Ember Boys - Gregory Ashe Page 0,2
And then, the next moment, he was holding a flame. Nothing big. Nothing showy. The size you’d get off a match.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Ok,” he said like he was about to shake it out.
“No, just—hold on. Please.”
His skin was hot; he was always warmer than the average person, but now he was hot. I wondered if it hurt him, what I was asking him to do. I wondered, if I were a better person, if I’d ask. If I’d say, no, you don’t have to do it. Not if it hurts.
But I wasn’t a better person. I was just me.
“Ok, that’s enough,” Jim said.
“Just a little longer.”
He frowned.
Before he could react, I laid my hand over his, the flame kissing my palm.
“Em,” he said, shaking out his hands, and the flame vanished.
I turned my palm over. A red spot the size of a quarter marked where the flame had touched me. It would blister, I was sure. It hurt like hell, but for a few days, I’d know I wasn’t crazy.
Jim spread my fingers and raised my hand to the light, examining the burn.
When he looked up, he was furious.
“It’s my hand.”
“That was a bad thing to do.”
“It’s my hand. Mine.”
“Fine. Privilege lost. We’re not doing that again.”
I smiled. “Privilege lost?”
“Yes.”
“Like I’m a kid, is that it?”
“When you act like one.”
“Privilege lost. Privilege lost.” I turned on the sex eyes. “Sounds kinky. What else are you going to take away?”
“I’m serious, Emmett. What’s going on? Why would you do that?”
“Because I want to.”
“Is this about—” He paused. “I know he would hurt himself sometimes. Is this the same thing? Self-harm, or whatever it’s called?”
“God,” I said, laughing and pulling my hand away. “You are a fucking drama queen.”
He wanted to fight about it, but the thing that made Jim so fun was that he shut himself down fast. I had to really work for it. I was still learning all the right buttons.
Button number forty-seven, or whatever number I was on: hurting myself.
Check.
“Let’s get a nurse to look at it.”
“Great. I’ll explain the magic fire trick. That’ll really speed things along with the wacko evaluation.”
“We’ll tell her—”
“You smuggled me a lighter? I stole a pack of matches?”
I got to watch it again: Jim reining himself in, shutting himself down. Then he waited.
“Ok,” I finally said.
“Ok, what?”
I looked down at the table. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”
2 | JIM
I left the hospital and walked. San Elredo wasn’t big, and it had been built for foot traffic when the only residents were monks and nuns and hermits and whoever else got dragged out this far. Now, on this rocky stretch of shore between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, real estate was at a premium, but that hadn’t always been the case.
I followed the sidewalk along the coast. My temperature kept rising, and the day was cold enough that heat wicked off my body in white curls. I wanted to stop and burn something. I wanted to incinerate the trail of paper cups and weekly circulars flattened against the curb. But, like always, I tamped it down. I had learned a long time ago the value of keeping my temper. I had learned the cost when I didn’t.
I didn’t like Emmett hurting himself. I didn’t like him using me to hurt himself. But then I’d think about the lies, all the fucking lies I told him over and over again, and it was hard to stay angry.
After another mile, the November day had sucked away enough of my anger that I could think clearly. Or as clearly as I’d been able to think lately; my head was congested, and I couldn’t always seem to draw a full breath. I checked my phone, scrolling through the various task apps I used to pick up cash here and there. A lady wanted someone to hang a toilet paper dispenser. Another lady wanted lightbulbs changed. Easy jobs; easy ways for me to pick up cash. But the thought of standing on a stepstool, screwing in a bulb while Melinda tried to undo my belt with her teeth—or, worse, tried to talk to me—made my temperature shoot up again.
Ok. Maybe I wasn’t as calm as I’d thought.
Another job popped up. Tim. I dismissed it. I’d helped Tim last month, moving some of the rocks in his landscaped backyard. I’d shown up in jeans and a t-shirt; Tim had been wearing a polo and khakis. Halfway through the job, I turned around and Tim was wearing nothing