Public service: End Table for Orphans

 “Well weigh that dislike of hospitals against your dislike of death,” you say, turning away and putting your hand on your hip. You don’t want to burden him with this, but you see his eyebrows perk up anyway. Shit. You lower your voice. “Can’t Dad sit with you? Or Luna?”

 “You worry too much.” She chides.

 “You don’t worry enough!” You scold into the phone. You feel a hand around your waist and turn just in time to get a kiss on your forehead. It calms you down.

 Sighing, you regain your composure. “Mom? Please promise me you’re going to go back.”

 “Well of course I’ll go back, Bean, but really, I don’t want you worrying about me.” Somewhere in the background, you hear a crash behind her.

 “Mom?”

 “It’s just your father. He’s putting up shelves for the crystals and I think he fell. Can I call you back?”

 You sigh. The only thing your mother is worse at than soothing your anxiety is calling you back.

 “Yeah, sure.” You say. “But actually call?”

 “I always do.”

 “Hmm.”

 “Bye Bean, I love you.”

 “I love you too,” you say before you hear the line go dead. You put the phone back on the hook and drop your head, trying it to calm yourself down. From the couch, you hear Javi perk up.

 “Sounds like you had a worse day than me.”

 You look up and give him a weak smile. “We’re having a lot of those, recently.”

  How long are honeymoon periods supposed to last? You would have at least guessed six months. That only seems fair, given the seven months of angst and hookups that preceded finally, finally being able to admit to one another that maybe this meant a little more than you led on. You would have taken three months, even- three months of everything just being calm and quiet and nice, where the most stressful thing to happen is burning dinner because you’re too busy fucking on the counter.

 You moved to the wrong fucking city.

 It wasn’t even a week after your drunken exchange of I-love-yous that it began. All those bodies piling up once more, only this time the cops and their allies were giving just as good as they had got. Bodies from both sides seemed to pile up in higher stacks all around you two. Three days hadn’t passed without you having to calm down one of your students -or worse, one of your fellow teachers- over recent events. It was getting to you, too, if you were honest. Javi had warned you against going out like you once did, and as much as you hated it, you knew he was right. You thought of the friends of friends who had disappeared or died, caught in the crossfire or in the consequences of their poor decisions. The more you heard, the more you wanted to lock yourself in your apartment, hidden away from the chaos of the outside. You managed to see your friends at work but meet-ups outside had dwindled severely. Alessa found out she was pregnant and didn’t want to risk it. Lisa’s brother-in-law got caught in between two sides of a gunfight and couldn’t work any longer, so she was helping them more around the house. Maritza was the only one who still tried to go out, but it was a rare occasion you could even gather everyone up for a dinner at home.

 Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if you could have spent all this new, anxious free time with Javi, but if anything, he had picked up your slack when it came to existing in the outside world. Since Los Pepes had entered the picture, the man worked around the clock. Sometimes you would go the whole evening without seeing him, only to be awoken to the feeling of his body falling on the bed next to yours. While he still insisted on driving you to work every morning, he had begun staying at the office later and later, sometimes not returning until 2 am. The fire and anger that once fuelled him seemed to have died out, and the poor man is running on fumes. You could see it when you both woke in the morning in the dark circles under his eyes and the uptick in cigarettes he had been smoking. You try and take care of him - bringing him coffee in bed, rubbing his shoulders when he sits up, lost in his own thoughts. He appreciates it, he tells you as much, but no matter how hard you try he’s still as weary as ever when he finally comes back to you.

 You don’t want to add to that. You know that what he’s seeing at work must be leagues beyond your little pep-talks and lonely evenings, and you don’t think it’s worth mentioning even if it has started to take its toll on you. You miss your friends. You miss days at work where the kids are sunny and mischievous, instead of withdrawn and scared. Hell, you miss your boyfriend- it feels weird calling a man his age that- you’re supposed to be in loved-up bliss, but instead it seems the universe decided to throw you another curveball. You overcame the intimacy issues only to come face to face with this bullshit not days later.

 And now your mom is sick.

 Javi gets up from the couch and comes to stand beside you, his tired hand dropping down to take your fingers. You smile at the effort, which seems small, but you know takes so much for him these days. You reach up to wipe a stupid tear out of your eyes.

 “Swear she thinks she could cure this with sage and essential oil,” you try to joke. He doesn’t say anything, only runs his thumb along your cheek bone and tilt your chin up to look at him. You try and give him a smile before another year drops down your face. Frustrated, you press your hands into your eyes and let out a groan.

 “Fuck.” You say. You drop your hands and look back at him. “I’m sorry.”

 “What are you sorry for, huh?” He asks.

 You shake your head.

 “I don’t…I don’t know.” I’m sorry I can’t be soft and happy for you when you come home? I’m sorry that he has to spend all day on the front lines and come back to this mess? “Things have been rough lately. I don’t want to add anything to your pile.”

 “It’s not my pile that’s getting added to,” he pulls you against him, pressing a kiss against your head once more. You close your eyes and let out a sigh. “You okay, hermosa?”

 You nod, pulling away just enough to look him in the eyes. “They caught it early. She’s just stubborn. She’ll go, though. Her dad was an oncologist. She pretends like she doesn’t know, but…” you shake your head. “Fucking parents, huh?”

 “Yeah,” he says, reaching out to push a loose curl behind your ear. “Fuckin’ parents.”

 You relax into him, letting your head dip down into the dip when his neck connects to his chest. He brings his arms around you to keep you there. The two of you stand like that for a moment, two idiots swaying to the silence of the world’s chaos.

 “You’re not bad,” you sigh against him, snuggling in deeper. “For an alcoholic cop.”

 He chuckles. “Agent.” He combs his fingers through your hair. “You’re not bad for a teacher who lets strange men finger her in a supply closet.”

 You hold a finger up. “One time.”

 He catches your hand and brings your fingers up to his lips, kissing the tips. It’s enough to make you melt.

 “I am sorry,” he says, placing your hand against his chest and holding it there. “About your mom.”

 You sigh. “What can you do?”

 “Do you need to go back?”

 “I’d never hear the end of it if I did,” you pull away from him and make for the coffee table, where you had set out two drinks for Javi’s arrival before your mother had called. You pick them up and extend one to him, and he takes it gratefully, dropping onto the couch next to you. “She’s convinced I worry too much. Me, her brilliant daughter who chose to live in the middle of a war zone,” you purse your lips. “Sorry,” you say.

 He shakes his head. “You’re right,” he leans forward to set his drink down on the coffee table before resting his elbows on his knees, bending forward in a pose of contemplation. Sensing the shift in the air, you sit up and run your fingers along his back.

 “Javi- I didn’t mean…”

 He shakes his head again. “This thing…it’s a fucking mess. All of it.” He sighs. “Sick of seeing fucking bodies.”

 You reach for something to say to comfort him, but you know there’s nothing. Instead, you scoot closer to him, resting your chin on his shoulder.

 “Have you thought about it? Going back to Texas for a while?” He asks.

 You shake your head. “She doesn’t want me to. And neither do I,” you reach up and lace your fingers through his, unclasping a worried hand. He turns to you, his eyes flicking up and down your face.

 “You shouldn’t stay here because of me. You’d be safer.”

 You blow a raspberry. “Don’t flatter yourself.” Sensing he took the joke to heart, you nudge him with your chin. “I’m here because I want to be here. With the kids. With you.”

 He turns back to face forward, and you’re unsure if he’s satisfied with your answer before he speaks again.

 “If anything happens to you…” he shakes his head. It forms a pit in your stomach.

 You reach out and press his hand against the center of your chest. When he looks at you puzzled, you smile. “See? Still beating. Think that’s a good sign.”

 He sighs, but not without a small smile on his face. Taking advantage of the moment, you reach out and take him by the chin, pulling him in for a long kiss. When you break away, his hands come up to pull your face back to his, and you can’t help but smile as he presses his lips against your mouth and begins to trail down your neck.

 “Yeah,” he says, kissing the pulse point that makes you shiver. “I think it’s a good sign.”

      You’re not great at taking care of yourself when you’re stressed out. Who is, really? You hope he hasn’t noticed, though, the way the bags under your eyes have darkened to match his or how much more quickly you seem to go through liquor bottles. You want to think he doesn’t notice- that he’s too focused on other things, but it’s getting harder to pretend. You try and rally your energy every time you see him. You want to be this bright spot for him in the middle of all this chaos and violence. You cook, you clean, and you go down on him like you want to live the rest of your life on your knees. You smile. You joke. You try to be pure sunshine in the bullshit he’s caught in.

 But now your mom’s sick. And, fuck, you’re empty.

 He must notice it. He has to see it when he comes home to you, and your house is a mess. He has to hear it when you spend the next few weeks by the phone, arguing with your family- Luna is too busy with the baby to go home, your father doesn’t want to believe it’s real, and your mother-fuck! - she keeps telling you not to worry. Not to worry! Like the few times she calls, she doesn’t tell you offhandedly how much worse she’s getting. Like you’re not trying to keep yourself from telling her how you hear gunshots every night, or how you can’t go a week without seeing a dead body. Like you’re not protecting everyone from your feelings because surely, they have it worse. You know everyone has it worse. How do you compete with cancer and being a foot soldier in the war on drugs? You’re just some teacher. You’re just some lady in over her head. Like everyone else in this country.

