fucking bus boy.”
