All Wheel Drive

by Z. A. Maxfield

  Flushing, Healey stared down at him. “I don’t even know what you mean.”

  “Yeah, you do. When I say, ‘We can walk,’ you say, ‘Well, I can, anyway.’” He pulled up to a light and pressed the button.

  While they waited for the light to turn green, Healey fidgeted. “That’s what I sound like to you?”

  “You sound like all the dudes on Fox News to me.”

  “Not because of what I say.” Healey had stopped beside him and was now glaring down at him angrily. “Not because I’m some . . . some . . . nitwit.”

  “Not a Friend of the Fox, eh?”

  “No—”

  “Point one, in your favor.”

  “Oh hello, I made you come from touching your armpit, so I think there’s a couple more points to be awarded there.” Healey was flushed, his eyes sparkling.

  He apparently got a great deal of pleasure from the back and forth.

  Good to know.

  “And as for Fox,” he went on to say, “of course I’m not a fan. For one thing, hello climate change deniers.”

  “Okay. I’ll give you that. But if we’re going to get along, we’ve gotta acknowledge some things. You are Napoleon Dynamite.”

  “I know, right?” Healey rolled his eyes. “But Fox News. What a thing to say.”

  When the light changed, Diego rolled down the ramp and into the street.

  Healey stepped out after him. “While we’re being honest, you’re way too young to be a curmudgeon. I wasn’t going to say anything—”

  “I’m a what?” Diego hit the ramp on the other side with some speed.

  “You. Are. A curmudgeon. But all great curmudgeons are old and all the young ones are British, and also white, like Spencer. There’s no one to star in your movie.”

  “They could find a Latino curmudgeon to cast.”

  “Be much more likely to spray tan someone paler.”

  “Are you going somewhere with this?”

  “No. I don’t even know where we’re going,” Healey said.

  “You said pancakes.” Diego turned when they came to Main Street—downtown Bluewater Bay. Built optimistically in the twenties and blissfully ignorant of werewolves for almost an entire century, it was growing quaint—instead of recessed—because of an influx of tourist dollars. “I thought the diner on Main Street?”

  “Sunrise Café? Okay. Been a long time since I was there.” The words were conversational, as though they hadn’t been in a heated discussion seconds before. “Now where was I— Oh. Climate Change. Fox News probably believe scientists made that up because they have a personal grudge against hairspray.”

  “Hairspray?”

  “Yes. Imagine a world without aerosols . . . oooh, scary. It’s like the Michael Keaton version of Batman. A horrifying television landscape full of talking heads with flat hair.”

  “Do go on.” Diego cracked a smile. “And on, and on, and on.”

  “Oh, I plan to.”

  Diego waited to the side until Healey got the old wooden door for him. To his credit, Healey didn’t even hesitate. He seemed to know what Diego needed before Diego did. Of course he does. His sister uses a chair. Diego wouldn’t wish that on her, but the outcome was going to be handy. Healey put his hand on Diego’s shoulder, and Diego slapped it away.

  “So that’s how it’s gonna be?” Healey asked. “Partial reinforcement. You’re doling out affection in tiny little dribs and drabs, so eventually, I will be gagging for it.”

  “Maybe?”

  “But you do like me, right?” Healey asked. “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility you like me?”

  “You’re the scientist.” Diego smirked as he rolled past. “You figure it out.”

  Pancakes were definitely called for.

  Healey learned at a young age that sometimes all he needed was carbs. And coffee. And to shut his mouth and listen for a change.

  Even if you’re the smartest person in the room—and it wasn’t misplaced pride to assume he was, except at Stanford where you couldn’t swing a Nobel Prize without hitting a laureate or two—it paid to shut up and listen more often than not.

  “It’s all about perspective, isn’t it?” he blurted, then asked to double-check, “Did I say that out loud?”

  “Yeah, you did,” Diego seemed pleased to inform him.

  They’d been seated at a table in the corner and given menus. Healey vacillated between fancy pancakes and plain, and then worried over what kind of pork he wanted to go with it.

  All kinds of pork.

  That’s what he wanted.

