8. Chapter 8
Chapter 8
J ulio found Naz in the morning. Meg had already gone back to the trailer, so it wasn’t like he caught them together or anything.
Naz wasn’t sure Julio would care. Maybe he found cuddling with Meg as annoying as listening to her talk.
Cuddling? Naz’s thoughts slowed. Was that what they’d done?
Julio seemed to be in a good mood. He even smiled. “Your boss called. Check your texts.” He slapped Naz’s arm. “Too bad. We could have used you today with the dealers coming, but jefe said not to say no to Rodriguez. He wants to be on your boss’s good side.”
Julio was already strolling away.
Naz dragged out his phone.
‘Take the bike to Diego.’ An address was under Ramiro’s words.
He should have expected that response to his message the night before. The motorcycle did need to be looked at. It hadn’t felt right.
But Naz didn’t want to leave.
‘It’s fine.’
‘Liar.’
Ramiro was a quick typer. His response was almost immediate. The dots appeared again.
‘Diego needs a break.’
Guilt twisted in Naz’s chest. He’d been too self-focused. If it was about Diego, then it couldn’t be helped.
‘You do too.’ Ramiro’s additional text made him rub a hand over his head. The scrape of hair against his palm was distracting. He needed to shave it.
Naz shoved his phone into his pocket without arguing again and went out to his motorcycle.
The thought that he hadn’t seen Meg that day didn’t help. It was good if she was hiding out in the trailer and staying out of Julio’s way. Leaving her there didn’t sit right, though, and he considered asking Julio if he could take her with him.
Which wouldn’t work. No way Julio wanted her to go off alone with Naz. It’d also mess up Diego’s gig.
Naz drove off on his motorcycle without looking back.
Diego’s hair looked even messier than usual when he greeted Naz inside the surveillance house. He was also normally more of a talker, but Ramiro must have been right about him being on edge. He didn’t say much before grabbing the helmet and taking the motorcycle out on a test drive.
Naz moved inside to sit in front of the screens. Diego was into tech. He’d tried to explain it to Naz, but the explanations made his head hurt.
Watching the quiet house on the monitors, which included views of a crazy number of rooms and of the driveway, wasn’t very interesting, but it was easy enough for Naz to zone out while doing it. His eyes would flick when there was movement, and he was surprised to see the kids, but he ignored that monitor since it wasn’t like they were the ones Diego was spying on.
Not that the women were his targets either. Whoever Diego was digging up dirt on must have been out. That made sense. No wonder he’d taken off as soon as he could.
Watching nothing happen was boring.
Naz wondered what Meg was doing. Julio wouldn’t want her to be around when the dealers showed up. She was probably stuck in the trailer and as stir-crazy as Naz was feeling.
He pulled out his phone, opening up the Notes app. The new page with his explanation of the warehouse popped up first. He deleted it so that the note from before was on the screen. His finger hovered over the ‘delete’ button.
Why did she even like giraffes? The one in his pocket was ugly as hell, yellow and brown with uncentered eyes. He shouldn’t have gotten it. If he had given it to her, she would have laughed her ass off.
He moved his finger away from the red button, tracing over her words. Not the word ‘giraffe.’ It didn’t really matter which animal she liked.
‘You can have mine.’
It was as if she was trying to fill him when he’d mostly been empty before. He wanted more of that feeling.
The front door closed, and Naz put his phone face down on the desk.
Diego lifted an eyebrow, his eyes glancing at the phone. “Were you texting someone?”
Naz looked away from that knowing gaze, rubbing a hand over his head and regretting it when it scraped again.
Diego laughed, his amusement irritating, but Naz refused to rise to the bait. Diego grabbed his toolbox and headed out to the motorcycle, leaving Naz to stew in front of the monitors.
At least Diego seemed to be in a better mood than when Naz had first arrived, even if it was at his expense.
Naz let his thoughts fade as he vaguely watched the monitors.
“What do you mean, he’s missing?”
The question through the speakers jolted him out of his semi-doze. He listened to the two women long enough to realize they’d lost track of the little boy. His eyes scanned the monitors, but the only other movement on the screen was Diego working on the motorcycle, barely visible on the edge of the camera pointed at the driveway.
