“Except her actual father, who she lives with.”
I ignored that. “—and I forbid it. Did you hear him tell Indira her mashed potatoes could use some ‘loosening up’? My God, I almost vomited in my mouth from rage and terror.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but sometimes I think when you watch all thoseGeneral Hospitalreruns with Indira, it starts to slip into your vocabulary.”
“I think it’s all tied together, you see? I mean, in the span of twenty-four hours, Keme finds out the girl he’s desperately in love with is dating a total—” Fortunately, the sound of the shower swallowed up my words (which they would have had to bleep onGeneral Hospital). “And then he gets arrested, and he finds out there are plenty of people in town who think he’s rotten, and it was only a matter of time before he did something like this. And then you—”
I stopped myself. But not fast enough.
You know what I was talking about, how sometimes, when you love someone, you just know? I didn’t have to hear a pained exhalation from Bobby to know that one had hurt.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said.
“I know what you meant,” Bobby said. “I was there when they brought him in. I tried to get him to talk. He can’t trust me.”
“It’s not that he can’t trust you. And I don’t think you did anything wrong—jeez, Bobby, I did the exact same thing. But I think Keme lost all his solid ground, and he lost it in a day.”
“We all love him.” Bobby’s words had a strangely stiff sternness, as though he were correcting me. “We’ll make it up to him.”
I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair.
“What?” Bobby asked. “What am I missing?”
“I don’t know. Nothing. I mean, we do love him. And we’re going to try. But I think—” I stopped. Backed up. “I know this is going to sound dumb because I totally recognize and own that my life has been infinitely easier than Keme’s, but I think I understand, at least a little, what it’s like to grow up feeling like your parents aren’t there for you. I mean, I know it’s totally different—”
“Don’t do that. You don’t have to minimize it like that. You and Keme didn’t have the same lives, but I think you’re right: inyour own way, you know what it feels like to have parents who neglect you.”
I thought carefully about how to say what I wanted to say. I could feel that realization about Keme, the one that I’d been struggling with, slowly coming into focus. “One of the things it does is it makes it hard to form other relationships. I mean, obviously I’ve got you. And I’ve got friends. But I’m also me, and you know exactly what I mean.” The sudden tightness in my chest surprised me, and I hurried to say, “I’m worried that Keme might—might shut himself off, after being hurt like this. He’s had such a hard life already. He’s been hurt so many times. And somehow, through it all, he’s still this great kid. This great guy, I mean. And part of that is Indira. And part of that is you. But a lot of it—a lot of it is Millie. And I’m afraid that he’s going to decide he never wants to be hurt like that again, and he’s going to do what too many people do and find a way to bury the best part of himself because it’s safer.”
Silence answered me.
Then the shower curtain chimed on its rod, and Bobby stepped into the shower. He was still naked (see above about the casual nudity), and even without my glasses, I got the general idea—and it had its usual effect on me. His hair was out of its usual neat part, and the messy spill of it across his forehead gave him a decidedly rakish appearance that was at odds with the gravity of his expression.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting in the shower with you.”
The best thing that came to mind was “You can’t; you’re already clean.”
For a moment, that beautiful grin lifted the heaviness of his expression. He stepped closer—not that we had a whole lot of room—and his hands settled on my waist. He pulled me toward him. His arms slid around me, and the feeling of wet skin on wetskin knocked the wind out of me. In moments like this, when he seemed so in control, so certain, it was always disorienting when our bodies slotted together and I remembered that, somehow, I was taller than him. He ran his hand up and down my back.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly over the rush of the falling water.
I couldn’t say anything, but I thought, What if it’s not? What if this is it, and we lose the best part of him?
“You’re so kind,” Bobby said in that same voice, barely loud enough to be heard over the shower. “You’re so full of love for the people you care about. And I know it’s scary sometimes.”
Somehow, I managed to say, “I don’t want to be full of love. I want to be full of tacos.”
He laughed softly, his face turned into my neck, and then he kissed me on the jaw. His strong hand was still skimming across the warm, wet skin of my back.
Believe it or not, it was hard to think about Keme at that point.
“I was so scared when you called from the motel,” Bobby said, his face pressed into that spot where my neck joined my shoulder. “All I could think was that something terrible had happened to you. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”
“You didn’t lose me,” I said, my voice thick. These moments were so rare, when it felt like the walls dropped away and we could say everything we wanted to say—needed to say—to each other. “I’m fine. I’m right here.”
Bobby made a sound that was part contentment, part—well, I wasn’t sure what. Strain, maybe. “You’re so hot,” he whispered. “Everything about you turns me on. I can’t get over how beautiful you look with water running over you, the way your hair looks like this.” He pressed his mouth to my shoulder. “I love the way the heat of the shower brings a flush to your skin.” He kissed my ear next, and then he kissed a line down my neck—and my knees threatened to give out. “I love touching you like this. I never want to stop touching you.”
