“Man,” he mutters, waving me off and turning away. He’s heading back whichever way he came, and I have to say something to make him stop.
“How did Tariq learn to fight?”
He stops, bright light spilling down his back, his white shirt luminous. He’s got one arm wrapped around his own waist, except it’s a safe distance away. It isn’t resting against his abdomen, even though his fingers touch his side lightly, as though just enough to keep his arm in position.
Kelly looks at me over his shoulder before turning back around. He makes the effort to loosen his limbs, to let both arms hang at his sides, even though he can’t unwind his shoulders. It hardly lasts a second before one arm is crossing his abdomen again and the other fist is closed as though there’s no position of relief for that one.
He can’t keep a secret for the same reason so few other people can. He lacks control. He’s more concerned with his pain, with trying in vain to lessen it when it clearly isn’t possible. Or maybe he doesn’t think it’s dangerous to look weak in front of me.
“Did you teach him?” I ask, and I let my eyes drift down to the backs of his hands just to verify they’re unblemished. “He wasn’t very good, from what I could see. He couldn’t throw a punch. Not one with any impact anyway.”
I match Kelly’s cold stare after that. Whatever pieces don’t fit yet, I have to look like I’ve already put them in their proper place; otherwise he won’t talk. He’s not on par with me, but he’s not Cherish, either. There’s probably something to that cliché assumption of street smarts, especially for someone who’s been in police custody more times than he’s been charged with an actual crime.
There’s something else, though—another reason I wanted him here, to try to pick his brain like a lock, to see what information comes tumbling out when I do.
He’s the only one I can afford to play with. He’s the only subject—the only one who has something I want to know—with whom I don’t have to take it slow. The only opponent who can know we’re competing.
I can be completely honest with Kelly, because I don’t care about him. I don’t care why he’s hurt, and I don’t have to worry about what he might say when we’re done.
He’s damaged goods. Tarnished beyond repair. No one will trust him now. He isn’t even supposed to be here.
There’s nothing I can’t do.
“Who said Tariq learned to fight?” Kelly asks with a wince that might be born of physical pain or something else.
“He won your grill, didn’t he?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest and coming to lean against the gazebo post closest to him. I step into the illuminating night easily, like I have nothing to hide from it, like Kelly and I are friends, or something like it, and I’m just being familiar, closing the space.
Maybe he’s convinced. His head tugs back for a second and he smirks, but not like someone catching on. Like someone who’s been caught.
“Yeah, well.” He shakes his head, sneers. “I guess I took something of his first, right?”
My face is bathed in what might as well be a spotlight. I have to answer soon.
Kelly took something of Tariq’s first, so Tariq got his grill. Only everything Kelly has is already from Judge Campbell and Tariq.
I see Cherish’s face at the patio table when I ate the coleslaw.
Maybe Kelly got too close to Tariq’s dad, and the son became jealous of the rescue.
Except Kelly doesn’t want Tariq’s father or anyone else’s. He hasn’t seemed to get any fulfillment from being Judge Campbell’s not-adopted adopted son. He enjoys the perks and privileges, but he doesn’t aim to please. He’s not even smart enough to fake it.
Kelly’s watching me, so I snort and shake my head.
“It’s his own fault,” I start, not knowing where I’ll end.
“How’s that?” he asks, like he’s ready. He thinks he can foresee my attacks now, the nature of them and the cause. He thinks he knows exactly what I’m going to say, even though I don’t. But it helps.
“For thinking you were better than that. He should’ve assumed you’d steal anything he didn’t nail down.”
His jaw tightens. “You can’t steal a girl, freeloader. I’m kinda surprised I have to tell you that.”
I can’t keep my mask from falling. My face goes slack, and the moon has spread its blinding light across it so there’s no way that Kelly doesn’t see.
That’s okay. I already knew what I was going to do. What I’ve never had the opportunity to do before tonight, because I have always had to be careful.
Kelly can’t escape seeing that I wasn’t ready. He knows now that I didn’t know what we were talking about, and that I didn’t see that coming.
Because Kelly’s talking about Cherish.
Cherish is what Kelly stole from Tariq.
My Cherish.
My Tariq.
Tariq who asked me to take a walk today, who hugs me like he wishes he were daring enough to do something more.
Tariq who’s never given the slightest impression that he’s interested in Cherish, at all.
Who spent all day with Cherish while I was sick in bed—and he knew I was.
Tariq who’s never kissed me, even when Cherish and Kelly were clearly doing so much more.
I thought he was shy. I thought he was reserved, that I had to take it slow with him—that he was more inexperienced than you’d expect a boy as gorgeous as him to be, that I should pretend to be, too.
I thought that made him the exception. Not that he didn’t want me in the first place.
But this is Kelly talking.
His face is the only part of his body he hasn’t had to coddle tonight. It doesn’t have a scratch or bruise on it, but now it’s wearing a smile.
“Is that news to you, Orphan Annie?” he asks, and when he starts to laugh, he has to bite it back. “You should see your face right now, you look so mad! I’m so glad you texted me.”
He lets himself laugh this time, buckles forward a little but doesn’t try to fight it, even when he audibly reacts.
He’s willing to hurt for this.
“If I’d known that’s all it took, I woulda told you a long time ago,” Kelly says through a laugh that’s gone breathy and broken, like there’s a problem with his ribs.
He’s bent over, so he doesn’t see me coming.
I don’t rush him the way Tariq might have, the way he did to get between Kelly and me in the Campbell entertainment room.