  “I’ll have the lumberjack special and coffee,” he told their waitress.

  Diego ordered a burger with fries. She gave them a bright smile, took their menus, and left. Apparently, Diego was still waiting for his answer, though, because he was . . . staring.

  “Just thinking out loud.”

  “You see? Thinking,” Diego told him. “That was your first mistake. Not the out loud part.”

  Healey hid his smile behind his mug. “I think all the time, I’m afraid.”

  “I figured.” Diego tapped his straw on the table, pushed the paper off the rest of the way, then put it in his Coke.

  Healey would have made a “growing” worm with his straw paper if he had one.

  Missed opportunity.

  “Any legitimate reason you believe I should stop thinking?”

  Diego changed the subject on him. “What was your ex like? Any chance you’ll get back together?”

  Healey shuddered. “No.”

  “That was quick.”

  “Even if I wanted to get back together,” Healey smiled sadly, “I suspect it isn’t possible anymore.”

  “Because of the accident?”

  Healey nodded. “Yeah. Shit wakes you up.”

  It was easier to blame the accident for their breakup than Ford’s illness, or the distance that had grown between them, or the terrifying changes in Ford’s personality during their last few weeks together.

  It would be a long time before he’d think of Ford without the awful ache his cold anger and vicious words had left behind.

  “You know what I did before this happened?” Diego slapped his wheelchair open-handed for emphasis.

  Healey shook his head.

  “I was a journalist. Got my degree from UCLA, worked for CNN.”

  Healey’s eyes widened.

  “You didn’t even wonder?” He sipped his coke.

  “How’d you end up doing that?” Healey asked. “You mind talking about it?”

  Diego’s chin lifted. “Does your sister like talking about herself? Or just her accident, because it seems to me that all people really want to know is how I got in the chair and what I’m doing about it.”

  Fair enough. “I want to know more than that. Do you want to know about Shelby?”

  “Can you tell her story without her SCI?”

  “No, I can’t. I’m not sure she’d want me to.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “No, I don’t.” Healey contemplated his coffee. “My stepmother—Shelby’s mom—is an alcoholic. She was drunk and ran a red light. Her car got T-boned, passenger side, right where Shelby was sitting. We’re lucky Shelby survived.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “It took our family a long time to find a new normal.”

  “What happened to her mom?”

  “Prison, because it wasn’t her first offense. Shelby’s our prize for surviving that.” Healey didn’t live with daily outrage and anxiety for Shelby’s future anymore, but he’d never take his sister for granted.

  Diego’s mouth softened. “I was on vacation in Colorado. Mountain biking. I got hit by a truck. Thrown for fucking miles. I actually landed in a tree. Spoiler alert: I lived.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Healey’s gaze snapped back to Diego. “Shit. Not that you lived.”

  Diego shrugged. “T11 fracture. Part of my spine is fused. I’m paraplegic, which means we need to have a fran
k and serious talk about sex.”

  “Yes. Sex—” Healey offered. “And by that I mean sex with me specifically—is inevitable from here on out, so we should discuss it. Sex with me, and death, and taxes.”

  Diego’s bright smile turned into a lazy smirk. “Decisions, decisions.”

  “Why do you sound like you’d prefer the latter?”

  A slight redness crested Diego’s cheeks. “I can’t feel anything below my waist. I have specific routines for peeing and a regular bowel routine—”

  It was at this precise moment their waitress arrived with breakfast. She stood there uncertainly, all color fleeing, wearing a pale, hospitable smile.

  “Er . . . Who’s the lumberjack again?”

  “Me.” Healey sat back and let her serve him.

  Oh awkward, awkward.

  She finished putting their plates down, double-checked her ticket in a high-pitched nervous little girl voice, and then left them.

  Please God.

  Don’t let me laugh.

  “You should know I laugh when I’m nervous.” Thank heavens, he’d spoken in time. “Ah, hahah. Hahahaha. Shit. Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

  Diego reached for the glass ketchup bottle, took off the cap, and tried pouring it over his fries.

  “What’re you nervous about?” He started patting the base of the ketchup to get it to flow. Pat, pat, pat. Pat, pat, pat.

