Page 2 of Down Bad

He reaches for my hair.

For half a second, I think he means to caress it.

Then he pulls out a thorn.

Holds it between us.

“You always this careless with things that can hurt you?”

His question digs into somewhere unexpectedly sensitive.

I don’t know if he’s making fun of me, warning me, or actually concerned with my lack of care around sharp objects.

Like a floral knife.

Thorns.

His eyes.

“I … I don’t know what you want,” I whisper. Again with that unintended sensuality.

“Yes, you do.”

And before I can decide whether survival is still my priority, he leans closer, and his lips descend to mine.

—1—

Wyatt

The curtains are gone.

In their place: a set of ugly-ass lopsided blinds.

That’s the first crime Diego Valdez commits.

I knew about Diego before he arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Valdez—or Marcos and Lottie to anyone lucky enough to live next-door to the two of them—told me their nephew would be staying in their house until it sold. He’d look after it. Keep it alive. Tend the yard. Hopefully “get back on his feet” … whatever that meant.

“He’s a bit rough around the edges,” Lottie warned me.

That’s neighbor-speak for: something very bad happened, and despite how long we’ve lived next to each other, we are absolutely not telling you the whole dang story over apple crumble.

So I prepared myself to be kind. To exercise grace. To wear a smile and be my good ol’ neighborly self.

Then he ripped down the curtains.

I used to enjoy the sight of them every morning through my kitchen window, coffee in hand. Tiny blue flower print. Cheerful without trying too hard. I even helped Lottie pick them out three summers ago at a store in Fairview while poor Marcos followed us around, grumbling about getting back to Spruce in time for lunch before Biggie’s Bites got too crowded.

Now that window wears uneven blinds with the bottom half all bent and out of whack like some pissed-off cat had beef with it.

I guess everyone has the right to ruin their curb appeal.

Even if those blinds are an offense to God, Texas, and basic fucking geometry.

The second crime happens at four in the morning on Tuesday.

A car engine roars. I’m jolted awake so hard, my soul departs my body in sheer terror before I fall right out of my bed. I stumble to the kitchen window while scraping the sleep out of my eyes.

There he is: Diego.