     Maybe it was just a bad day when he came home that Wednesday. For both of you. One of your students’ siblings had died the day before, and you had spent the majority of the day trying not to cry alongside an eight-year-old. You had been trying to reach your mother for days, but the calls kept getting picked up by the answering machine and you couldn’t come up with any other way to say, “please call me back and tell me you’re okay”. When you finally came home, it was to a messy house - why are you so disappointed? it’s been a disaster for weeks- and you barely have enough energy to kick a few things out of a sort of path. You check your messages, willing there to be one overlooked recording of your mother’s voice assuring you she’s doing fine before her scheduled surgery, but the tape is woefully empty, just as it was yesterday and the day before. You pick the stupid machine up from the table and throw it to the ground.

 You chain-smoked three cigarettes by your window, zoning out into the ether as night descended upon you so gradually until it was suddenly dark. You thought of your student, the one who came home to a massacred older sibling, and your stomach cramps. Before you can stop yourself, you imagine your mother in the same position they described to you that morning- spread out like a starfish on the floor, eyes wide open and dull as they stare up to the ceiling, a halo of blood around their head. Your throat itches and you light a fourth cigarette.

 When you went to the refrigerator, finally, but discovered upon opening the door that you had once again forgotten to go grocery shopping. The only things that stared back at you were three-day-old pasta leftovers, some eggs, and a few beers.

 “Fucking idiot,” you said to yourself.

 You pulled out the carton of eggs and had begun to whisk them together when you heard the door creak open. You turned around to call out a greeting but bit your tongue when you saw his face. A deep scowl marked his otherwise handsome features, and he had already lit a cigarette before coming in.

 “Hey,” he said as if he was annoyed with you. You tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the eggs in front of you. He made for the couch, stripping off his jacket as he walked.

 “Fuck!”

 You turned around to see him wavering, trying to regain his balance. He reaches out and grabs the edge of the counter, but it’s stacked so high with papers that his hand slips and he’s falling back onto the floor- but not before hitting the back of his head. You run around, dropping to your knees beside him as he pulls a bloodied hand from the back of his head.

 “Hang on- “you run to the sink and grab a wet towel. Jogging back to him, you reach out to nurse the area when he snatches the rag out of your hand.

 “I can do it myself,” he says. “Why is your fucking answering machine on the floor?”

 You feel stupid and lost for words, like a child who just got scolded. You hold your hands in front of you.

 “I want to help- “

 “If you want to help, why don’t you clean the fucking apartment?” He snaps.

 Your eyes widen. He’s been grumpy for weeks, surly even, but there’s an extra bit of venom in his voice tonight. Before today, maybe you would have called him on it, snatched the rag out of his hand, and told him to go fuck himself, to go to his place and bleed over his own towels.

 But…fuck you’re tired. You have been hanging by a thread all day and the only thing that was keeping your eyes dry was the thought of curling up with him tonight. Maybe if one of the many, horrible things hadn’t happened today you would already be kicking his ass out, instead of standing there dumb and speechless, taking this abuse you don’t deserve.

 So, you let him have the rag. You turn back and walk to the kitchen and keep making the eggs.

 He has it worse. He has it worse.

  You two eat dinner in silence. You can tell he’s not pleased with the meager meal, but he just grunts and shovels it into his mouth. You barely eat, picking at little bites like a bird. Instead, you think about how chemotherapy makes people lose their appetite, and wonder if your mother can eat right now. You imagine her too-long blonde hair must have begun to fall out, and for a moment you think you can feel the sickly strands tightening around your fingers. It’s all-encompassing, and you don’t hear when Javi tries to get your attention.

 “Eloise!”

 You jerk your head up, your blank face meeting his. He frowns.

 “I said do you want a drink,”

 “Oh,” you say, softly. You shake your head. “No.”

 He rolls his eyes and pushes up from the table, going to the liquor cabinet. When he pulls the doors open, his head drops, disappointed.

 “You’re out.”

 “Oh?” You turn around. He turns and sends you a look.

 “Yeah.” He says

 “I forgot to go to the…” you wave your hand.

 “Seems like you forgot to do a lot of things,” he sighs. You frown, a bit taken aback by his annoyance. But yet again, you bite your tongue. He sighs and walks towards the table, snatching up his keys.

 “Where are you-?”

 “To get some from my apartment.” He says. He swings the door open with too much power, and when it falls closed with a crack it makes your shudder.

 Across the room, the phone rings.

 You scramble to your feet, nearly tripping over that same answering machine that had claimed Javi. You yank the phone off the hook, shoving the phone to your ear.

 “Mom?” Your voice is like a little girl’s.

 “What?” The male voice says. Your shoulders deflate.

 “Sorry,” you say, pressing your hand to your forehead. You look up as the door to your apartment swings open again, and Javi walks in with a storm cloud over his head, whiskey clutched in his fist. “He just walked in, hang on.” You hold the phone out to Javi. “Steve.”

 He lets out a sigh and walks forward, taking the phone from your hand. In a daze, you walk towards the kitchen and begin to clean up the few dishes you dirtied, your mind zoning in and out of reality. You don’t notice you’re just standing with the water running until a hand comes from the corner of your eye and switches the tap off.

 “Stop watering the pipes,” Javi says. He walks back to the table and lights a cigarette, sitting down and kicking his feet up. You turn back to look at him.

 “Everything alright?” You ask.

 He scoffs. “No, it’s not fucking alright.” He takes a drag and blows a plume of smoke out. He looks up to you, his eyes darting to the glass he left by your hand. He makes to sit up.

 “I’ll get it,” you say, and you pick it up, walking over towards him. You’re just about to hand it to him when your ankle gives, and you drop the glass, spilling his drink over his pants.

 “Goddammit!” He yelps. He looks up at you - and you know it’s not you, you know he’s had a bad day, you know there’s so much on his plate- but the snarl he has feels like a punch to the stomach.

 “I’m sorry, let me- “you reach for the napkins you thought were on the table before realizing you forgot to buy those, too. Your hand flails around you as you’re caught in your anxiety.

 “You’ve done enough,” he grumbles, pushing up and walking past you to pull a rag from the counter.

 You’re not sure why hearing him blotting his pants behind you does it, but you feel it immediately. That hot, wet trail down your face. And once that first tear is loose, you know you can’t stop. Suddenly, you’re silently weeping, snot and water running down your face as your shoulders shake and you reach up to try and hold yourself.

You let out a long breath, but it comes out as shaky, and the sounds from behind you stop.

 “…El?”

 You begin to paw at your face but realize it’s a lost cause. Shaking your head, you ignore him and walk back to your bedroom, closing the door behind you before dropping against the wall.

 You were doing so well. You hadn’t cried, you hadn’t screamed at him during his shittier moods, you had been an angel. You pushed through all of this bullshit, hoping that, even though you couldn’t compete with his life, he would notice. He would realize how much of toll your own, lesser bullshit had begun to take on you, and had some sympathy. More than that, you had hoped he would appreciate it- how you never pushed him to take care of you, how you were always there for him with a meal and warm arms, how you were soldiering on for him through all the stress. You wanted him to think you some sort of martyr, a girlfriend who was pushing all her needs down to take care of him when he needed it most. If he was emotionally unable to reciprocate, he could at least fucking notice.

 But he didn’t. He was too up his own ass, too busy at work, too concerned with being the only person in this relationship with problems that he didn’t even fucking see how much your teeth nearly cracked every time you faked a smile for him. You were mad at yourself, too- you had folded into this smaller version of yourself after making excuses for him, and now you had the gall to be sad about it? You had paved this path. You tried to protect him from your pain, thinking it was kind, when really you were coddling him.

 You feel anger rise in your chest. You clench your fists in your hands, and you’re about to scream into your knees when you hear the soft knock on the door. Furled by anger, you stand up quickly and swing the door open to see a much softer looking Javi in the doorway.

 And that takes the wind out of your sails. Instead of laying into him like you wanted, you let out a pathetic sob. Immediately he’s pulling you towards him and you’re caught in a tight hold as you sob into one of his nicer shirts.

 “El,” he says softly, and you choke out another sob on his shoulder. Carefully, the two of you descend to the floor of your bedroom as he keeps his hold on you, tracing his fingers up and down your back as you continue to cry against him.

 His tone is soothing as he circles through what little he can say - “baby” and “I’m sorry” and “it’s okay”. As your cries come to a slow, you pull away from him and try to wipe your face.

 “Baby,” he says again, reaching out to touch your cheek. You dare to make eye contact, and, fuck, it breaks your heart. He looks like a little boy who just realized he had crossed a line. You let out a pathetic little hiccup as you wipe your eyes again.

 “I’ve tried- “you stutter on your words as your tears keep falling. “I- I know it’s hard for you, really fucking hard, I know my d-day to day can’t compare to the shi-shit you see,” you try to take in a deep breath. His hand runs down your arm. “But I’m not doing okay. And I’ve tried to put that aside to t-take care of you, but - fuck, I need- “you feel yourself begin to hyperventilate. Fuck, you haven’t cried this hard since you were a kid.

 “What do you need, baby?”

