Page 33 of Catcher's Lock

“I need a shower. I reek of bridesmaids and cheap cologne. Smell me.”

“I’m not smelling you.” I push him off me, a little too late. Underneath the lingering miasma of strangers’ lust, he carries the scent of wind and water and adolescent dreams, and I’ve already spent enough time submerged in that fable tonight. The days when I could have spent a lifetime smelling his skin are over. “But I’ll get you to the shower if you promise not to pass out and drown.”

“I always knew Rocket was the real hero of the story,” he murmurs as I sling an arm around his waist.

“You’re a fucking mess.”

“But not a broke one anymore.” Pulling a wad of folded bills from the pocket of his jeans, he giggles as half of them flutter to the floor.

“Leave it,” I say, when he almost topples over reaching for them. “I’ll get them later. C’mon.”

Fighting the sucking vertigo of déjà vu, I drag him into the small bathroom. After a brief internal struggle, I decide not to punish him with cold water, even if it means subjecting myself to the torture of checking on him every five minutes to make sure the heat doesn’t drag him under.

Clutching the sink for support, he shimmies out of his jeans and shrugs off the orange button-up.

Acres of skin.

Oceansof skin.

In the enclosed space, his near-nakedness rocks me to the core—made a thousand times more intimate by proximity and privacy.

“Help me, Rocket,” he singsongs, close enough to dazzle myvision with azure eyes andgalaxiesof technicolor flesh. When he hooks his thumbs into the waistband of his jockstrap, I grab his wrists.

As soon as our skin makes contact, I know I’ve made a terrible mistake. When did wrists become so erotic? A marvel of small bones and shifting tendons and delicate, pulsing skin. He flexes slightly in my grip, testing my commitment to these restraints, and I don’t recognize the sound that escapes me, halfway between a whimper and a growl.

“Don’t,” I warn.

“Afraid you might like it?”

Like it?My dick is currently reminding me that it learned to come with his name on my lips.

“Or are you afraidImight like it, and that you’ll have to climb down off that high horse and find a new reason to hate me?”

“No,” I whisper, a rough denial that encompasses the whole heresy of the night. Peeling my fingers from the poison of his flesh, I stumble through the door.

“Being a dick to me isn’t going to work forever, you know,” he calls after me.

“I’ll take my chances.”

12

Zombie

Gemiah

Age 17 (Then)

“Wait! It’s not gonna—”

The horrible screech of tearing metal fills the cab of the box truck before I slam on the brakes.

“Fuck.”

“—fit,” Josha finishes, and we stare at each other in the shadow of the parking garage.

“I didn’t see a low-clearance sign.” I crane my neck through the window to scope out the damage. All I can see is the top of the truck wedged against the roof of the concrete entrance.

“We shouldn’t have smoked that joint.”