  Healey wanted to keep his mouth shut, but in the end, he couldn’t stop himself from pointing out, “It works best if you hold the end and wiggle the tip sharply from side to side.”

  “We still talking about sex?” Diego asked. “Because you’re not inspiring me with confidence here.

  Healey groaned. “The ketchup.”

  Jesus. Diego could be sarcastic. Maybe he was off-balance? Maybe Healey had thrown Diego as off-balance as he was, and his surly attitude was some kind of test?

  “Are you testing me?”

  “No.”

  Good to know this isn’t a test. On the other hand, Diego’s answer could possibly be part of a more elaborate test. Healey propped his chin on his hand, gave Diego a frustrated shake of his head.

  “But if I were taking a test, how would I be doing? Because even though test taking is normally something I’m really good at, it’s extremely stressful for me.”

  “You’re fine.” More blushing.

  Healey saw what put Diego off-balance.

  Honesty.

  Confidence.

  “What do you need from me, Diego?”

  Diego cleared his throat. “Nothing, man.”

  “I should have expressed myself better.” Healey picked up an extra-crispy slice of bacon and let it shatter on his tongue. Oh God, that was so tasty. “One, how can I give you pleasure? Oh, and B, if we were to fuck, what would you need from me to make it good for you?”

  Brown eyes blinked at him.

  Uncomprehending? Curious? Confused?

  Maybe that was too much, too soon? Oh God, it probably was.

  Had he crossed the line?

  “Of course, hahaha.” Jesus. Demented laughter and all. “All of that would be predicated on you still being interested in me. If you were. Are. That’s all I mean. If you are still interested, then . . . blah, blah, blah. You could say something anytime at all now and it would be awesome.”

  Diego’s expression was still doubtful. “You’ve got a PhD?”

  “Mm-hmm. But it’s in physics. Not dating.”

  Diego appeared to digest that information.

  “Okay. But why me? I mean other than I bought the house you used to live in, you know nothing about me.”

  Healey narrowed his eyes. Ford might have been Healey’s first real lover, but he’d hooked up plenty before. They’d occasionally picked up a third. Sometimes even another couple. Sometimes men, sometimes women, although that was more Ford’s thing. Ford’s attitude toward sex was the same as his attitude toward great whiskey and music and mostly . . . everything.

  If some is good, more is better.

  He’d taught Healey to go after what he wanted. A silent thank-you shivered over Healey’s skin—like one of those fucking feather things all the sex shops sell since Fifty Shades.

  “For me, attraction is instantaneous.” He cut a triangle of pancake and slid it around in the syrup. “I lock eyes with a dude, and it’s either on or it’s not.”

  When he ate, it was on. No doubt about it. Diego couldn’t take his eyes off Healey’s mouth. Healey could practically feel the heat coming off him.

  “So you’re attracted to me? That’s why we’re here?”

  “Why else?” Healey asked. “I like you well enough, but I don’t know you yet.”

  “Right. The thing is with me? It’s super inconvenient. You’d be a lot better off looking for someone less challenging right now. You’re on the rebound. Go hook up with some hot guy at a club. Get that shit out of your system and move on.”

  “That’s your advice?”

  Diego cut his burger in two before picking the closest half up. Despite that, it only took a single bite for it to fall apart, with bits of bun and lettuce and tomato and bacon raining onto his plate like confetti.

  “In the long run—” he politely finished chewing before speaking again “—going out to look for someone able-bodied will be a lot more fun for you than using me as a sex toy.”

  Oh God. Is that what Diego thought?

  “Am I not making myself clear enough?” Healey asked. “I find you incalculably hot. Fine. Sexy. Primo stuff.” He’d already lost himself in Diego’s scent, his skin, his flavor. Was insecurity Diego’s hang-up? Healey winced. He was practically a walking hard-on for Diego.

  Diego laughed behind his napkin.

  “It’s not funny.” Now Healey was pissed. “At the very least, there’s nothing funny about me finding you attractive. Admit it. You’re not a troll.”