 “Fuck, Javi, my mom is dying!” You yell. “She’s dying and I can’t get a hold of her. And every day I have to go to the school and hear more awful fucking stories about other kids’ families dying. I have to let them think I have any kind of answer when I fucking don’t! I’m just as lost as they are! I’m in my godamn thirties and all I want is to hug my fucking mommy, too!” You huff a few more breaths. “But I can’t, so I pretend. And I come home to you, and I- fuck, I love you so much, and I don’t want to burden you or make you take care of me when you have it so, so much worse but today- “you swallow, your mouth dry from crying - “today she was supposed to go in for surgery. And I haven’t heard anything. I spent all of lunch not eating because an eight-year-old, a fucking eight-year-old! Was telling me that she found her brother with a gunshot wound between his eyes. And I can’t do anything to help her! Just like I can’t do anything to help my fucking mother who won’t even call her daughter back to leave a message to say ‘hey! I SURVIVED SURGERY’. And maybe if I hadn’t had all of that I could put up with your shitty moods like I have been for weeks because I know it’s hard and I know you have it worse but today I just-I fucking couldn’t! I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t take YOU yelling at me when all I wanted was for you to fucking- I don’t know! Pull me in your lap and pet my hair! Ask me how my day was! Ignore my dirty apartment the way I’ve ignored your passive-aggressive moody bullshit for a month because you understand I’m not doing the fucking best right now! And I need the person who loves me to fucking act like it!” You fall forward, sobbing again. The arm on your shoulder drops, and you expect for a moment he’s going to get up and leave you to cry into the night. Instead, though, he scoots back until his back leans against the footboard of the bed. You look up in time to see him open his arms.

 “Come here,” he says.

 Too eager, you scramble over to him as he pulls you against him, petting your arms and face as you keep weeping against him.

 “I’m sorry,” he says. “I do see it. I do. I promise.”

 You hiccup and he pulls you tighter.

 “I know you have it worse- “you start.

 “Stop,” he says, pressing your head against his chest.

 You keep crying over the next half hour as he whispers sweet things to you. When you’ve exhausted yourself, you drop your head to his lap, fading in and out of consciousness as his fingers comb through your hair, soft and comforting. You don’t quite remember him urging you up and into bed, but by the time you’ve regained your senses somewhat he’s pulled your back against him, tucking his nose into the nape of your neck.

 “I’m sorry,” you say softly. He shakes his head.

 “You don’t have anything to apologize for.” He says. “Go to sleep, hermosa.”

 You do.

     The next morning is quiet. The two of your dress quickly and rush out the door, having slept past your alarm. He tells you briefly he’s got a lot on at work today, and you take it as a sign you’ll be walking back this afternoon. You nod and give him a quick peck before running up the stairs to the school, at least somewhat happy to have avoided talking about last night.

 So, you don’t expect it when you leave the school one afternoon and see him waiting for you outside, his arms crossed on his chest, aviators on, posed in front of his car like he’s in a film. You fight the urge to smirk when you drop down to the final step and his mouth jerks up at the corner.

 “You look like a cliche,” you deadpan, walking up to give him a quick kiss. Only, it’s not quick- you try to pull away tastefully, but he takes you by your waist and pulls you into a deeper kiss. You give him a swat on his shoulder but return it regardless, luxuriating in the attention. It feels nice.

 “Get in the car,” he says when he finally pulls away. You tilt your head.

  “You takin' me somewhere?”

 “Not if you don’t get in the damn car,” he swats your ass, causing you to shriek, before beginning to walk around the front. Despite yourself, you smile as you clamber in.

 You don’t ask questions throughout the whole drive, but you admit you’re a bit disappointed when you just pull back up to your apartment building. You try and mask it, hopping out of the car and waiting expectantly for him to come around and join you. He climbs the stairs quickly, beating you to the door to hold it open.

 Without thinking, you reach for your keys. It’s almost muscle memory now. You haven’t been to his place for any real time in months. You think it reminds him too much of work.

 Except, now he’s nodding you over to his door he’s begun to unlock. You come to stand by him, eying him as he fiddles with the lock. As the bolt clicks, he smiles, then turns to you.

 “Close your eyes,” he says.

 “Really?”

 “Fuck you. Yea really.”

 With a small grin on your face, you make a show of daintily closing your eyes. You see a flash of light- him waving his hands in front of your face. Convinced you really have your eyes closed, you hear the door open, then feel a warm hand taking your own. You walk inside, blindly stepping after him until he drops his hand, and you feel his hands come to rest on your shoulders.

 “Alright,” he says.

 You open your eyes, and it takes you a while to realize what he’s even made a fuss about. In front of you are two plates with a single sandwich and a side of potato chips. You’re kind of annoyed for a second- when you surprise him, it’s always with a cake or really good head, never just dinner. Dinner that’s basically a sandwich.

 You turn to look at him before noticing that the apartment has been cleaned up. You swivel around, taking in the sight, noticing the repaired answering machine has been put carefully back on the side table. You haven’t seen your home this clean in a while, and you realize that he must have done this, too. You start to say something, but he’s already pulling out your chair for you, urging you to sit down. Lost for words, you drop yourself into the seat and watch as he comes around to sit in front of you. He waits for you to say something, but when you don’t, he begins.

 “It’s not much,” he says finally. “But you were right. I’ve been a dick, and I’m not the only one with shit on my plate.” He rubs the back of his neck. “When my mom was sick…I should be better to you. For you.” He bites his lip. When you still don’t say anything, he continues. “I’m sorry, El. You’re so…good, and I’m…” he shakes his head. You reach out your hand, covering his. There’s a flash of a smile across his face. “I called sick to work. They were having me doing bullshit paperwork, anyway. Murphy can handle that.” He clears his throat. “It’s uh, not much, but a rich guy owed me a favor, and he had a smoker. I had some old rubs from Señora Garza, the one with the hands? My dad sent me them from back home a while, and I know it’s not going home, but I know you miss the food- “you reach forward and pull the top of the sandwich off.

 Brisket.

 You look up at him, and you start to cry.

 His face drops, alarmed. “Oh- no, baby- “

 “Javi,” you wipe a tear away. “This is- this is - “you bend forward and let out another small cry. Immediately, he’s on his feet, coming around to kneel beside you. Just as he’s about to say something, you lean forward and catch his face in your hands, pulling him in for a kiss. It’s long and warm, and when he finally breaks away, you’re rewarded with a bright smile.

 “You like it?”

 “I love- I love it.” You say, running a hand through his hair. “This is very sweet.”

 He looks down, pleased with himself. You lean forward and press a kiss to his forehead. He reaches up and takes your hands.

 “I…I really love you, El,” he says, not quite daring to look you in the eyes until he’s finished his sentence. “I just hope you know that.”

 You nod before pressing another kiss to his lips. “I do,” you say. “Even when…I do know, Javi.”

 He nods, and the two of you sit there, blissed out together for a moment before he lets out a breath.

 “Well, you better eat. Fucking thing took six hours to smoke, better not let it get too cold.”

 You let out a laugh as he stands and comes to sit across from you. With a smile, the two of you eat. It’s not the perfect approximation of the food back home, but it’s enough to fill you with the comfort you had been craving for weeks. Javi watches, proud of himself as you lick the remaining sauce off a finger, smiling at the flavor.

 “You did good, Peña.” You say, flicking your eyes back to him. He smiles, tossing the napkin down between the two of you before making to stand. He walks over and extends a hand down to you, and you raise your eyebrows.

 “Is there more to eat?” You ask, somewhat hopeful. It’s impossible, but if he found a way to get a malt shake down here too you think you’d have to spend the next three weeks with his dick in your mouth.

 “Something like that,” he says, urging you up. You send him a playful look as he reaches behind you and pulls the zipper to your skirt. With strong hands, he pulls your underwear and skirt down to your ankles, dropping to his knees to let you step out of them. With a twinkle in his eye, he smiles up at you.

 “Go sit on the couch,” he orders. “And keep your knees apart.”

   Turns out his surprises come with pretty good head, too.

You go first the morning the two of you wake up in your bed. You both woke up in a tangle of limbs and slid out of bed after the second snooze alarm went off. He had just pulled on his jeans when he reached for the shirt you had folded the night before.

“Wait,” you said. You walked to the closet and pulled a crisp black shirt off its hanger, continuing to brush your teeth and you walked up and deposited it in his hand. “I washed this after you let me wear it home.”

That night we made pasta and I spilled sauce on my shirt and you took it off and fucked me in your kitchen until the chicken burnt-

He looks up at you, his eyebrows raised.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he shakes his head before pulling it over his shoulders. “Thank you.”

You give him a look before dipping into the bathroom to spit.

After a quick cup of coffee, you’re both striding towards your door when you stop short. He turns and looks at you, waiting for you to take another step and flick the deadbolt. Instead, you ask

“Are you going to be okay? Today, I mean. With...”

His face falls a little, like he was expecting to get out of this without you mentioning it. It makes your heart hurt.

“I’m fine,” he says, curtly. He drops his head to look at his shoes. You swallow.

“So...drinks tonight? Still?” You reach out and bop his hand with yours.

“Not if you don’t open the door.”

You roll your eyes, walking forward and flicking the bolt. You pull the door open and he catches it, holding it back for you as you take the first step out.