Next to Diego, a little boy held on to a wrench.
Naz’s chest squeezed at the image. It brought up some of his best memories of his father. He’d spent hours out in the garage with his father, who took on small, private mechanic jobs to bring in more money. Most of the time it’d just been oil changes done on the cheap, but his father had enjoyed teaching Naz what he knew.
When Diego had offered the same for the motorcycle, Naz had been too scared to take him up on it. So many of his memories of his childhood were fractured. The clearest ones of his father were of the garage. He’d been afraid those images would blur with ones of Diego, and he’d lose the last proof that there’d been a before.
Before the fear and the humiliation and the fading hope.
His eyes strained to bring the images of Diego with the boy closer. Something about the peace on the child’s face filled his stomach with coiling snakes. Was it jealousy? Or regret?
Diego had often offered more of a relationship than Naz had taken him up on. Part of it had been shame. Diego had seen Naz at his worst, faded away until he hadn’t even felt human anymore.
Naz wondered when he’d see his friend and not remember that moment. He doubted it would ever happen.
He expected the jeering voices to suck him down again.
Instead, all he heard was his father’s laugh, a wisp of memory of the man Naz wished he had become. His father’s patient cadence while he’d explained things, not the exact words but the sound of them, filled Naz’s mind. He settled in the chair, watching Diego and the boy until the woman eventually found her son to take him back home.
W hen Naz returned to the warehouse, dusk had already fallen, and voices drifted from the trailer with the full kitchen. The crew was probably eating dinner, which Naz didn’t take part in anyway. Having people around while he ate made it harder to concentrate on the physical movements that he strained to do: opening his mouth, getting the food to his throat, swallowing.
Chewing was too much. He swallowed things whole or ate mushier foods. Ramiro kept him stocked up on special protein powder made out of vegetables and beans or something. It tasted like crap, but it had helped him to bulk up over the years.
Naz made his way to the opposite trailer, the one with the full bathroom and shower, the plastic bag from the store rustling in his grip.
José lounged inside on the couch Naz never sat on. When Naz entered, the other man scrambled up, muttered some half-assed excuse, and let the trailer door slap shut behind him.
José was a couple years younger than Naz and nervous as hell—especially around him. José and Julio were related in some way, but Naz never paid much attention to details like that. He’d rather José remained scared of him than get to know the guy.
In the bathroom, when he stared into the half-rusted mirror over the sink, he saw one of Meg’s Post-its stuck there with a lipstick mark pressed into it like the one she’d left for him. Naz was tempted to shove it into his pocket with the others, along with that damn giraffe. The Post-it hadn’t been given to him, though. Unless it was meant for him, it shouldn’t be with the rest.
When he removed the gel shaving cream and the new razor from the bag, he ignored the three packets of gummies he’d also purchased. Maybe he’d just leave them there and let her find them when she showered.
He felt the rasp of stubble as he lathered his head. He had shaved himself bald regularly, ever since Diego had found him. It wasn’t just the way his hair had been used against him that made him do it or even the lice infestation. No, one man had always liked the way his dark curls fell around his face. It made him appear younger, even when he’d aged out of the man’s normal range.
Naz started on the back of his head near his neck, the hardest part because of his scar. Having to concentrate, along with the steady pull of the razor, cleared his mind.
He nearly nicked his ear when the bathroom door ripped open.
“You’re back.” Meg didn’t say it in a squeal or a scream but with a breathy relief that Naz didn’t know how to take.
His eyes found hers tracing over him in the mirror as if she were drinking him in. She wasn’t smiling.
Meg shut the door behind her, crowding them into the small space together, a fierce scowl taking over her face.
“I knew Julio was being an asshole. He said you were gone. That you got sick of me.”
Naz paused at the hitch in her voice. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. She leaned her head back against the empty towel bar instead. A groan escaped from between her lips.
“I can’t believe I fucking believed him even for a second. I was sure you weren’t like that, but…” She shrugged, finally meeting his gaze in the mirror.
There was an expectation in her eyes, one Naz wasn’t sure how to read or respond to. He looked away.
Folding his ear down, he turned the razor to the single-bladed side. It worked best for the area, and he preferred not to miss any stray hairs. They would bug him.
