“What do you mean?” I ask, slowly.
“I mean he told me I had ten minutes to pack anything I wanted to take with me, then drove me to a cheap motel by the train yard in Norfolk, took my house keys, and dropped me off. He paid for three nights and told me that if I used that time to detox, I could come back home at the end.”
I’ve never met Javier’s dad and Paloma’s made oblique references to something pretty bad that happened, but I didn’t know exactly what until now. I know I’m staring at Javier in silence, but I can’t quite wrap my head around it.
“And your mom…let him?”
Javier shrugs and looks away. “He wouldn’t tell her where he’d taken me at first, and by the time he did, I’d already gotten kicked out of the motel and I was…staying with a friend,” he says. “And it’s not like he knew any of the people I hung out with, and I wasn’t going to beg to come back home, so I drifted around for a few months.” He swallows, still not looking at me. “Eventually I wound up in Richmond, overdosed, the hospital notified my mom, and I went back to rehab. And she still thinks that I owe him respect or affection orsomethingjust because we’re related.”
“Oh,” I say, otherwise at a loss for words. I knew some of the story—that he overdosed and went to rehab—but not the whole thing.
“They got divorced after that,” he goes on and shrugs. “And then my mom met Gerald, and now everything is perfect, only my dad doesn’t understand why I need some space. Salad’s done.”
“Thanks,” I say, and have no idea whatelseto say because that deserves something and I don’t know what. “I mean, I’d need space, too.”
“I know it’s a lot,” he says and then smiles over at me, like that’ll erase everything. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I usually am. Are we doing plates or bowls?”
We spenddinner talking about koi and goldfish—goldfish are small koi, it turns out, not the other way around—about weird plates we’ve inherited from family members, about how we both have a T-shirt for the same 5k that neither of us ran. By the end, our dishes are pushed aside and we’re still talking, Javier sprawling in his chair and tracing designs on the table with onefinger. It’s callused, one knuckle ink-stained. Under the table, our ankles are touching, and neither of us is drawing back.
“I should probably hit the road,” he says, low and slow. He taps the side of his thumb against the table. There’s a scar on it, diagonal, between the nail and the knuckle. It’s slightly raised, and I wonder if I could feel it with my tongue if I put it in my mouth.
“What happened here?” I ask, like he didn’t just say he was leaving. I lean forward and trace the tip of one finger along the scar.
Javier stills and flattens his hand on the table. “You know, I don’t remember,” he says after a moment. “Looks like I got in the way of a blade, maybe? Happens more than I’d like to admit.”
“Right,” I say, and I’m still tracing it. I’m blushing, and now I feel like an idiot, allOoh, tell me about your scarswhen he’s just trying to leave. Which, obviously, I also want him to do. Dinner is finished, he’s gotta leave and go home, andwe are stepsiblings for fuck’s sake?—
“This one was Zorro,” he says, and he flips his hand over, palm up under mine. Two pale, raised lines slice down his wrist. I put my fingertips on them, and now his thumb is brushing the side of my wrist. Deliberately, back and forth, the callus a little scratchy. “My cat. He was still a kitten. I wanted to pick him up, and he disagreed.Everyonewas very concerned for weeks after.”
“What a dick,” I say, his skin hot under my fingertips, and Javier laughs softly.
“Yeah.” I can hear him pause, then inhale. I finally find the nerve to look up at him. “I forgot to tell you—I like your hair. I liked it when it was pink, too.”
“I change it up sometimes.” I’m leaning farther forward despite myself. This is stupid, I probably look desperate right now, and I wish I were wearing something lower-cut and, I don’t know, seductive. “Keep it interesting.”
“That’s not why you’re interesting,” he says. “Is it as soft as it looks?”
Fuck. Fuck. No. Donot. “You want to find out?”
He goes still again. His callused thumb presses into the side of my wrist. If I were malleable, he’d leave a thumbprint. It’s too bad I’m not because right now he’s looking at me all sharp and leonine, the held-breath stillness of a predator waiting to strike. I should do something to cut this off, like make a joke or get up and put the dishes in the dishwasher or just—leave.
Instead, I bite my lip. His eyes flick to my mouth, and his fingers curl around my wrist, warm and strong. Not a hold, but a question that expects the answeryes.
“C’mere,” he says, low and soft and gentle.
There’s a split second where I wonder what he’d do if I slid out of my chair and crawled to him. Whether he’d take it in stride or run screaming or maybe just tell me to get up. But I’m not sure I want to be on my knees, so I stand, and so does he, his chair scraping back over the tile. His hand doesn’t leave my wrist, but he lifts his other hand and his blunt fingers slide into my hair, then over my scalp.
I don’t moan, even though someone else playing with your hair is one of the top five best feelings in the world. My eyelids flutter, though, when I fight the urge to close them as his fingers move.
“This okay?” He sounds calm and collected, but he’s wild-eyed, pupils blown, cheeks flushed, the hollow of his throat moving with every breath.
“It’s good,” I say, and I swear his flush deepens.
Then his other hand is in my hair, too, stroking through. There’s a cold spot on my wrist where his fingers were. I have to fight to keep my eyes open.
“Still good?”
“Still good.”