“...yeah. I’ll be back around 6,” he says as you finish locking the door. You drop the keys in your purse, straightening up as the two of you walk towards and out the doors.

“Bar or your place?”

“Mine.”

“You sure? It’s my turn to buy,” you say.

“No, it’s not,” he says as he opens the passenger door for you, gesturing that you climb in. You do and watch as he walks around the front to his side. “Besides, mines quieter.”

You nod, staring forward as he starts the car and pulls into the street. Like every morning, his hand falls to your knee and you feel content with his answer.

You can’t help yourself, though, when he pulls up in front of the school and parks, waiting for you to climb out. Usually, it’s a pretty quick, platonic affair- a quick “thanks, Javi” before you open the door and swing your legs out. This morning, though,

“You know,” he says when you reach for the handle. “You...you don’t have to take care of me.”

You drop your hand before turning back to face him. And maybe it’s the coffee you drank took quickly, or maybe it’s the way last night is still lingering in your head, but

“I like taking care of you.”

You reach out and pull his face to yours, letting the kiss linger before pulling away.

“See you tonight,” you said, flashing him a quick smile. If you’re not mistaken, you see the corner of his mouth twitch up before he remembers himself, and gives you a cool masculine nod. You climb out and watch as he drives away before you hear behind you:

“¿Es tu novio?”

You turn around and see three little girls from your class huddled together and giggling that they just caught the teacher doing something naughty. Despite yourself, you smile through your teacher's voice.

“Entrad, niñas. La clase está a punto de empezar.”

He makes the next move when he shows up outside the school, waiting against his car when you walk out that afternoon and he flags you down.

“Hey,” he says when you approach his car.

“Hey,” you say. “What’s up?”

“Was told to go home early,” he says. “Figured...” he waves his hand up, gesturing to you. “You got plans?”

“Was just going to swing by the liquor store. For tonight.”

“It’s not your turn to buy,” he says, moving out of the way so you can open the door. You send him a look.

“It’s the 90s. Let a girl buy you a drink, Javi.”

He smiles, and over his shoulder, you see one of the girls from this morning- Cara - sending you a shit-eating grin.

Despite yourself, you give her a little wave as Javi drives the two of you out of the parking lot.

--------------

It becomes a game after that. He picks you up from school. You ask him to stay the night again, and he does. The next morning, he kisses you goodbye in front of Steve, whose eyebrows you see pop up from the corner of your eye. That night, you stay over at his and leave the spare toothbrush you brought next to his in the bathroom. The next day, he comes to your house with take-out and a tape and the two of you fall asleep on the couch, drunk and full. Soon, you don’t remember a night where you aren’t sleeping in the same bed or whose turn it is to initiate a sleepover. You just meet at your smoking spot and then, inevitably, one of you will lead the other to their door for the night, and inevitably, the other one will stay.

The small reminders of each other begin to pile up in your respective apartments. A mystery toothbrush appears in your bathroom. Then there’s a jacket and two of his shirts hanging in your closet. A drawer in his bathroom slowly begins to fill with evidence of your presence- hair ties, bobby pins, the odd bit of makeup. During one of your drunk nights, when you are once again lamenting the lack of decoration, you draw a stick-figure portrait of the apartment - you, Javi, Steve, and the creepy silent man who you only ever see leave his place to buy fish - and tape it to his fridge. He tells you you hang around kids too much, but every time you come back, it’s still up.

Then the bigger things happen. You go to dinner with him and Steve. You bring him on a double date with Alessa and Frankie. He kisses you goodbye in front of the school every morning, and you reach out and hold his hand whenever the two of you walk outside- which you do now, by the way. You walk to the grocery store, you walk to the liquor store, you walk to the corner store to buy pre and post-coital smokes, and every time his hand finds yours. You’re still having sex, you still fuck, but now, sometimes, to what would once be your disgust, it’s slower. Softer. There’s eye contact and prolonged kisses and caressing and very little hair pulling.

And god. Now there’s cuddling.

You no longer sit across the sofa to hanger a drink. No, now your legs are in his lap or his arm is around your shoulder or some other horribly intimate design the two of you just naturally find yourself falling into whenever you’re in proximity. Now, after sex, he’s pulling you to him or you’re pulling him to you or you just both mutually descend towards each other. And when you’re all wrapped around each other, the worst thing of all happens. He talks.

It’s not like you hadn’t talked before. You were friends, after all. He already knew about your kids you taught, your parents, and some random, funny stories about your life. In turn, he had told you some stories about his mom, about the ranch, and about the people in his life. But now it’s different. Now, whenever you two are alone in the dark, bodies pressed against each other under the sheet with such softness it’s grotesque, the walls come down. He tells you about his mom's death, and how he didn’t cry for months. He tells you how afraid he is of himself, and how he worries she would hate the person he is. He tells you he doesn’t think he’s a good person, because of the women he’s hurt ( -“The DAY of?” “I’m not proud of it”-) and the people he failed (“-supposed to get her out, keep her safe, and I couldn’t-“) and how, though he won’t go into detail about it, he’s worried how numb he’s become to things, and that he’s only going to get number (“-you see so many people die, there’s got to be a point you just stop feeling that, like self-preservation, and that’s fucking scary-“). You listen. You think you may be the first person who has listened in a while. When he tries to apologize, that he shouldn’t have said that or that he’s a mopey sad sack or you don’t want to hear this, you kiss his hands.

“Javi,” you tell him. “I like listening to you. Anything you have to say.”

Looking back, you think the look he gives you the first time you said that was when you really knew. But now, you’re still playing dumb. You both are.

What’d he call it? Self-preservation?

To pay him back, you tell him about you. You try to match his scars, telling him about growing up in a loud, weird house you’d only learn at the age of fifteen was a commune. You tell him about all the times you caught your parents tripping out naked on drugs and having to drag them to bed, or how you had to watch your sister for days on end as a kid whenever they decided to go out on ‘spirit walks’, and how you eventually enrolled yourself in school after your mothers homeschooling attempts fell to the wayside. That one time when you were six and accidentally took a tab of acid your mother and father’s sometime lover, Sunshine, left on top of your peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  You try and tell him the good things, too- how you speak five languages (“what?” “English, Spanish, German, Russian, and some Chinese.” “...what?” “My parents were communists!”), how you used to be really good at gymnastics (“is that why you can’t do a handstand?” “I can do a handstand-“ ), and the things in yourself that you’re afraid of- your denial, your anxiety, your bad habit of never calling your sister back and how that actually reveals you’re a sociopath. And in turn, he listens. He squeezes your hand. He asks you questions when you know he wants to and lets it be silent when you can’t bring yourself to answer.

About three months into this, you find yourself lying on your side one night, staring at his beautiful, stupid, snoring face as he drools against your pillow, and for the first time, you finally, finally, finally let yourself admit it.

It is serious.

---

“Well no shit.”

You scowl at Lisa over your glass.

“What? Like we all didn’t already know? For months?”

“Leave her alone,” Alessa elbows her. “I think it’s sweet.”

“You think everything’s sweet.” Lisa rolls her eyes. “You tell him yet?”

You bite the inside of your lip and look down at your drink. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Timing?”

“You spend all your time together.”

You shake your head, taking a swig.

“Coward.”

“What!”

“I said you’re a coward,” Lisa says as Maritza deposits the tray of shots between the two of you.

“Who’s a coward?” she asks sweetly.

“Eloise.”

“Yeah, I am,” you reach forward and take two of the shot glasses, snatching the one in front of Lisa before downing it.

“Hey!” She yelps.

You flip her off and down the second.

She huffs. “Bitch.”

You shake your head and march towards the bar to order another tray.

----------

To be fair, he knew it would be like this.

He had to. It’s you. It’s both of you. Two weirdly cagey people who don’t like having their guard down and never, ever want to be the one person who sticks themselves out for ridicule. The little dares over the past few months have been one thing, like you’re placing pebbles on a scale, seeing how long it takes until it collapses under the weight. Nightly sleepovers? Pebble. Toothbrushes? Pebbles. Sharing childhood trauma after a round of particularly kinky sex where you had your hands tied to the headboard and it inadvertently reminded you of the time you got your hands stuck in some old handcuffs your sister and you had found and you had to spend three hours with your hands looped around a bed frame because Tanya was seven and when she found your mom they were high on peyote and it turns out it takes five drugged-out hippies to find a tiny pair of keys to free a small girl in the woods after it’s already gotten dark and then he told you about the time his uncle had drunk too much shiner and tried to shoot an apple off his cousins head with a BB gun but missed and now the cousin has one eye kind of like Lorenzo and then you both chain-smoked cigarettes and wondered what a glass eye feels like - alright. Maybe five pebbles.

But...actually saying it?

Stones. Big, ugly stones. The kind that fall on cars.

No wonder you got shit-faced.

“Javvvvvvvi,” you sang through his door. You pounded out the melody that only made sense in your head. “Heyyyyy,”

You hear footsteps approaching from the other side and you stand up straight, ready to drunkenly seduce him with your pose when the door swings open and-

“Can I help you?” She asks, annoyed.

You take the woman in front of you in. She’s tall, with long honey blonde hair that falls across her shoulders. Her waist is bared under the halter top she wears, and you’re only a little jealous of the toned plane of her stomach and the long legs that stretch out from her short shorts.

