Page 10 of Tropical Vice
Blake didn’t move. He suddenly remembered a comment from a client he had a few months back, about how her mother would shrug arguments off by offering food as an olive branch. His fingers hovered above the colander. “I didn’t mean it cruelly.”
Kit shut the drawer and leaned against the counter, arms folded. “You don’t know me. You think you do, because we had one night, but you don’t.”
There was no accusation in the words, only clarity. Blake stood helpless in the middle of the room, surrounded by the gentle mess of morning, and felt every detail conspire against him. He had never seen Kit angry. Even now, he wasn’t. But it was as if the dust had settled around them, and neither knew if they liked what had been revealed.
The radio played faintly from the shelves behind them. Blake heard a woman’s voice crooning words in Thai he couldn’t understand. The sink dripped, and the smell of cut lime was too strong.
Blake left the kitchen before he could say something worse.
Outside,the café grounds were bathed in uneven light. The sun had already passed overhead, leaving the flagstones hot beneath his sandals.
He spent an hour sweeping puddles and rain-soaked leaves away from the main path before he heard the sound of footsteps. By the dog enclosure, Kit knelt with a sack of dry feed. Geng and Miso circled him eagerly, tails wagging, tongues lolling in the heat. Chili lay sprawled in the shade, uninterested in anything but sleep. Mango waited patiently under the cool shade of a tree beside Dusty, and Chokdee was nowhere to be found.
Blake crouched beside the low bench and reached for an empty bowl. “Let me take that one,” he said.
Kit did not respond, but he let him. Blake poured the food carefully, then adjusted the bowl so it wouldn’t tip against the gravel. Geng pressed a damp nose to his knee before retreating. Miso pawed the dust twice and dropped her chin to the rim.
The dogs gave him something to focus on. A pace. A ritual. He welcomed it.
“I said something stupid,” he began.
Kit was still kneeling. He wiped his hands on his shorts and stared at the patch of ground between them.
“Yeah.”
“I thought it might feel safer to push,” Blake said after a long pause. “That if I was the one to frame it that way, I’d be in control of what it meant.”
Kit stood, brushing dirt from his thighs. “Is that what you want it to mean?”
“No.”
Kit picked up the empty sack, shook it once, then folded it. “Then why say it?”
Blake rose slowly. “Because it scared me. That it wasn’t casual. That maybe it mattered.”
Kit looked at him now. Not guardedly, not even cautiously, just tired. “You don’t get to panic and throw it back at me when it stops being convenient for you.”
“I know.”
“I’ve done that before,” Kit added, quieter. “Years ago. Let someone in, then made them feel small for it. I won’t do it again.”
The silence stretched between them. Blake shifted his weight, then looked down at the dogs. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Kit nodded, though the gesture was slow, ambiguous. He turned toward the steps and called to the dogs. “Inside. Come on.”
Miso and Mango bounded ahead. Geng hesitated, then trotted after her. Dusty remained where he sat under the tree. Chili rose grudgingly and followed last, joints cracking. Kit watched them all pass through the door before stepping in himself.
Blake remained outside. The bowl in his hand was still warm. He stood a long time in the golden hush of dusk, the air thick with the coming rain, and wondered whether he would be let in again.
FIVE
THE CALL
The alert buzzed faintly against the nightstand, thin as breath. Blake stirred, groped around for the phone, and silenced it with a quick flick of his thumb.
It had been a week since their night together, and Blake had developed a routine. Wake up, go to the café, help where he could. The air between them had grown comfortable, and Kit didn’t pull away when their hands brushed or when Blake lingered too long in the doorway.
There was an ease now, a rhythm—not quite domestic, but something like it. Sometimes they spoke without speaking. Sometimes Kit would pass him a coffee without looking up, and Blake would take it like a secret passed from hand to hand.
