Page 95 of Down Bad

He’s so sexy when he shows me his sense of humor.

Even when his handsome face remains as blank as a stone and indicates in no way whatsoever that he’s actually joking.

I feel privileged to likely be the only person on the planet to see this side of him. I have a feeling he shows it to few others.

If anyone at all.

“Do you have a full-body package?” I ask.

“Fuckin’ horn dog,” he grunts back.

I drop my jaw, acting offended.

He grabs me around the waist, flips me over his shoulder with stunning ease, and carries me straight into his house as I laugh out in protest.

After the caveman haul, I’m set down on the edge of his bed with unexpected tenderness. Then he proceeds to slip my shirt off my body, undo and remove my pants, tug down my underwear, and lay me on my back. Then Diego stands before my naked body like a mountain, comically tall, shadowed on one side, stripes of glowing light cast over the other from the blinds. The mountain sheds his sweaty tank top. Kicks off his pants like they piss him off suddenly. Never once smiling. Naked now, just as I am.

He flips me over and straddles my back. I sigh as his weight presses down on me. And the warmth of his hands as they spread over my shoulder blades like hot stones both rough and smooth, treating my skin to the pleasures of the stubborn oils still on his fingertips that didn’t come off on the rag.

For as cold as he is with me most of the time, his hands tell me so much more.

How he cares.

How he devotes himself.

How he makes room for me.

Makes time for me.

Lets me in.

I wonder if I’ve truly let him in me.

I mean, other than literally.

We’ve had moments together. He’s eaten my food. I handed him a tool or two. We even took a shower. But we’re not exactly braiding each other’s hair. He doesn’t involve himself in how I’m feeling, or why my parents are out of the picture. And I haven’t had the balls to ask him about his father, who I know passed away a few years ago. How do I even bring that up? Why does it feel like saying the wrong thing might abruptly end whatever it is we’re building here?

Is he even a talker? He doesn’t seem like it. And when I start to talk, I worry I sound too neurotic or annoying.

For as much progress as we’ve made, I wonder if saying the wrong thing could as easily shatter it all apart.

Doesn’t matter what I say with the guys when they’re over for movie night. Or when it’s me and Mindy gabbing over coffee—or at her house with her shrieking kids. Why are they always shrieking?

But with Diego, conversation flows differently.

Or not at all.

Or at times, like now, it flows in this charged silence, with him obsessed with ironing out my back with his big, warm hands.

I think I could adapt to this.

It feels just as intimate, if not more so, than any boyfriend I’ve ever had.

So why worry?

“You always been this … handy?” I ask.

His hands don’t stop, but his brain seems to for a second. “You trying to make a joke or something?”