“I...” you start.

“What are you doing? Get away from the door!” Javi appears from behind her, reaching out to take her arm and pull her back. His eyes fall on you, though, and he drops his hand.

“El- hey- I thought you were-?”

“I was...what uh,” you raise your hand to the woman. “What the fuck?”

“Who the fuck are you?” The woman hisses back. Javi reaches up and takes her arm, pulling her back gently.

“I told you not to answer the door-“

“No, I think I’ll leave-“ you toss your hands up. “Enjoy your night.”

“She’s not- it’s not like that-”

“OH PLEASE, I wasn’t born yester-“

The door behind you opens, and the two or you swivel you hear to see Steve enter holding two bags of food. He looks between you and Javier, then to the door.

“Hey,” he says finally.

You give him a pathetic wave. He waves back before turning to Javi.

“Is she-“

“Yeah,” Javier says. He points to his apartment “Could you actually-?”

“Yeah,” Steve nods a bit too quickly, moving behind him and disappearing into the apartment, closing the door behind him.

Javier turns back to you.

“She needs a place to stay before we move her. I was going to tell you when you got back.”

“Ohhhhhhh,” you draw out. You grimace, before looking back to him. “...Sorry.”

“You really think I’d do that?”

You open your mouth to answer before he cuts in again.

“Are you drunk?”

“I-“ you start before huffing. Fucking cop. “Yes! Of course I’m drunk! It’s tequila night! I even, kindly, I might add,” you reach in your bag and pull out the bottle you picked up on the way home. “Got some for you, too!”

“Who did you think she was?”

“Javi-“ you groan, squeezing your eyes shut. This wasn’t supposed to be your night. Tonight was supposed to be about getting drunk with your friends, then getting drunk with Javi, then having drunk sex on your couch loud enough the upstairs fish guy would have to bury his head in what you only assumed was a pile of rotting fish carcasses in his trash to drown out your moans.

Now it’s this.

You shake your head and nod to your door, beckoning him to follow. It’s tense, and he watches over your shoulder as your hands shake trying to pull the right key. Once you manage to unlock the door, you hurry inside and deposit your things on the table, before turning back and facing him.

You open your mouth to say something-

-and then shut it again. You sigh.

“You thought I was sleeping with her.”

You snap your head back up to see him, cross-armed in front of you. You shake your head.

“This isn’t fair, I’m drunk. You’re not.”

He walks over to the bag you threw on the couch and unscrews the bottle you brought home. He takes a swig, holding eye contact as he gulps a third of the small bottle down, all while you watch flabbergasted.

“Say it,” he says, screwing the cap back on.

“You’re going to be sick-“

“Eloise.”

“Well, it’s not like we’ve talked about it!” You snap. “We never- said! What we’re doing!” You drop your hands to your side and turn, walking to the kitchen and leaning forward onto the counter. Javi follows you up, eying you.

“You thought I was, though?”

“Yes! No? I don’t know!” You bring a hand to your face. “I don’t know. Maybe. I just got scared. I guess...I’ve been scared? Lisa thinks so, the bitch-“

“Scared of what? Me sleeping with someone else?”

“No! Not- necessarily-“

“You really think- Jesus, it’s like we never-“

“Hey, don’t!” You spin to face him. “Don’t turn this around on me. You never brought this up. We haven’t talked about this. We talked about everything else and are doing everything else like dinner dates and sweet sex and fucking movie nights but we haven’t...said anything! Saying things matters!”

He stares at you.

“I didn’t think it did! I thought I was fine with just...letting...ugh!” You bring the heels of your palms to your eyes. “I shouldn’t have done that last shot.”

“Eloise, what are you-“

“I’m not a coward!” You point at him. “I’m not! I’m just- it’s just-“

“No one said you were!”

“Lisa did!”

“Why?”

“Because I haven’t...Ugh! They really make strong drinks at that bar! Because I haven’t said-“

“Jesus Christ, WHAT.”

Ooh, you wish you could just fall apart and have him see what’s running through your mind right now. You feel the anger in your stomach bubble. He’s really annoyed with you for thinking the worst of him, and maybe he has a right, but you two haven’t talked about it. You had just assumed- assumed he felt the same way, assumed the little intimacies have built up in such a way that you had something real and concrete, and especially that you both weren’t fucking other people. But the second she opened the door it felt like your worst fear had come true: you were the idiot who had let their guard down first and got hurt, because they were too stupid to realize what this was, and you couldn’t even be mad. Because you hadn’t talked about it. Because he never technically said he was with you.

But now he’s looking like he’s feeling the exact same way, only he’s the idiot. He’s the idiot for confiding in you and crying on your tits and telling you all those fears and worries and believing you when you kissed his hands and told him you thought he was a good man. He’s worried that you’ve always seen him this way- as the guy who would cut and run and betray you, and maybe if you think that, then it’s true. Maybe he was kidding himself into thinking someone like you could believe in his goodness, after all he’s done.

Fuck, you may be drunk but it does make you insightful.

It may be too late though. Because he’s dropped his hands from his hips, tired of waiting for an explanation. He’s making towards the door, murmuring something about having to work and it all just seems like it’s slipping out of your fingers like you can see he’s building up the wall again and this time you’re not going to be able to tear it down-

“Javi,” you say, your voice strained. He stops and turns to you, and you know you only have a few seconds to do it. You try and form the words, but your tongue isn’t working and maybe Lisa was right, maybe you are a coward, but you have to try.

“I like taking care of you.” You say, pathetically, dropping your hands to your sides.

A beat passes. He brings his hands to his hips, waiting for a further explanation. You sigh and walk down to stand in front of him. “I like having you take care of me...and...I haven’t wanted to tell you, because I don’t want to scare you but maybe that’s just me ‘projecting’ or whatever Alessa said. She’s really annoying now that she’s doing that psychology class-“

“El.” He says, not without softness. You feel his fingers come under your chin, gesturing for you to look up at him.

This wasn’t the plan. This was supposed to be a hookup. Then a friendship. You don’t want to lose that.

But now he’s staring down at you like that, and your drunk brain is turning over itself as you think maybe that train has already left. Maybe it left a long fucking time ago, and the two of you have just been hanging onto the back, waiting for the other person to let go first.

But you don’t want to let go. You never really did. You were just waiting for him to give you a sign so you could make it look like you were jumping off together instead of you pathetically holding on as he disappears behind you.

But from the way his thumb traces your jaw and his other hand reaches forward to take your hand in his, you think maybe he’s been utilizing the same strategy, and he’s been just as scared as you.

Well, now you can either let go or try to pull yourself up.

So.

Are you a coward or not?

He wets his lips before his eyes drop. He looks defeated. And at that moment you decide – fuck it.

Between the gymnastics and dragging your high parents to bed and all this fucking holding you’ve been doing inside of you, you’ve got strong enough arms.

So.

Fuck it.

“El, I don’t-“

“I love you,” you say without thinking. “And yes I’m tequila drunk, but I don’t think that takes away from-“

You’re stopped as he leans forward and presses his lips to yours, cutting you off. You wrap your arms around the back of his neck, pulling him in closer and deepening the kiss. You feel him pulling at your top and you shimmy it off and over your head, tossing it to the side before dipping your hands down and unbuckling his belt as he unbuttons his shirt before you. You drop your hand down the front of his pants, jerking him softly as he moans into your mouth. You feel him guiding you to the couch, and when the back of your knees hit the arm you drop down and begin to pull his pants down for him as he rids himself of his shirt. You’re about to take him in your mouth when he pushes you down, your back hitting the cheap leather as he crawls over you, pulling your skirt up to your hips. He pauses.

“You always skip the underwear in girls' night?”

“Only when I’m coming back to you.”

That gets him, because a second later he’s between your legs, thrusting inside of you. You let out a cry and drop your head back, exposing your neck to him as he continues to pump into, his hands reaching behind and you and grabbing a fistful of your hair.

“Say it again,” he says.

“I don’t wear underwear-“

“No,” he growls, dropping his hand down between your legs to play with you. You let out another little cry.

“I love you,” you say. “I-I’ve loved you for a long time- ahhh!” The next thrust hits a little too well. “Ah, fuck, Javi- right there-“

“Keep going-“

“YOU keep going- fuck, has your dick gotten bigger?”

“El-“ he lets out a moan. Taking advantage of the moment, you slip out from under him and switch positions, pressing him back onto the couch and climbing atop of him. His hands settle on your hips as you ride him, pulling sounds from him that echo around your living room. When you cum he’s not long after, and the two of you collapse onto each other, breathing heavily as you come down with his hand holding the back of your neck.

“Hey,” he says finally. You lift your head and sit up, looking down at him. His eyes are glassy, and the look on his face makes you giggle.

“Are you drunk?”

“Yes,” he says. “But a wise woman once said that doesn’t take away from what I have to say.”

“She sounds smart, you should fuck her,” you say, moving to stand. He catches your wrist, pulling you back down onto his lap with a bounce.

“Give a girl a few minutes before round two-“

He cuts you off with a kiss. It’s slow and soft and you melt into it. The way you always melt into him.

