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“But I won’t annoy him,” I said around my toothbrush. “I won’t bother him or talk to him or—or exist. I mean, I’ll just be a spectral apparition of myself. The least annoying version possible. I’ll basically be ectoplasm.”

Even through the hiss of the shower, Bobby’s “Sweetheart” sounded worn out. The shower curtain rattled back a few inches, and Bobby peered out at me. His hair was wet and flattened against his skull from the spray, and more water beaded on his nose and glittered in the faint hint of the day’s stubble. The faint scent of his oh-so-masculine soap floated out to me. “He needs some time alone.”

“Right,” I said. “I know.”

Bobby gave me a sympathetic look and pulled the curtain shut.

“But,” I said.

I couldn’t actually hear his sigh over the sound of the water, but sometimes, when you love somebody, you know.

“But,” I said again—in defiance of that unheard sigh—“on the other hand, what if he’s, you know, not okay?”

“I didn’t say he’s okay. I said he needs some time alone. He’s hurt, and he’s confused, and he needs time and space to sort that out.” The water shut off, and Bobby pushed the curtain back. He stood there in all his, um—well, glory is really the only correct word. You know that classic vee shape? Yeah, that. And I could count his abs. And let me tell you, if you thought his, uh, tush looked great in a pair of jeans… Where was I? Oh, right. Bobby grabbed his towel and, as he ran it over his hair, said through the thick cotton, “He’s a private person. And an independent person. I think you, of all people, ought to understand that.”

“I do. I do understand that.” I spat in the sink to clear the last of the toothpaste from my mouth and rinsed my toothbrush. “And I love that for him. I want him to have all the time and space and privacy he needs to heal.”

Bobby was moving the towel down now, and let me tell you, it was distracting.

He didn’t sound distracted at all, though, when he said, “Only you want to go check on him.”

“Like the merest phantasmagorical presence.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Fox.”

“Rude!”

“And I think you need to give the Dungeon Master’s Guide a break too.”

“Robert Mai!”

(Not his real name, but I liked to use it when I yelled at him.)

He grinned as he bent to dry his legs. He’d missed a spot on his shoulder, and a few drops of water glittered there, next to a constellation of freckles that were almost impossible to spot unless you really, really looked. The curve of his spine was like a horizon. And have I ever mentioned he has cute ears?

“I know you’re worried about him,” Bobby said as he stepped out of the tub. He kissed me, and his nose wrinkled (adorably, of course) at the mintiness of the toothpaste. “I’m worried about him. But let’s give him one night—how about that? We can check on him tomorrow.”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request. Bobby was never unreasonable. So, eventually, I nodded. And I got another kiss for my good decision. Then Bobby tugged on my tee and said, “Are you going to shower tonight?”

“Yes,” I said.

That big, goofy grin splashed across his face, and Bobby looked me up and down with something like a leer. I gave him a boyfriendly shove into the bedroom and shut the door.

One of the things I’d learned about Bobby, now that we were a few months into a relationship, was that Bobby had zero qualms (is qualms the right word?) about nudity. Like, ze-ro . I mean, he wasn’t going to step outside for an air bath (nightmares of Ben Franklin), but—well, the shower was a great example. He didn’t even wrap the towel around his waist. He returned it to its hook (neatly and perfectly, of course) and sashayed out of the bathroom, with everything hanging out there for God and the angels to see. I blamed the pernicious influence of Sports, with a capital S.

You get one guess at how comfortable this guy was with, you know, flaunting it.

I sincerely apologize for saying Flaunting it . I immediately regretted it.

Anyway, I guess I was lucky that Bobby found it quirky in an endearing way rather than quirky in a let’s-see-a-therapist-about-it-way. Mostly, as a matter of fact, he seemed to find it amusing. Hence his big grin as I shooed him out of the bathroom.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t be naked with him. I mean, trust me, there were times when I was very happy to be naked with Bobby. But nudity has its place. And its place is in bed. Under the covers. In the dark. Oh, and you pull all the curtains extra tight, just in case.

He was polite enough to wait until I was splashing merrily away in the shower before he came back into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

“Do you really think he’s going to be okay?” I asked.

Bobby made an affirmative noise as he brushed diligently (eight little brushstrokes per tooth—yes, he’s insane, but I love him). He must have sensed something in my silence because he said more clearly, “Wait, you don’t?”

It was the same sense I’d had—God, when had it been? Earlier that day? The day before? It seemed like ages ago. The sense that I could grasp an outline of the problem, but not quite put it into words. And since my whole job (in theory, at least) was putting things into words, that annoyed me, and I found myself groping for a way to say what I was feeling.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess—I guess I don’t think he’s going to be okay. Or maybe I’m not sure. Did you see how he acted tonight?”

