I grind my back molars as he carefully backs out of the parking space and pulls out of the property. Within seconds, we’re on a back road, with nothing around us but dark sky and hills covered with green trees.
Nacho is silent, and I take my fill of him as he drives into the night. He’s got his elbow propped on the door, leaning his head onto his fingers as he steers with his right hand. Here, in this atmospheric almost-blue light, he again reminds me of an editorial model, mysterious and brooding, his tattoos lending a sense of danger.
I’m heavily tattooed, yes, but I look like a hipster who wandered into a courtroom. He looks like he’s broken laws. Like danger and orgies wrapped in sexy brown skin and impossibly thick black hair.
He glances in my direction with pursed lips and judgment in his dark, knowing eyes. I feel like a kid caught masturbating, shameful with desire.
Refocusing on the view outside, I try to come up with something to say for myself, only to be met with internal silence. I let out a frustrated groan, unaccustomed to this inability to find the right words. Finally, as though we’re already halfway into the conversation, I stumble forward with a crude confession through clenched teeth.
“This thing between us turns me on. Not talking about it makes me hard every time I see you.”
Met with silence, I glance over as Nacho scrubs his jaw.
“Yeah.”
Yeah? What does that even fucking mean? Yeah, he sees it when I get hard? Yeah, he feels it too?
Yeah,what?
“Use my name, Ignacio.”
Rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, he starts with the Spanish curses, then ends with, “You are un-fucking-believable.”
“Ignacio, please,” I press, needing it more than I can admit.
He sighs. “Yes, Dr. Barlowe. It is a turn-on.”
“It’s not just about the sexual tension,” I admit, finally using the words that describe these last several months since I first saw him at Wild Heart. “It’s about…I see how hard you work. How hard you try. Even with setbacks, it’s like you’ve already got the goal in mind, and you’re not going to let anything stop you. When I see where I can direct you, where I can help you to make better choices…”
My words trail off.
“Yes, Dr. Barlowe?” he nudges, disrespectful even as he gives me a glimmer of hope.
Grinding my jaw, I admit, “It’s very satisfying.”
“Satisfying how, Dr. Barlowe?” Nacho asks, smirking. “Does it satisfy you sexually?”
It would if I let it.
“Maybe, but it’s also fulfilling in a way I don’t often get in my line of work.”
I dart a look in Nacho’s direction just as his brows meet in the middle.
“You don’t find your work fulfilling? I mean, Lyle Underwood is doing some volunteer work with us before school, and they said you helped them understand it was okay to be masc-presenting and yet know oneself to be nonbinary. Hell, they’re out there helping others because you suggested our little community outreach project to them. You’ve changed their whole perspective.”
I shake my head. “At best, it’s half me, half my brother, which is why we work so well together. That partisfulfilling. I’m thrilled with Lyle’s outcome. But for every Lyle, there are, I don’t know…fifteen Ants,” I say, then curse under my breath. “Please forget I said that.”
“What’s wrong with Ant? He shows up to work on time, works his ass off, and he’s part of our community projects too, you know. He’s a good egg.”
“He is…” I hesitate. “Good.”
“That’s a ringing endorsement from someone who can’t even get him to go to therapy.”
“Shut up,” I grumble, unwilling to discuss the troublesome things I see in Ant’s eyes.
I’ve blurred and crossed so many lines it makes me dizzy, but another admission tumbles out of my lips.
“The limitation of therapy is that I can’t stitch people back together. At best, I’m the person informing them that, after everything they’ve been through, they are the ones who have to do all the heavy lifting. I’m not supposed to say this, but I wonder if that’s not giving them false hope. Some of these people…I don’t know if recovery is fully possible.”