When he pulls away, you chase after his grinning lips. He brings a hand to the side of your face, tracing his fingers down the side of your cheek.

“I love you, too.” He says. “I don’t know what that’s worth…but I do.”

You lean in, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck.

"Baby," you say "It's worth everything."

In the morning, you’ll have to contend with the knowing look Steve gives the two of you before asking “Good night?”, a joke that earns him a look from Javi and a deep blush and muttered apology from you. You’ll have to put up with the squeals from Maritza, Lisa, and Alessa when you tell them in the staff room during lunch. You’ll even get a look from your upstairs neighbor when you pass him and his fresh fish that next afternoon.  Most of all, you’ll have to consider what the fuck this means for you and Javi and this scary, exhilarating little life you’re leading.  

But.

Right now, you’re naked and smoking a cigarette on the couch with the man you love who loves you back, and you’re both laughing, and that's more than enough.

   Then she’s there, again, after he gets a bullshit call from the office to come in. He almost doesn’t notice her, he’s so focused on getting a cigarette to calm him down. He’s got a curse ready when he realises his lighter is out of fluid and it’s the only fucking one he has, but then there’s a voice.

  “Need a light?”

  He looks over and it’s the same woman from the morning. She’s cute. Big eyes, long eyelashes like one of those dolls his cousins had as kids. The pencil skirt she’s got on is tight, tight enough he can’t help but wonder where she keeps the lighter she extends out to him.

  “Thanks,” he tells her. She waves him off, swinging the small purse from her opposite side to drop the lighter in. They stand there for a moment in the silence before he decides he owes her a formal introduction.

  And she gets him again.

  “My moms the author.”

  “What?”

  “I’m fucking with you.”

  It makes him smile.

    He wakes up earlier the next morning. Then the next. Then the next until it’s a routine. Usually, he’s not in the office until 9, but now that he knows there’s someone next door, he’s noticing more, like the sound of feet scuffling on carpet in a hurry and the squeak of a wardrobe swinging open. And once he starts to hear them, he can’t tune them out. It makes him anxious, listening to someone bustle around him as he lays doing nothing. He doesn’t like being unprepared.

  So he starts to get up earlier. Which means he leaves earlier. Which starts to mean he runs into her. When he starts to get shit at the office for it - look who’s here, what, the brothel stopped offering continental breakfast? - he tries to sleep in again. He’s determined to, but he can’t. Hearing someone so close busy themselves around him while he just lies down drives him crazy.

  So, he gets ready early now.

The coffee shop on the way to work is happy for the new business.

—————

He only stood outside smoking that first time because of the smell. He had left something in his fridge too long and the power cut off while he was at work, and now the whole apartment smelled rotten. He has tried smoking inside, fill the air with smoke, but it only made him sick. He decided he’d smoke outside until he’s numbed his senses. He doesn’t smoke outside to run into her. It’s just what happens.

  The second day the apartment still smells. The third day, too. That’s when she joined him for the first time, siding up beside him like they had been meeting there for years. After that, if he discovers that if he doesn’t have at least one cigarette outside, it’s all he can smell when he walks in.

  So, he smokes outside now. With her.

  Her and her little questions.

  He doesn’t mind them. Not at first. Not if it was just small talk. But she takes his answers and runs with them. He’s not just from Laredo, he’s from the part of Laredo she knows because she visited once when she was 11 and she remembers Señora Garza’s discoloured hands as they made sandwiches in his corner’s BBQ stop and is she still alive? Does he miss the food? She misses the food in El Paso. Had he ever been? She doesn’t blame him. It’s a long drive.

  What’s annoys him is that he answers each one. What annoys him more is that he catches himself asking her questions too. What annoys him the most is that he thinks about her answers even after she’s snubbed her cigarette and gone inside.

  So, he gets up earlier, because he can’t stand the sound of her getting ready around him. He smokes with her, because if he doesn’t smell the night air and her perfume and the smoke all he can smell for the rest of the evening is his fridge. Now he’s a guy who asks stupid questions, who listens and laughs at work stories. He’s still working out the ‘because’ for that one. He thinks it has something to do with the pencil skirts. Hopes it does, anyway.

    ———————

  He just needs to fuck her.

  That has to be it. He just needs it out of his system. Not the best circumstances, considering she’s his neighbor, but he’s lived with worse before. It would be worth it for the extra sleep and the money he’d save on coffee and cigarettes. For the self respect he’d regain once he stopped lingering outside around 5:30 every evening to smoke (also the time when she’s usually turning down the street, coming back from work).

  And she is cute.

  So that Friday, when she’s walking up the stairs - in another fucking tight pencil skirt - he’s ready with an invitation. And it goes much better than he thought. He’s a pretty confident guy, but even he has to admit having a pretty woman tell him she’s masturbated to him, all while her cheeks have a rosy flush and she’s so endearingly embarrassed yet daring, yeah, it makes his face flush. It also makes him realise maybe she needs this out of her system just as badly as he does.

  So he gets them another drink. He inches his fingers up under the hem of her skirt. And when she asks if he’ll walk her home, his hand is only a little clammy when when he reaches out and takes hers, leading her through the bar and out into the night.

  The sex is good. Really good, if he’s honest. But most first time fucks are, aren’t they? Well, first time, second time, and third time, in this case - like he’s back in fucking college. He blames the drink. He blames the pencil skirts. He blames the way she teases him in turn and the bites she leaves on his neck after he calls her baby.

  Before she leaves she makes him promise it’s not going to be weird, that she’d miss their smoking sessions, that they’ll be friends.

  He thinks back to all his friendships with women. Despite that, he tells her yes.

  Friends.

  ————-

   He’s never been a particularly good friend, either.

  Maybe that’s why when she comes out that Sunday afternoon, when his mind is still replaying the events from that night before, he snaps at her. Because she’s a fucking third grade teacher, and she’s sweet, and that pisses him off. Because her world is so far away from his. Because if she saw a kid get murdered, she could cry or scream and wouldn’t just have to press it down and just deal with it like he has to, because its just another part of his job. So when she comes out, her hair a mess and a big oversized sweater on her shoulders and those big eyes looking him up and down like he’s a real person and not the husk he feels like, he loses it.

  Mind your own fucking business.

  He stalks off, letting his feet lead him to the nearest brothel. He asks for Vanessa, and she takes him up to her room, but once his jeans are off and he realises he can’t. That in addition to feeling like shit about the night before, he now feels bad because he was so needlessly cruel. And even though Vanessa tries her hardest, and god, that girls hardest try is the best in the country, he pulls his limp dick from her mouth and pays her full price anyway, apologising as he fixes his jeans and leaves.

  He tries to shower. He tries to jerk off. He tries to down a glass of whiskey, then two, then a half a pack of cigarettes. But when he’s not thinking about how he’s a monster for the night before, he’s thinking he’s a dick for that afternoon. It gets to be too much. Maybe because of the drink or the guilt or just old fashioned masochism, he’s at Eloise’s door. When she stands before him, her arms crossed and waiting, biting back at him with his own words - mostly just minding my own fucking business - he nearly falls into a pathetic string of apologies there. I’m sorry. You’re good, I’m bad. I shouldn’t have bothered you. You deserve better friends.

  But then she lets him come inside. She lets him be a sad sack on her couch. And when he tries to leave, to protect her from the bullshit that’s spinning around in his head, she reaches out and grabs his hand, telling him to stay. Because she’s there, and she’ll listen, or she won’t if that what he wants, and that’s what friends do.

  Friends also, apparently, give you really good head, and let you work your anger and sadness and fear out by fucking them raw on their couch. Then, they let you fall apart to them, like a fucking kid, until they pull you against their warm body and press a soft kiss, much softer than you deserve, against your temple before lulling you into the best sleep you’ve had in months.

  When he wakes up and sees her still under him, her hand still in his hair as she sleeps, he has to remind himself who he is before he does something stupid, like curl his body around her closer or pull the blanket around them tighter or stay and make her coffee. So he slips out of her hold, gets dressed, and spends the next thirty minutes outside her unlocked door, until he finally hears her stirring and knows she’ll be safe alone.

  When Gabby comes over later, he makes up for the night before. Does his best to remind Eloise and himself who, exactly, he really is. Not soft. Not scared. And certainly, not a good friend.

  ——————

  She doesn’t let him off that easy, and he’s too stupid to untangle himself. It would have been so simple to just keep walking through those doors when she called out to him, keeping his down and ignoring her. To be the asshole. But despite himself, he’s pulling his cigarettes out and standing beside her once again. He’s asking about her day at work, about the kids (whose names he remembers- he doesn’t even remember some of his cousins’ names). When she turns to head back inside - her leaving him! - she squeezes his shoulder as a way of goodbye. It’s friendly, something he’d do to a colleague, but it makes his chest light in a way not even two more cigarettes and a guilty conscience can weigh down.

   ...

   He just needs to fuck her again.

   Surely, that’s the problem here. It’s not that their talks have gotten longer, or that her perfume lingers in the hallway, or that she makes him laugh more than anyone has in a while. It’s all because she’s been leaving the second button on her blouses undone, and he can see the faint mark he left not even a week earlier. It’s because she keeps wearing those fucking skirts. And also, he is loathe to admit, she’s probably some of the best sex he’s had in a while.