A beat passed.

“I’m sorry he hit you,” Bobby said. “I should have been faster, but I honestly didn’t expect—”

“No, not that. I mean, not only that.” Although I would have been lying if I said it didn’t hurt that he’d struck out at me, and then only moments later, he’d let Fox hug him. “With Millie.”

“I was trying to keep a handle on Louis.”

“It was…it was so weird , Bobby. It was like he didn’t know her. Or like he’d totally shut down.”

For several seconds, all I heard was the water raining down on me.

“Are we talking about Keme getting arrested?” Bobby asked. “Or Millie dating Louis?”

“First of all, she’s not allowed to date Louis. I’m the closest thing in her life to a father figure—”

“Except her actual father, who she lives with.”

I ignored that. “—and I forbid it. Did you hear him tell Indira her mashed potatoes could use some ‘loosening up’? My God, I almost vomited in my mouth from rage and terror.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but sometimes I think when you watch all those General Hospital reruns with Indira, it starts to slip into your vocabulary.”

“I think it’s all tied together, you see? I mean, in the span of twenty-four hours, Keme finds out the girl he’s desperately in love with is dating a total—” Fortunately, the sound of the shower swallowed up my words (which they would have had to bleep on General Hospital ). “And then he gets arrested, and he finds out there are plenty of people in town who think he’s rotten, and it was only a matter of time before he did something like this. And then you—”

I stopped myself. But not fast enough.

You know what I was talking about, how sometimes, when you love someone, you just know? I didn’t have to hear a pained exhalation from Bobby to know that one had hurt.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said.

“I know what you meant,” Bobby said. “I was there when they brought him in. I tried to get him to talk. He can’t trust me.”

“It’s not that he can’t trust you. And I don’t think you did anything wrong—jeez, Bobby, I did the exact same thing. But I think Keme lost all his solid ground, and he lost it in a day.”

“We all love him.” Bobby’s words had a strangely stiff sternness, as though he were correcting me. “We’ll make it up to him.”

I rinsed the shampoo out of my hair.

“What?” Bobby asked. “What am I missing?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. I mean, we do love him. And we’re going to try. But I think—” I stopped. Backed up. “I know this is going to sound dumb because I totally recognize and own that my life has been infinitely easier than Keme’s, but I think I understand, at least a little, what it’s like to grow up feeling like your parents aren’t there for you. I mean, I know it’s totally different—”

“Don’t do that. You don’t have to minimize it like that. You and Keme didn’t have the same lives, but I think you’re right: in your own way, you know what it feels like to have parents who neglect you.”

I thought carefully about how to say what I wanted to say. I could feel that realization about Keme, the one that I’d been struggling with, slowly coming into focus. “One of the things it does is it makes it hard to form other relationships. I mean, obviously I’ve got you. And I’ve got friends. But I’m also me, and you know exactly what I mean.” The sudden tightness in my chest surprised me, and I hurried to say, “I’m worried that Keme might—might shut himself off, after being hurt like this. He’s had such a hard life already. He’s been hurt so many times. And somehow, through it all, he’s still this great kid. This great guy, I mean. And part of that is Indira. And part of that is you. But a lot of it—a lot of it is Millie. And I’m afraid that he’s going to decide he never wants to be hurt like that again, and he’s going to do what too many people do and find a way to bury the best part of himself because it’s safer.”

Silence answered me.

Then the shower curtain chimed on its rod, and Bobby stepped into the shower. He was still naked (see above about the casual nudity), and even without my glasses, I got the general idea—and it had its usual effect on me. His hair was out of its usual neat part, and the messy spill of it across his forehead gave him a decidedly rakish appearance that was at odds with the gravity of his expression.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Getting in the shower with you.”

The best thing that came to mind was “You can’t; you’re already clean.”

For a moment, that beautiful grin lifted the heaviness of his expression. He stepped closer—not that we had a whole lot of room—and his hands settled on my waist. He pulled me toward him. His arms slid around me, and the feeling of wet skin on wet skin knocked the wind out of me. In moments like this, when he seemed so in control, so certain, it was always disorienting when our bodies slotted together and I remembered that, somehow, I was taller than him. He ran his hand up and down my back.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said softly over the rush of the falling water.

I couldn’t say anything, but I thought, What if it’s not? What if this is it, and we lose the best part of him?

“You’re so kind,” Bobby said in that same voice, barely loud enough to be heard over the shower. “You’re so full of love for the people you care about. And I know it’s scary sometimes.”

Somehow, I managed to say, “I don’t want to be full of love. I want to be full of tacos.”

