“You knocked back more than a few last time,guey. You don’t remember falling asleep on the couch?”
Johnny laughed. “You were totally snoring, bro.”
I punched him in the shoulder and kept my hard gaze on Cruz. “Alright. Fine. So you talked to Chi-chi. Do you think it’s a good idea to get involved in his business, though?”
Cruz’s face remained almost impossible to read, but I saw a flicker of a reaction cross his features, something that looked a lot like…guilt.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled. “You already did a job!” Johnny and Eliazar exchanged a look, seeming unsurprised. I turned to Johnny. “You knew?” I accused.
“Look, it was my choice,” Cruz said firmly. “All I did was drop one little backpack off in Seattle. Johnny came along becauseChi-chi said it might be easier for a white guy to make the delivery in that neighborhood.”
“¡Madre de Dios!” I ran a hand through my hair. “¿Están jodidamente locos?”
“It’s fine, Deck. No one got caught,” Eliazar said.
“You knew too?” My eyes flashed at him.
He looked down at his lap.
“Don’t get mad at them,” Cruz insisted. “Like I said, I was the one who took the job. And I’m the one talking to Chi-chi tonight.”
“But why?” My voice lost some of its anger.
Cruz shook his head. “We don’t all have Michael and María for parents. I’m not saying I’m going to start working for Chi-chi on the regular, but it’s nice to have a little money in my pocket for once.”
Johnny and Eliazar nodded in agreement.
“I want to go to the party, too,” Eliazar chimed in. “It’s been extra shitty with my parents lately, and I need to get out of my head.”
The way he said it concerned me, considering he’d been smoking meth in Chi-chi’s basement a week ago. But I also knew he’d had a rougher time with his mom and pops over the past few months. Turned out, they were homophobic assholes who couldn’t accept their own son.
We’d suspected Eliazar was gay for a while. He never wanted to talk about girls, but would mention celebrity dudes or point out hot guys on the street. Two summers ago—after a trip to the pool where he was very fucking obvious about checking out the men—we asked him directly. He said, “Yes,” we all said, “’Kay,” and that was it. I gave zero fucks, and once our classmates began to suspect, Cruz let it be known that he would seriously fuck up anyone who messed with our friend. Johnny took a little longer with it, but he eventually came around.
Of course, the neighborhood wasn’t exactly forward-thinking. Far from it. There were plenty of Mexican grandmas who still said a Rosary every morning. They gave Eliazar backward glances and expressed sympathy for his parents. A few folks let Eliazar know exactly what they thought, hissing “puto”in school or shouting at him on the street as they drove past.
But by the time we started junior year, it was old news. There were a few otheroutkids at our school, although all of them lived in the better part of the district, not on our streets.
Eliazar’s parents took awe’re going to pretend this isn’t happeningapproach to their son being gay. He didn’t talk about it, and they never asked. But a few months ago, his pops caught Eliazar watching porn, and since then, it had been fucking on between the two of them.
Johnny put his arm around my shoulders and cocked his head to tap mine. “Looks like we’re going to Chi-chi’s tonight,” he said. “Don’t worry. If you fall asleep on the couch, I’ll wake you up.”
“And we can be just the four of us next weekend, for sure,” Eliazar added, always trying to keep the peace.
Cruz stuck the key in the ignition and pulled out onto the street in the direction of Chi-chi’s house.
I looked at the back of his head, then at Eliazar, and then at Johnny next to me. Outvoted, I leaned back in my seat. Making this U-turn was going to be a lot harder than I thought.
Chapter eleven
Cori - Age 15
THIRTEEN-AND-A-HALF YEARS AGO
Deck turned a card over in his hand. The fabric bracelet Marisol made him earlier that evening slid around on his wrist, drawing my eyes to the muscles in his forearm.
He tapped the card against his head, as though attempting to read it through osmosis. It was one of the first ones I’d made, back when a teacher in middle school explained the SATs to me. Hard to believe I’d finally be taking the PSATs this year. For so long, college had seemed like an abstract concept. Now the concept felt more like a plan. A plan that began with high test scores and good grades. I’d need both to secure the type of scholarship that would cover my tuition and provide me with a dorm room. Allow me to live somewhere other than a stupidtrailer where I got woken up every night by Johnny taking a piss or my mom stumbling in with some loser toentertain.
I didn’t want to go too far—the University of Washington in Seattle was my dream—but I needed to put some distance between Everett and me.