  So, he’s not expecting her to turn his invitation down. He’s especially not expecting her to look that good in that short black dress she’s wearing when she offers him a drink. The hour before her friends- her real friends - show up, his hands are itching as he watches her throat when she throws back drinks, or the v of skin that the fabric cuts over her breasts. He can already see her night ahead of her— bunch of empty headed lotharios pushing up against her, grinding on her on the dance floor, shouting offers for more drinks in her face. She’ll come home completely disillusioned and drunk, and really, it’s the friendly thing to do to offer her an out. Whatever she’s looking to find tonight is already next door.

  Well. He thought.

  When he pops his head out later that night, ready to generously extend his offer of companionship again, he’s not expecting to see some man- a fucking kid, even- pressing her up against her door, his tongue shoved down her throat. When she turns and sees them, he’s suddenly feels like a high school principal who just caught two teenagers making out at prom. She’s only a handful of years younger than him, but seeing her like this now, with some young, muscled hot heat sucking on her neck - you want a picture or something?- he’s never felt older.

  So, like the old man he is, he tries to go to bed and sleep the humiliation off. Only, this time, he’s the one pulling a pillow over his ears to muffle the moans coming from the other side. Whoever Issac is, he must have a 12 inch dick or vibrating fingers or both, because he doesn’t think he’s ever heard a woman be this vocal. It only hurts his ego a little bit (a lot a bit) that he had her in a similar position just days earlier with a much less vocal response. By the time they start again, less than thirty minutes later (fucking twenty year olds) he’s throwing the covers off him and stalking to the dresser for his cigarettes, deciding a night on the couch would be better than having to lay there and listen to her breathy little moans or his ugly grunts. As he comes to stand in front of the mirror, however, he catches his reflection in the light and frowns when another, girly gasp permeates the wall. Despite himself, he wonders how much better Issac looks naked, how he’s probably got a good back and defined muscles and not the body of a middle aged smoker with bags under his eyes and a small but present belly. For a moment he allows himself to wallow in self pity. But when another breathy shriek breaks him out of his trance, he huffs and snatched the cigarettes from the dresser, marching towards his living room and away from the noise.

  The next morning, when he catches her in her sundress (that he just knows she’s not wearing underwear beneath), he tries to mimic her cool demeanor from the previous week, when the tables were turned. There’s a look in her eye though, like she knows, a hunch that’s proved right when she saunters up to him and pulls the cigarette from his dumb speechless lips, taking a long drag and maintains eye contact with a smug little smile.

  Oh Javi, it’s not serious .

  When he’s jerking off on his couch ten minutes later, he imagines she and that sundress are on top of him, and what he does with his fingers turns that smug little smile into a breathy ‘o’.

   —————————

  More than anything, he’s pissed when he’s shot. The one time he didn’t wear the tactical vest and he gets clipped. He hates being fussed over, and Murphy’s being such a mother hen about it- he even calls his estranged wife and asks her to rattle off advice to his partner over the phone, like he hadn’t just spent an hour getting patched up. No drinking, no “rapid movements”, and you really should stop smoking.

  He picks up a pack on the way home.

  Murphy offers to stay with him, but the idea of having Steve hover over him is almost more off-putting than being shot again. So he sends his partner upstairs with his half of the take out - fucks sake, I’ll be fine- and goes into his dark little apartment. He shovels the luke-warm food in his mouth and sits in the silence and tries to think of anything else but the fact he’s been hearing music from next door, or how it’s already 8 pm on a Friday, and that if she’s home she probably doesn’t have plans, which means it would be really easy to knock on the wall and ask if she wants to share a drink he shouldn’t have. Her, a woman he shouldn’t be inviting over in the first place. Even if she is funny and biting and caring in a way that still makes him feel like he can breathe.

  Without thinking, he’s by the wall, fist raised and ready to knock, before he stops himself.

  There’s only one way this can go, given his track record, and she doesn’t deserve that. She’s sweet. She’s funny. And smart. Pretty. She could do a hell of a lot better on a Friday night that sit with him. If he were a good friend, he’d leave her alone and simmer by himself.

    ——————

  “Isn’t that shirt supposed to be white?”

  Javier has never been a particularly good friend.

  ——————

  When she falls asleep on his arm, her legs kicked out under the coffee table covered in ash and alcohol, he’s still up. He lies awake and stares at the ceiling, too aware of the weight of her head against him to relax into sleep, lest the sudden movement wake her and she leaves- which right now, under the safety of booze and cigarettes and hours of laughing, he can admit to himself - would be the worst thing to happen today.

...Jesus, the way that sounds.

Maybe, if he weren’t so drunk, and if he hadn’t almost died, and if she hadn’t come over and asked him questions about his mom and made him laugh and tried for thirty minutes to convince him to buy an actual boat, he would be able to snap back to himself and think clearly.

  But, right now, her head is on his arm, it’s dark outside, and Javier is warm.

  ——————

  She tried to leave. She had done her friendly duty- deposited him in bed, forced him to drink water, made sure he hadn’t choked on his own vomit in the middle of the night. She was almost free of him, but then he just pulled her down beside him, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He wasn’t thinking. He should have just let her go, shouldn’t have invited her over in the first place.

  He waited for her to push back against him. Payback, maybe, for sneaking out on her the last time. Or just common sense shining through. But instead she pulled the comforter over them both and threw a leg over his middle, cuddling into his shoulder.

  Against his ear, she mumbled “These sheets better be washed.”

  ——————

  He woke to sound of someone knocking on his door. Eloise had somehow flipped her body diagonally, the way all women seem to do when they’re deeply, deeply asleep. He rolled out, careful not to wake her, before heading to the living room and unlocking the door.

  “Wow. You look like shit.”

  Javi sighed. “What do you want?”

  His partner held up a paper bag. “Took your bandages with me last night.”

  He reached out and took the bag, giving him a nod. “Thanks,”

  “You have a party?”

  Javi looked over his shoulder to the mess of a coffee table.

  “Allowed to celebrate cheating death, aren’t I?”

  “Uh huh.” The other man nodded to the pair of jeans on the floor. El has discarded them the night before after declaring them “too restrictive” when she had insisted on showing him how to do - and failed to execute- a handstand. “House call?”

  “Goodbye, Murphy,” he closed the door in his partners face, but not before hearing a muffled chuckle from outside. Stalking forward, he dropped the paper bag on the couch before picking up the bottle of pills and rattled them in his hand. He made back for the bedroom, thinking he could get away with sneaking a few while she was still out cold. He needn’t have worried, it turns out.

  “Give me two.”

  “These aren’t Tylenol, they’re real-“

  “Javier. Shut the fuck up and give me two.”

  He shut the fuck up and gave her two.

  ——————

  “I don’t want to eat. I want to smoke and go back to bed.”

  “You can smoke and eat. They did it in the 50’s all the time.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re supposed to eat with those pills, Javier.”

  “I’ll eat later, give me the pack.”

  “No. You’re having a piece of toast.”

  “You’re not my godda-what the fuck are you doing? Turn off the burner—-DON’T-“

  ——————

  Sucker.

  A goddamn sucker.

  Why else would he be pouring over a bunch of papers written by kids who could barely write?

  Why else would he check so often if he was doing it right? Like this actually mattered? He started off giving most of them a lucky break, but when he saw how concentrated she looked, biting the end of her pen and circling words with a flourish, smiling to herself when she gave a check or drew a little happy face, he slowed down. Now he was thinking more about comma use than he had in his entire life.

  It’s worth it, though, when she’s sat in between his knees, head bobbing up and down on him as she sucks him off. When she looks him in the eyes as she jerks him, smiling before licking up along the side, he almost comes embarrassingly early. He decides that he’d gladly spend two hours grading shitty sentences if it means he can watch you deep throat him every Sunday afternoon.

  He won’t draw smiley faces though.

  He had his limits.

  ——————

  He’s not too sure what possessed him to kiss her like that. Sometimes after they’re done and she’s pulled her clothes back on, she’ll bend down to the bed and give him a peck. Other times she just leaves with a wave. Once she slapped his ass. He liked that goodbye quite a lot.

  But this time, he’s reaching out and catching her lips in a kiss that’s much more than thanks for the fuck and the cigarettes, get home safe. Something in his body bypasses his brain, and it takes a lot of conscious willpower than it should to finally pull himself back, even more so when her mouth chases his.

  Later, when he’s sober, he’ll explain it away as a thank you for the weekend. Or that he was still horny. Or a combination of both.

  Either way-

  “Get home safe.”

  —————

  So maybe that’s why he decides he should really be giving you rides to work. Safety.

  That’s reasonable. That’s a friendly thing to do.

  The dinners are harder to explain to himself. He tries to reason you’re both saving money on groceries this way. He read somewhere in one of those awful magazines that the embassy has on waiting tables, the kind that haven’t been updated in years, that food waste is a problem in America.

  But saving the environment isn’t why he sticks around for fifteen minutes, thirty minutes, an hour after they’ve both finished your cigarettes. It’s not a bleeding heart for the whales that makes him hold his breath for her answer when he asks her to come in for a drink. It certainly has nothing to do with the urgency with which he bends her over his kitchen table, scattering the empty take out containers onto the floor, before hiking another fucking pencil skirt up over her hips. He wishes it explained it. Because then it would be easier to dismiss the way his hand begins to fall on her knee during the early morning commutes, or the way he can’t relax until he hears those three ridiculous knocks after she leaves him in his bed.

