Formerly known as Kiss the Sky / Cora, a sexual-assault survivor who doesn't trust men, and Pace, the firefighter who rescues her, grapple with the consequences of the attraction between them as strange events threaten their sanity-and their lives.
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First, there was only him
Then, it was just me
Until you came along
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"I don't hate men," I announced with the confidence of a white man, despite clearly not being one, and followed it up by adding, "I just don't trust them as far as I can throw them."
My psychologist, Gina, gave me a look that words would translate as really, bitch? After a few years of the rodeo that psychotherapy for me had become, she and I had an open, trusting relationship, which was why I took no offense to the cracks of professionalism visible in her face.
After another moment of silence where I mourned her patience, Gina snapped at me. "We're in this session because you literally picked up a grown man last week and threw him over a bar."
The effort I made not to burst out laughing was inhuman, but her bespectacled eyes zeroed in on my trembling lips. I wished I could tell her how epic the whole thing had been without Gina losing her shit.
For the first time in weeks, Alina, her husband and I had gone to a bar downtown together. They wanted to cheer me up after a rough streak at work, dealing with customers that didn't live up to the reputation of Canadian politeness, and a beer or fifteen sounded just like what I needed. We picked a bar that was due a renovation twenty years ago, and played even older music showing a clear lack of interest in catering to the young party people. Predictably, the place was near empty and it was easy to park ourselves at a booth that was sticky in every surface.
"I'm going to quit," I remembered telling them after taking a swig of my first beer.
Alina, bless her soul, didn't even think about giving me crap for the fact that this was probably my fifth job just this year alone. She nodded and said, "Yeah, sometimes you just gotta move on to bigger and better."
We both knew that, having migrated from Venezuela. She'd been one of papi's employees at the company and although I didn't know her much back then, I did know that she high-tailed it because she wasn't a huge fan of the government. The irony slapped me in the face every time I recalled that this, and her generosity, were basically what saved me after...