  “So you’re for real? This isn’t some . . . fetish for you?”

  Stung hard, Healey barely sputtered, “F-fetish? Fuck off. Fetish. I have a sister who . . . Christ.”

  “I have to ask, don’t you get it?” Diego glanced around before lowering his voice. “There are people who search out guys like me online, man. They dig watching me pick up my legs like they’re inanimate objects. They’d pay me for it, if I let them.”

  “I— You must know I don’t feel that way?” Healey hated that Diego even asked, but he knew his sister sometimes succumbed to similar dark thoughts. She’d admitted as much to him, privately.

  Diego pushed his plate away. The move was largely symbolic. It only slid two inches before it hit his glass. “How do I know having a sister with a disability hasn’t given you some kind of fetish?”

  Healey lost focus when he realized where this was going. It was a test. Another test. And despite how utterly creepy it was to even suggest such a thing, sometimes tests were creepy and you had to pass them anyway.

  “Hmm.” He thought about it.

  “So . . .” Diego probably figured that would be the end of it.

  Healey nodded as he mentally lined up what he knew to be true.

  “All right.” He nodded some more. “I can work with that. Either I’m genuinely interested in you, or I’ve got a fetish, is that it? And you can’t tell which is true, because I’m not ignorant. I understand the biology of a spinal cord injury. I know what gives”—he coughed—“and what doesn’t, as it were.”

  It was the most natural thing in the world for Healey to glance toward Diego for confirmation or argument.

  Diego picked up a fry, dunked it in ketchup, and popped it in his mouth.

  Ooh. Nice mouth. It drew Healey’s attention right back to the problem at hand.

  “You can choose to believe I am genuinely interested in you. Where does that lead us?”

  “Boinking.” Diego’s reply was immediate.

  Healey hoped so too. “Undoubtedly. But hypothetically, if you’re with a guy and he looks at you and his dick gets hard
and he says it’s because of you, you . . .” He waited expectantly.

  “I’d have to wonder if it’s because he’s into guys like me. The fetish thing.” Diego frowned. “It’s always there in the back of my mind.”

  “Okay, so, let’s back up. You’re with a guy and his dick is hard right now. If you believe him when he says he digs you and you end up in the sack. Everyone wins.”

  “If he’s not a selfish asshat? Yes.” Glancing away, Diego shoveled another couple of fries into his mouth. “But say I don’t believe him. What if I think he’s probably a weirdo?”

  Healey really had planned on begging and then groveling, but that was out of the question at the Sunrise Café. It was already late in the afternoon. The knees of his jeans would stick to the filthy floor.

  There was only one thing left to do.

  I am going to nonexistent Hell for bastardizing Pascal’s Wager like this.

  “If you can’t believe anyone would want you because of the chair or whatever, then you are pretty much going to be celibate.”

  “I can masturbate, you know—”

  Healey saw the waitress coming and put his hand on Diego’s to warn him, but of course, he didn’t take the hint in time.

  “—and use a sexual surrogate. I’ve had a couple guys over. It’s not like I’m a hermit.”

  “Hello again. Sorry to be . . . um . . .” The waitress put a second soda down on the table for Diego.

  He didn’t touch the new glass, but gave her a nod. “Thanks.”

  She backed away with his empty glass.

  He heaved another sigh.

  “Thirsty work,” Healey remarked, “scaring the wait staff like that.”

  Diego craned his neck as much as he could to see her skitter away. “I didn’t know she was there. It’s easy for you, with your back against the wall. You could see her coming.”

  “I put my hand on yours to warn you.”

  Brown eyes widened. Healey noticed faint flecks of gold and orange for the first time. Nice eyes. Dark as black coffee with hidden surprises.

  “I thought hand-holding was the next part of your seduction plan. You were saying.”

  Healey leaned his chin on his hand.

  “I was saying either people are attracted to you or to the chair, which is part of you, sort of. If you choose to believe it’s you, you act accordingly, boink, and that’s awesome, right? But if you don’t believe and you want to boink anyway, so what? Maybe you’ll get your heart broken later when you find out someone had a fetish. Has that happened?”