21. Kael
KAEL
After we leave Sharon and Walt’s, some noisy part of me finally shuts up. Though what’s left is quieter, it isn’t any kinder.
On the drive home, Jenny leans over the console and declares our sexual tension “palpable.” Ash decides the universe arranged it that way. I laugh, but the quieter voice in me knows the universe doesn’t hand out gifts. It runs a tab.
Maybe that’s true, but whatever sparked on the mountain is still hot enough for me to reply to Ash’s first text message, sent from two feet away, before we’ve even left the car.
Ash: Can I take you to dinner tonight?
“And you said yes?” Jamal asks, pacing my tiny studio behind me while I work.
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
After Jenny dropped me at home, I grabbed clean clothes, made myself date-presentable, and rushed to the studio. I haven’t left the easel since, and Jamal has been too busy grilling me about every minute since we last saw each other to get any of his own work done.
“No reason,” he says, so lightly it drags my gaze off the canvas.
He’s staring at the heap of clothes I tried on and rejected before landing on the shirt I’m wearing now. Then his gaze moves to me, to the brush in my hand, and back to the pile.
My chest tries caving in for reasons I’d rather leave unnamed. It’s my first day back in the studio, finally inside the zone I’ve been chasing for weeks, and still my hand twitches toward my collar under Jamal’s judgment.
“Do you hate this shirt?” I ask.
Jamal dips his chin, like the question proves his point. “You look amazing. You’ll be lucky if you make it to dinner, and honestly, I hope you don’t. Nobody douches for nothing.”
I scowl at him over my shoulder.
He misses it completely, too busy admiring my inspiration board.
“I’m just surprised,” he says. “You really never—”
My phone buzzes on my supply table, and my heart decides we’re off to the races.
It’s Ash.
His name fills the screen above a contact photo he must’ve taken when he put his number in my phone.
It’s crooked, from Sharon and Walt’s guest bed, with his face tilted at a terrible angle.
It’s an objectively awful photo that would disrespect photography as a medium if he didn’t look so happy in it.
Worse, I know that smile. I was sitting right beside him, typing my number into his phone, and that smile was because of me. If I’d thought to add a photo in his phone, mine might even look the same.
Jamal snatches my phone off the table.
“Hi. Ash?”
I drop the paintbrush and lunge. Jamal pivots, one arm fully extended to keep me away.
“This is Jamal, Kael’s best friend, studio-mate, and confidant. Yeah, he’s here.”
Jamal’s jokey keep-away expression cracks into a full smile at something Ash says.
“Oh, you’re out front?”
“Tell him I’ll be right down,” I say, deciding surrender and fake indifference will end this faster.
“So what fancy restaurant are you taking him to?” Jamal asks, perfectly aware that a night spending more than a single painting goes for is exactly the kind of date I’m dreading.
“Will you just tell him I’m coming down?”
Jamal’s eyebrows raise with sudden interest. “Oh. That sounds fun. Hang on, I’ll ask him.”
Jamal rests the phone against his shoulder, batting his eyelashes like any of this is funny and not just making me more nervous for something I never should have agreed to in the first place.
I’d only agreed because Ash and I were on some post-sex high, and because of the wildfire situation, and…
he’d been so sweet with Sharon and Walt. With me.
“Ash wants to know if he should come up to your studio.”
A clammy sweat breaks out on the back of my neck, and I rip the phone from where Jamal has it pinned to his shoulder.
“Ash?”
“Oh! Hi Kael.”
My heart stops racing. Just hearing his voice is enough for it to give up completely, deciding to lodge itself in my throat instead of reaching the finish line behind my ribs.
“I’m coming down right now.”
“Don’t want him in your studio?” Jamal whispers.
I flick him off, he blows me a kiss, and I head downstairs to meet my date, which is already enough to explain all of Jamal’s skepticism. Letting Ash pick me up from my studio is city blocks closer than I’ve let anyone come to my favorite place.
One more reason this is all one horrible mis—
Ash is standing at the curb in a purple slim-fit blazer, a black button-down underneath, tight black jeans, and dark brown leather boots.
His hair is more styled than I’ve ever seen it, not a drop of sweat or dirt anywhere.
Obviously we’d showered—together—so it’s not the first time I’ve seen him clean, but damn. He looks good.
And he’s beaming again, just like in the photo on my phone, one hand on the open door of a car I barely register.
Huh.