He laughed softly, his face turned into my neck, and then he kissed me on the jaw. His strong hand was still skimming across the warm, wet skin of my back.

Believe it or not, it was hard to think about Keme at that point.

“I was so scared when you called from the motel,” Bobby said, his face pressed into that spot where my neck joined my shoulder. “All I could think was that something terrible had happened to you. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

“You didn’t lose me,” I said, my voice thick. These moments were so rare, when it felt like the walls dropped away and we could say everything we wanted to say—needed to say—to each other. “I’m fine. I’m right here.”

Bobby made a sound that was part contentment, part—well, I wasn’t sure what. Strain, maybe. “You’re so hot,” he whispered. “Everything about you turns me on. I can’t get over how beautiful you look with water running over you, the way your hair looks like this.” He pressed his mouth to my shoulder. “I love the way the heat of the shower brings a flush to your skin.” He kissed my ear next, and then he kissed a line down my neck —and my knees threatened to give out. “I love touching you like this. I never want to stop touching you.”

As usual, the words elicited a strange combination of reactions from me: the gut-clenching need to shrink away (and, ideally, pull a towel over my head); the sense that I was supposed to say something in return—to acknowledge the words somehow, or reciprocate, or both; and the wild urge to laugh because, I mean, this was me we were talking about, and I ate way too much cake and hated exercise and didn’t have a single ab.

So, I did what any normal, red-blooded American male would have done: I moaned.

I mean, I didn’t make a whole production out of it. But I let out one of those breathy, pleased little sounds.

Bobby’s next kiss was lower on my neck. Harder. Insistent. And it was definitely having, um, an effect—especially when I realized what he was doing.

“You’re giving me a hickey,” I said, and even to myself, I sounded drunk.

Bobby made a surprisingly dark growling noise. “I love how it looks on you. I want to mark you all over like this. God, Dash, do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?”

That frenetic laugh rose up inside me, and I barely tamped it down again. Before I could stop myself, I said, “You don’t have to do that.”

The hiss of the shower filled the small space.

Bobby pulled back. His arms loosened around me, although they didn’t fall away completely. His pupils were dilated, and his lips were puffy, and he drew his brows together as he asked, “What?”

I wasn’t sure if it was panic or courage that made me say, “You don’t have to say things like that. About me.” Water drummed against my back. “If you don’t want to.”

“I want to.”

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I mean.”

He slid his hands to my hips, and now it felt like he was holding us apart, keeping both of us firmly planted where we were. His face was unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

“Did I upset you?”

He shook his head.

“Did I ruin everything?” I tried to keep my voice playful, but my voice dropped off. “Do you want to stop?”

In the warm, humid cocoon of the shower, his golden-olive skin practically glowed. His still-damp hair, in that messy, uncombed shock, made him look ten years younger. He lifted his fingers one at a time, as though he were playing my hips like a piano. And then he shook his head again. “Of course not,” he said as he reached past me to turn the water off. “Let’s move to the bed.”

To my surprise, Bobby wanted to dry me off. A hint of a troublemaker’s smile appeared as he toweled my hair, ignoring my squawks of protest, and his grin was even bigger at the resulting spiky-but-also-somehow-poofy cloud that resulted. I tried to copy him, to get into the playfulness of the moment, but it was like I was always a heartbeat behind, trying to read my next line in the instant before I had to play my part. When Bobby looped the towel around me and shimmied it back and forth, drawing me into another kiss, we bumped noses. But that only made him laugh softly.

When we tumbled into bed, still warm from the shower, I stared up at him as he straddled me. My heart was beating faster in my chest. I scanned his face for tightness or anger or—or what? Or anything, I guess. He hadn’t said anything since suggesting we leave the shower, and now I was painfully aware of every sound: the rustle of bedding; the soft, sticky sounds of still damp skin as he adjusted his position; our syncopated breaths.

Are you mad? The question almost slipped out before I could stop it. Are you hurt? Can you tell me how you’re feeling?

But I couldn’t ask, because I’d just told him he didn’t have to do that. Didn’t have to talk. Didn’t have to express his feelings, or share, or tell me anything. And I couldn’t read his face. And maybe it should have made me laugh and taught me a lesson about irony and be careful what you wish for and all of that. But instead, it was like a bubble was caught high in my chest, and my eyes burned.

He bent to kiss me, cupping my face with both hands. His hair tumbled over his forehead as he leaned down, and for a moment, the need to tell him how he looked—handsome, and vulnerable, and the tiniest bit debauched (in a good way)—was so strong that my lips parted.

And instead, my own words came back to me.

My lips were still parted when he pressed his mouth to mine.