Page 40 of Someone Like Me
He needs a friend,I remind myself.Stop objectifying him.
“And this Kali character, the Hindu goddess. What’s your…observance,”he stresses the word before tightening his mouth against the pull of his smile, “… about her?”
It’s the knowledge that he’s trying not to laugh at me again that clears my head. Of all the deities in the global pantheon, Kali would be among the last any mortal should dare mock. I give him a warning glare.
“Kali, the great mother, is both creatoranddestroyer.”
Drew quirks his brow. “Destroyer? A mother?”
“Well, sure.” I love the expressiveness of brows, dark slashes that paint his moods. When he lets them move, that is. Though, I have to say, I haven’t seen his stone-faced stare all day. “Most of the time, to create something new, something old has to be sacrificed or abandoned. Even if it’s just a way of thinking or the road not taken.”
His frown eases. “So this Kali mother isn’t killing her children, then?”
I shrug. “Well, she does that too.”
Drew’s mouth drops open slightly. “And Hindusworshipher?”
It’s so hard not to laugh at his appalled expression. “Think of it like Mother Nature. Nature destroys as well as creates, right?”
He blinks twice before his look of horror eases. “Good point.” Drew reaches into the first aid kit and plucks out a roll of adhesive tape and a pack of gauze. “Still, why call on something so…riskyas a mother who destroys her young?”
This time I do laugh, imagining what he must be picturing. “Actually, Kali is partial to women and children,” I explain. “If they call on her during times of danger or distress, the results are said to be quite powerful.”
Drew gives me his look of amused skepticism, just like he did when I tried to explain the Zodiac. I’m sure he thinks I’m a nut, but looking at him right now, I’m also pretty sure he likes it.
He likes me.
And with this thought, our eyes lock, and a current of electricity seems to crackle between us.
It’s Drew who breaks the standoff, shuffling a step or two away from me to tear open the packet of gauze. He affixes the end with a strip of adhesive tape and carefully secures it to my palm before wrapping the gauze around my hand. He makes a few passes, covering the medicated burn completely. A snip of scissors and one more piece of tape, and the job is done.
I turn my hand over and wiggle my exposed fingers. “Thanks a lot.”
He shrugs off my thanks and opens the cabinet above Mrs. Vivan’s sink. He grabs a plastic bottle and shakes it. “Want some pain reliever?”
I glance at the blue and white Ibuprofen bottle and shake my head. “No thanks. NSAIDS mess with your gut biome.”
Drew’s eyes widen slightly. “Gut biome,” he echoes with a slight nod, and I know he’s thinking I’m a nutter again.
“You know.” I shrug. “Your probiotics and good bacteria that live in your intestines.”
His surprised look grows and a single laugh escapes him. “Guppy, I had a lot of time for reading in prison, but nothing I came across had to do with intestines.”
“Well, trust me on this, Ferdi,” I say, fighting my grin with everything I’ve got. “Steer clear of that stuff. I’ll take some white willow bark when I get home.”
He gives a low whistle and shakes his head. “Boy, you reallyareone of those.”
“If you mean informed, health-conscious, and homeopathic,” I say, setting my hands on my hips and squaring off with him. “Then, yes, I am one of those.”
He bunches his lips in consideration, hiding his smile. “I wasn’t thinking of those exact words, but—”
I swat his elbow with my good hand, setting off another booming laugh. Somewhere in the middle of it, I hear him stammer something that sounds likehippy guppy, and I completely lose it.
I laugh the kind of laugh that is completely airless, a suffocating laugh that nearly takes out my knees. I list against the counter on a graceless slide toward the floor, and Drew, red-faced and glossy-eyed, lost in his own hysteria, comes to my rescue, gripping me by the elbows and holding me against his quaking body.
His massive, wood-sinewed, utterly miraculous body.
Tingles, like waves of liquid pleasure, coast down every nerve where we touch. Some even make a detour and gather in a region that is definitely not touching him but is damn keen about the idea.