“Thought you didn’t have a car,” I say over the rush in my ears. Am I shouting?
He goes crimson, rivaling my kind of blush, shoulders creeping up toward his ears. “There was a mix-up on the rental app.”
I’m too busy marveling at the way his biceps bulge through the button-down and jacket. Maybe an undershirt too. I make it my personal mission to find out how many layers his arms are conquering before I finally notice what he’s gesturing to.
A lime-green Smart car.
Realizing I missed this citrus crime makes me snort. I can’t help it. Clapping my hand over my mouth does no good either. Ash has rolled up in an oversized tropical fruit we’re towering over just by standing on the sidewalk.
When I slide my gaze off it, Ash is staring at me practically looking out from the shell he’s made out of those incredible shoulders. And his jacket is purple. My god, the combo’s incredible.
“It looks like something you’d pick up and shake for loose change,” he says.
“They painted it radioactive green,” I say through another laugh. “And look. They gave it rims to make it look dangerous.” I catch the Zippy logo stuck on the side, and realize what’s happened. “You rented a car just for our date?”
He opens the door to reveal an interior even smaller than the futon in my dorm at ArtU, and I squeeze in while he explains.
“Buck’s waiting to be towed to the shop,” he says through the door as he walks around to the driver’s side.
“Tomorrow, right? I could’ve gotten us a rideshare, obviously, but then I couldn’t drive you home, and I know that’s very traditional gender-role nonsense, except I wanted to. Drive you, I mean. Pick you up. Not—”
He folds himself behind the wheel, knees almost hitting the dash, and gives me a helpless look.
“I couldn’t wait,” he says. “Kael, I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
Even if he takes me to some hoity-toity restaurant, this man is trying. Really trying.
“And I thought—”
I lean over, all of two inches, and interrupt his jitters with a kiss.
His hands wrap around my head as he kisses back, turning my quick peck into something deeper. His tongue slides against mine, and even packed in with my knees nearly to my chest, this isn’t close enough.
“I was thinking about you too,” I say, which is true, but a little more forward than I intended.
“God. Fuck it,” he says, and tries crawling over the center console, only for his foot to get stuck.
“Wait. Fuck the date? I still want the date.”
“No. Fuck my stupid rule.” He jams his foot firmly back in his side. “I thought maybe we should try having an actual date first. Talk. See if this still works when we’re not actively surviving a disaster or naked.”
“A rule,” I repeat, so he can hear it. “You asked me on a date and thought adding a hands-to-ourselves rule would be fun?”
“It sounds worse out loud.”
“Let’s do it.” I sigh. “This is your date, and if you want rules, then I’m in.”
“But now that you kissed me out of a tailspin, I’m not sure I want them anymore.”
“Too bad. Your dick doesn’t get a vote right now.” I tap the top of his head. “The real Ash is in there somewhere, clutching a calculator and trying to determine whether making out in a clown car violates the terms of his own date.”
I check his face, ready for a comeback, but he’s just staring at me. Smiling. Gone.
“That was a joke,” I add. “In case your calculator needs an annotation.”
“Ha ha. But you’re wrong. I’m still calculating. My cost-benefit just hadn’t factored in you looking like that.”
He leans in again, and I flatten against the passenger door, teasing him in a way that’s so silly it must be the reason my stomach’s fluttering and nothing else.
“Your rules, mister.”
He harumphs.
“Let the talking commence,” I say. “Where are we off to?”
He smiles, straightening with what I can only assume is the confidence of a man safely back on script.
“It’s a surprise.”
Ash turns the key, and the car gives a teeny whirrr-click sound accompanied by, of course, lime-green floor lights illuminating its entire foot-and-a-half of available floor space.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know Bay Bridge traffic is horrendous. It’s always hell, and tonight’s no different, except for the company. Ash keeps both hands on the wheel like the car might buck him off, and we muddle straight into my least favorite part of dating: the dating.
Like talking about the sunset. It’s so criminally first date. Except, stuck on the bridge, it’s breathtaking, fiery red blending into gold, the clouds going pink and lavender the farther they drift from the sun.
“Beautiful,” he says, and that’s all it takes for something so obvious to make me smile.
“Uh-huh,” I say, sure we’re thinking the same thing.
That brings us back to the fire, because recent trauma is our small talk. His impression of me with the chainsaw earns a cheap laugh. Then a real one when I hit back with his frozen-map navigation skills and the heroic way he almost let creek water ruin everything.
