Page 71 of Up In Smoke
“Fire away,” Rico says warmly, like we don’t have a thing to hide.
“Tremendous.” Angelica taps her screen with a flourish. I watch as the timer starts, nerves squirming in my belly. “Like I said,” she continues. “I just want to get a better picture of your lives together. So why don’t we start with an easy question? When did you first meet?”
Ice rinses through me. We didn’t think to cover that, and my mind goes blank.
Rico doesn’t flinch, though.
“I think we could probably answer that a few different ways,” he says easily, rubbing his thumb against the back of my hand that’s still entwined with his. “I’m not sure exactly when we firstmet.Probably when I visited Adam at his house for the first time.”
“This is Adam Silverman, your school friend,” Angelica clarifies.
Rico nods. “He’s my best friend. I remember being aware that he had a younger brother, but I didn’t think much of it. There was one day, though, the summer I was maybe fourteen? So Jesse would have been about nine. This was before he went off to Hollywood.”
He’s looking at Angelica while he talks, but I watch him, uncertain what he’s about to say.
“We were all hanging at the public pool back in Ash Springs, our home town,” he continues. “This little boy was running, and he slipped and fell. Before anyone else could reach him, Jesse was already there, holding his hand and telling him he was all right. The little boy stopped crying and then Jesse offered to walk him back to his parents.” Rico turns and looks at me with such affection it steals my breath for a moment. “It was such a simple act of kindness, but I feel like that was the day I saw who my friend’s little brother really was.”
I search his eyes, wanting to ask if that’s really true. I don’t even remember that. This whole time, I thought I’d been invisible to him. Yet he noticed me all along.
“How sweet,” Angelica says, sounding genuine rather than sarcastic. “So when did the nature of your relationship change?”
“When my bother asked Rico to come check in on me,” I say confidently, not wanting to leave all the talking to him. We both look back at Angelica. “Adam lives in Switzerland now and was worried when I wasn’t picking up the phone. So Rico drove out to LA and came to my apartment. I was at my lowest, but he never gave up on me. Things sort of developed from there.”
He squeezes my hand, and I feel like I did a good job.
“Okay,” Angelica says. “And when was this?”
I hesitate. This is the part where we have to outright lie. But Rico jumps in for me. “Last spring,” he says with a nod. “So about a year ago. I visited Jesse several times after that to see how he was doing and we started becoming friends in our own right. The first time he came to visit me here, that’s when we realized we had romantic feelings for each other.”
He nudges me with his shoulder, and I look back to see him smiling softly at me. It’s so odd hearing him talking about our relationship like it’s a plot in a TV show. I’m still anxious, but there’s also a part of me that’s honored to have such a good man proudly telling a stranger how he fell for me.
How he’s maybe even fallen in love.
“It was scary and unknown,” he continues. “However, moving beyond friendship was something we both wanted. We just kept it private to begin with because it was a big change. We’d known each other since we were kids, but this was totally different. We thought we’d make absolutely sure we weren’t rushing into anything before telling anyone else, including Jesse’s brother, Adam.”
My heart soars. Aside from the date and the bit about the visits, what he just said is all true.
Angelica hums as she scribbles in her notebook. “So you wouldn’t consider getting married ‘rushing’?”
I freeze but Rico chuckles. “Yeah, that was a little crazy.”
Angelica raises her eyebrows at him. “Whose idea was it?”
“Mine,” Rico tells her firmly. “Jesse and I were having fun, but I could see he was struggling. And then the last time I went to LA, I found Jesse…”
He swallows, and I see real pain flash behind his eyes that hurts my heart. It’s not like I did it to him on purpose, and he didn’t feel for me then the way he does now. But I’m still ashamed I got myself in that state.
I’m even more ashamed of how I behaved immediately afterward. But Rico forgave me right away and thanks to all my therapy and group work, I’ve almost forgiven myself as well. So I can’t afford to dwell on that now in front of this lady who’s scrutinizing our every word and movement.
Rico clears his throat, clearly affected by having to discuss this. Without thinking, I lift his hand and kiss the back of it, giving him a look that I hope shows my most heartfelt appreciation.
“You saved me,” I remind him with a hushed voice. I’m sure Angelica can probably still hear me perfectly fine, but these words aren’t for her. “I’m here because of you. It’s okay.”
Rico holds my gaze for a moment before nodding and turning back to face our guest. “I had to break down the door,” he says with more conviction. “Jesse had almost overdosed. However, without any insurance, he wouldn’t let me take him to the hospital. So I used my EMT training to assess him, and once I was confident he was no longer in immediate danger, I moved him in with me and I started forming a plan.”
“To get married so Jesse would now have insurance?” Angelica prompts, her voice and gaze steady.
I try not to flinch.