“Here, I can help you finish,” Meg offered, holding out her hand.
His hand froze. No one else had ever shaved his head. Not even Diego.
Diego was always careful not to touch him. When he’d shoved the motorcycle keys at him and told him to get out earlier, he’d dropped the keys into Naz’s hand.
Meg’s hand gestured toward him again as her scowl reformed. “Give it here. Unless you think I’m going to cut your throat with it or something.”
The thought was ridiculous. It wasn’t that type of razor, just the typical throwaway kind from the store. Not too cheap, those raised bumps along his skin, but it’d take work to slice his throat with it.
He released the razor into her hand before he realized he was going to.
Her smile formed for the first time since she’d burst into the bathroom. “Okay, hold still. I haven’t actually done this before, but it can’t be much different from shaving my legs.”
Naz hunched like she asked, staring down at the overflow drain of the sink as her fingers brushed over his ear, pushing it aside to make room.
That gentle touch sent skittering tingles down into his legs, which made no sense. His ears were far away from his legs.
She mumbled words that didn’t fully penetrate as she carefully shaved around his ear. Her body bumped into his when she shifted around him to get to the other side, her breasts soft against his back for a brief moment. A rushing filled his ears as she folded his other one down and repeated her careful swipes.
“There! You were mostly done.”
He clutched at the razor she handed back, gripping it awkwardly.
Her freed hands rubbed over the side of his head. “Oh, it feels really good. All smooth.” Her fingers found some leftover gel at the edge, and she rubbed them together with a frown. “There’s some stuff left. Let me…” She reached for the towel, laying it over his head and blocking his eyes as she rubbed it around gently, making the tingles worse. They were now lifting the hairs on his arms and neck.
She dragged the towel down the back of his neck, and he could see more than cloth again.
“Done!” she said happily as if she’d accomplished something big, not just wiped off his head.
The towel lowered. When her fingers replaced it, brushing along the scar on the back of his head, he dropped the razor into the sink so he could grip the edge of the counter.
“There’s something here,” she murmured. “It’s lighter than the rest of your skin.” Her fingers traced the line again, starting right at the dip where his skull met his neck and wrapping partly around the side. Her touch there made everything around him blur as his heart raced. “It’s raised a little. Is this a scar or something?”
His ribs were going to burst from the flailing inside his chest. His eyes heated, and he tried to focus them on something, anything, only finding her eyes in the mirror to latch onto. Her brows had drawn together as if she were puzzled or curious, still studying the scar before her eyes shifted, meeting his and widening at what she saw. The amber color seemed brighter in the cheap fluorescent bulb of the bathroom.
Her finger froze, then slowly traced the scar again, moving over it as if to memorize the shape this time. The skin there was raised because of how deep the gash had been when it happened, and it was always a bitch to shave around.
“Oh,” she murmured, the sound filled with more meaning than the hundreds of words she’d thrown at him since they’d met. It was as if she could hear all of what he’d never be able to say, not with his heart still pounding like a jackhammer trying to destroy him.
Her other hand lifted, moving in front of his face until her fingers brushed over his lips. The caress nearly brought him to his knees.
Her touch flew away when the bathroom door jerked open, Julio frowning in at them.
“Julio!” Meg said, her tone high-pitched. She threw herself at his chest.
Julio’s hands closed on her arms. He stared past her toward Naz.
Naz turned on the water, his hand trembling as he rinsed the razor in the sink. His heart hadn’t slowed down, and he hated Julio’s eyes on him.
His other hand closed on the plastic bag full of gummies, holding it out toward where they stood together in the entryway.
It was way too crowded in that small trailer bathroom.
Meg squealed when she took the bag. “I was almost out. Thanks again.” She leaned back into Julio, kissing him under the jaw. “I asked him to get me more if he went to the store.”
Naz didn’t contradict her. He just wanted them to leave.
Julio made a noise in his throat. “Those are disgusting.”
“Even if I eat them off your dick?” Meg’s laugh grated in Naz’s head.
The bathroom door snapped shut behind them, their voices fading as Naz’s vision narrowed.
He crouched down to his haunches, letting his hands grip the counter above him. He focused on breathing until his chest stopped hammering and all the tingles in his legs faded.