It’s all we have in common, and still, annoyingly, enjoyable enough for a date with the guy I survived with. I just don’t know where we go next. When our laughter quiets as we finally clear the bridge, I brace for the awkward stretch of car ride before some stiff five-course meal.
I glance over, worried he’s realizing the same thing, but Ash is still smiling.
“We’re lucky we get to put rose-colored glasses on all that,” he says, which is something I hadn’t let myself think about yet.
“I mean, how many people had their lives made worse by the same thing that made ours…” He swallows, eyes flicking to me and back to the road.
“Mine, at least. I’m just glad you’re here. ”
Okay. That is not helping with the fluttering.
The lime-green rental car. That outfit. His nerves.
The unfiltered honesty. From anyone else, it might be brutal to watch.
On the two-million-dollar man, it only makes me realize I’m treating this like a test when he’s treating it like something worth trying.
Even if this isn’t the person I’ll spend the rest of my life with—because let’s be real—I can at least spend tonight with someone who could be a friend.
Maybe.
With benefits.
The realization slips out as I have it.
“I’m glad I’m here too,” I say. “And I have to revoke my earlier jab at your talking rule. I think maybe it was a good idea.”
He reaches over like he’s going to squeeze my leg, then stops an inch above my thigh.
A quiet laugh escapes him as he pulls back, remembering his own ridiculous rule.
His dick has been in my mouth and my hand, and somehow the heat of him moving away without touching me feels like the most intimate thing we’ve done.
“So… what other rules do you have?”
He exhales through his nose, like I’m poking fun.
“I’m serious. This one seems smart, and you seem to have your life together, so?”
“I track my workouts in a spreadsheet,” he says.
“Knowing you, I can only imagine.”
“I never use credit cards.”
“That’s probably smart.”
“Whenever I’m on my computer for longer than twenty minutes, I try to look at an object twenty feet away for twenty seconds.”
“Okay. That’s borderline.”
“Are you enjoying this?” he asks.
“Kind of. I mean, none of that’s repulsing me, which I’ll admit is confusing. I think it’s your arms.”
He gives a casual flex, and all his layers somehow only make what’s underneath more enticing. Ash grins wider, while I become the car’s complementary color, and ball my fists to keep from automatically adjusting what’s happening in my lap.
“Your rule,” I say.
He looks back at the road and turns us onto some Oakland exit that holds our surprise date.
“I made another rule for tonight, actually,” he says. “Though this one’s just for me. I told myself I was going to be honest. So, yeah, I’m kind of embarrassed by what I just said, but if it had repulsed you, that would have meant something.”
And the fact that I’m still here means…?
“Well, I’m happy to report that you’re not repulsive,” I say, attempting to steer us back to lighter territory with a joke instead of matching his honesty.
He quickly adjusts himself, exactly like I’ve been trying not to do, and I’m suddenly anxious again for entirely different reasons from before I got in his car. Ash isn’t repulsive. He might be kind of… catastrophically sincere.
Thankfully, the glow radiating from my face can still be blamed on the flexing.
Even better, he pulls into a parking spot, and I realize we’ve arrived without me looking out the window once since we left the freeway. Through the windshield, a sign reads Roberta’s Kitchen.
Saved by the meal.
“So, what’s on the menu?” I ask, forcing a laugh and pointing to the sign like I’m not currently losing a war against my own body.
The place is small, tucked into a strip mall, and nothing like what I imagined Ash choosing for our first date. I’d prepared for something expensive enough to make me feel underdressed before we even reached the door.
“Hope you weren’t expecting to just sit and eat. That would have been so boring,” he says in a horrible Russian accent. “We get to make our own menu.”
He pauses to read my face, then fills in the details before I can panic properly.
“It’s a cooking class.” He shrugs. “If that’s… okay.”
“This is not what I expected,” I say, feeling the air charge between us when he turns off the car. “So. You can cook?”
“I’m afraid that’s the bad news that comes with this date. I’m a terrible cook. I just thought it might be fun.”
Ash isn’t showing off. It isn’t a bougie restaurant. He isn’t even good at this.
Boy, did I misjudge the night. And him. And maybe how much I’d enjoy both.
I lean in to kiss him, but this time he laughs and leans back against the driver’s-side door, leaving me to tell the charged air between us instead, “It’s perfect.”