“What—”What if it is true?I almost say. Instead, I swallow the question down. Saying those words makes them even more true. Something I can’t take back. “Then I be better than them.”
His shoulders rise and fall with a sigh, and he brings the jacket back close to his chest, holding it tight. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m sorry you had to defend me.”
“Probably better me than you,” I say, a half smile slowly forming. “Pretty sure Pérez wouldn’t have been able to keep you from kicking his ass.”
“Oh, he would’ve left with at least a black eye and a bloody lip,” Vale replies, smiling back at me. I can see his own tension leaving his body. And, slowly, I start relaxing too. We’re going to be okay. “If you still want to go get tacos, I don’t have anything else going on for the rest of the day.”
“Mind if we wait a while? I … I just want to stay here for a little bit longer.”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“You can lie down too,” I tell him, not giving myself a chance to think about this. To consider what happens if one of my roommates walks in right now. I’m so tired of thinking about everyone else today. “If you want.”
He gives me a nod and almost cautiously starts to lie down next to me, scooting toward me so there’s maybe half a foot of space in between us, where his hand falls. I turn to face him, catching those soft, pretty brown eyes of his like he was waiting for me. And we just look, without saying anything. For a few seconds, half a minute, a minute, two, three.
And then my eyes refuse to stay open any longer.
When I wake up, I’m spooning Vale, an arm wrapped around him, holding him close. My whole body can feel him breathing softly, the way his body rises and falls. He’s got a hand over mine that’s resting on his stomach. And, as I get more conscious, I try not to think about my dick pressing on his ass.
I pick my head up slowly, and only enough to see that it’s still daylight outside my window. We couldn’t have been asleep for too long.
And as I carefully turn on my back, all I can think is, again,Kat really broke me. As I immediately miss the feeling of cuddling Vale, of his hand holding mine, I know I’m broken. And the thingabout breaking is that I’ve gotten a glimpse of what’s inside. Of all that “not normal” I’m so scared of being.
And it looks nice.
It looks like me playing football with Vale and him asleep cuddled up to me and me getting to be so openly happy about him sitting up front at my games and getting to kiss him right before I rush off to the pitch and maybe even give him an ass smack for good luck.
It looks like being unchained. Like I’ve started walking toward the light, but I can still hear the voices of those other prisoners—of that guy I almost fought, of Barrera, of my Pops, of the dads I’ve known who would rather throw their sons out than embrace them—telling me to come back. That in the cave is where I belong. It’s the only place to get what I want.
I’m stuck between finding out what it really feels like to see the sun and staying in the place I’ve, up till now, been so comfortable living in.
The sound of Vale letting out a whine as he stretches brings me back, and I watch as he sits up, giving me a tired smile. “You have a good nap?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah. I could go for a taco now, though, if you’re hungry,” he says, looking down at me.
I chuckle, nodding. “Sure. Let’s go get tacos.”
“Oh, but I did mean to ask you something. And it … I don’t know if it’d be weird now with everything that happened today, or—”
When he goes quiet, a lot of me worries he’s going to ask me the same question Kat did. If he’s caught on to all my glances too. If I might have to finally say those words out loud for the first time.
But I want to seem unassuming. So I say, as confident as possible, “Dígame. What is it?”
“I—were you planning on going to the Eta Tau ABC party?”
Oh shit, thank Pelé.I try to keep my relieved sigh quiet as I tell him, “I hadn’t put a lot of thought into it. I think the guys were saying they wanted to, though. We’ve got a Friday game, but the rest of our weekend’s going to be free. Actually, yeah. I specifically remember Pérez saying that he wants to be on his perra behavior and get into some pendejadas.”
“Even though it’s Leana’s sorority?”
“Yeah. I’m fine with that. We’re … promise. That doesn’t matter.”
Trust me. I’ve moved on.
“Okay,”Vale replies, stretching the word out. “Then another question. Leana was mentioning how lots of people go in theme or matching, and I was wondering if you would want to do that. With me.”
“Oh, I mean, I—”