  He chalks it back up to her safety and tries not to think any deeper than that.

   ——————

  “Are you mad? ‘Baby?’”

  There’s something incredibly sexy about a woman who can beat you at your own game. There’s also something very, very sexy about how her mouth pouts around the word, sardonic and mocking as her tone is.

  He’s only got himself to blame. He made the first move by dismissing that 70s nightmare. She had walked past him that night at the bar multiple times, staring through him when he had waved. His rational side told him she was distracted by her girlfriends and the music and just didn’t see him, but the other side- the side he often found himself on when it came to women- was pissed. Maybe that’s why he picked up the first hot body that made eye contact with him, strategically leading her over to the bar where he could keep and eye on Eloise’s back- fuck, she did look good in a backless shirt- while keeping his new friend entertained. Just like he had wanted, one of her friends pointed him out to her, and she made for the bar minutes later. He was surprised when she struck up conversation with Miguel, Colombia’s answer to Sunny Bono if he’d ever seen one, and a little insulted, too, if he’s being honest. If she was going to try and make him jealous, she could have picked someone who didn’t look like his parody. So when - ah fuck, what was her name, Maria? Lourdes? Doesn’t matter - went to the restroom, he took the chance to intervene and ruin her little game.

  What he didn’t expect was that she’d hit back harder.

  “Are you mad? ‘Baby’?”

  No. Not mad.

  Impressed. Challenged. Uncomfortably hard against his jean’s zipper. But not mad.

  But she likes being fucked rough, so he plays along. He grabs her by her hair, pushes her into her apartment, and takes her up against her door. When she’s just about to cum, he pulls out of her and tries not to laugh when she whips around with that crazed, angry look in her eye. It doesn’t take much (who is he kidding, he was never going to leave) before he’s got her bent over the sofa, pumping into the wettest, tightest cunt he may have ever felt in his life.

  The most unforgivable thing, though, and the moment that played through his mind as he drove home the night he should have died, was how she deposited herself on his lap afterwards. How those slender fingers reached out and took his cigarette, like she always did, and smiled through the smoke down at him. Naked and confident and so fucking pretty.

  “Baby,” she had called him, and it sent a jolt through his chest. “I would have asked which pharmacy you want me to pick your meds up from.”

  When they were in her shower an hour later, inadvertently testing just how non-slip her bath mat really was, he replayed her voice in his head. Baby, baby, baby.

   ————————

  He knew before he even stepped out of his car where he was going. And that scared him.

  He wasn’t this guy. He had made sure of it. It was best for everyone. It made him good at his job. He saw fucked up shit, did fucked up shit, but he never made it anyone else’s problem who wasn’t already there beside him, watching and participating. He managed it with drinking and denial and never hanging a picture of his mother up, afraid to meet her eyes and recoil at what she would think of him, even though she was years dead. If it was really bad, he went to see one of his girls- they weren’t stupid, they wouldn’t ask questions, and he always tipped them for it.

  He didn’t talk about it. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to have his hand held or a shoulder to cry on because if he started now, he didn’t know if he could stop. And that meant he’d lose the hard shell that made him able to keep doing this goddamn job every single day, and that would mean everything he had done, all the fucked up decisions made for the greater good, whatever that meant anymore, would be for nothing.

  But now, he’s standing in front of her door, hands shaking at his sides, trying to decide what he’s more afraid of: being alone or letting her see him like this. He had gone to her, maybe stupidly, after he saw the kid get shot, but that was different. That was an explanation for being a dick. This was seeking comfort. Intimacy. The antithesis of the system of drink fuck repress and repeat that had served him so well for the past ten years. He should have turned and walked to his apartment. He should have gone out the door to the nearest brothel and made a fool out of himself in front of some girl who saw this shit thirty times a day. He should have never started smoking to Eloise in the first place, because that led to talking and that led to sex and that led to the inconvenient, humiliating feeling that now filled his chest whenever he saw her or smelled her perfume and drove him to do stupid things like stand on her doorway at midnight ready to fall apart. If she was smart, she’d be asleep or ignore him. It’s what he deserves.

  But he knocks.

  And she comes running.

  ———————-

  He doesn’t do tender. Not like this.

  He doesn’t like to be taken care of. He’s the one who takes care of people, in his own messy, selfish, fucked up way. It makes him feel like he’s failing at the one thing he’s supposed to do - be the strong one, protect the innocent, whatever crap they peddled about his job. To be weak like this feels like admitting defeat, to admit that something finally got to him in a way he may not be able to bounce back from.

  He’s ashamed when he walks in and pours himself out like he does. He’s even more ashamed that he couldn’t just deal with this on his own, and his first instinct had come to her and fuck up her night. It’s almost like he can see himself from across the room, and he wants to reach out at stop his dumb ass from falling apart so spectacularly like he does. She doesn’t deserve this, and it’s not her responsibility. He worries that by doing this, he’s wrecking the only safe harbour he’s got left in the country. She is fun and light and blow jobs and laughter and good tequila, and he’s poisoning what they have by being so disgustingly raw in front of her.

  He waits for her to finally break and tell him it’s finally too much. That he’s a shithead cop who has done nothing but annoy her since they first met. That maybe he’s getting all that he deserves, at last, for all the awful things he’s done, and she rightly doesn’t have any sympathy for a man like him. This was fun, Javi, but I didn’t sign up for this.

  But that’s the thing about Eloise. She’s surprising.

  So when she reaches his hand out, he doesn’t quite believe her. She has to reach down and take it herself before he’s standing up and following her down the hall, not completely in control of his own body. He’s dumbstruck as she undresses him, so softly, like he’s something that could break underneath her help. It’s not until he’s pressed against her and she’s kissing the top of his head that he finally, finally lets go and lets himself believe that maybe he can have this, just for tonight.

So he pulls her closer, and he lets a sob rock through his body, and he tries not to cry when he feels her grip him tighter in response.

   When he wakes up, he knows he should let her sleep. She’s got work tomorrow and he’s got to go back to the embassy with a straight face and determination to get back to work. He had his moment of weakness, and now he should leave her alone. Slip out of her hold and her apartment and, if he was a good man, out of her life all together.

  Javier’s never been a particularly good man.

  So he reaches for her and cups her cheek. When her eyes flutter open and she says his name, so soft and so full of concern, his chest expands.

  He’s not good with words. Not the ones that matter. So he does what he is good at. He pulls her against him and kisses her and tries to treat her as gently as she treated him, like somehow if he could do this right, she’ll know. From the way she keeps her eyes on his as he pushes into her, he thinks she does.

  He wishes he was better. He wishes he could just tell her these things during the day, when he’s thinking straight, not just when he’s emotionally cored out. She deserves someone who can use their words, who don’t need to be at their very bottom and most needy to realise something that’s been growing inside them all along. He hates that in the morning, he’s going to look back at this and cringe at just how intimate and vulnerable he let himself be around her, that he’s going to have to brick himself back up just so he can get back to doing his job. He wishes, pathetically, stupidly, that the entire world could just be this dark bedroom and the noises she’s making and the way she feels around him.

  When it’s over, he falls against her, still entangled and unable to let go quite yet. He tells himself he’ll roll off her before he goes to sleep, because staying like this, surely, would be too much. But then he feels her fingers on his back, running up and down his spine as he lays against her, breathing in the faint smell of perfume that still lingers on her skin.

  In the morning, he’ll have to deal with this. Have to decide what lie he’s most comfortable with telling himself. But for right now, he can admit this is what he wants.

  Sometimes he can be pretty surprising, too.

--------

And maybe you started seeing him more after work. Maybe your smoke sessions got longer, the two of you sitting outside until the sun started to really go down and he would ask if you wanted a drink or you’d ask if he had eaten dinner. Maybe it became a thing, having dinner together. It was only a few times a week though. You took turns cooking. Friends do that.  

Maybe he introduced you to his partner and your upstairs neighbor one morning, when you came down to the car and saw some blonde guy – Steve, he’d tell you - in your usual seat. Maybe Javier told him to get out and sit in the back, despite your protests that you didn’t care. Maybe you noticed the look he gave his friend after he dropped you off, once he thought you weren’t looking, as he annoyedly climbed back into shotgun. Maybe it made you blush.

And maybe, maybe, you were in his bed more. Not a ton, but more. But more. And sober. Maybe you were both just really good at fucking each other in particular, and you were just conveniently close and willing. Maybe that’s why his usually high number of female guests had dwindled. Maybe he moved his headboard away from the wall because he just felt like it, not because he was trying to be stealthier about his indiscretions. Maybe he only looked kind of guilty when you inevitably gave him shit about it during your morning commute because he finally found a conscience, the same way his hand kept finding your knee during the drives.

You still didn’t stay over, not since you had both passed out together from pills. He never asked you to again, and you never presumed. So after- even if it was midnight, three AM, 5 AM – you went back to your place. But you still knocked on the shared bedroom wall when you got back– three times, like you had joked, to let him know you were safe. And he’d yell back “Thanks”. Maybe you can’t fall asleep until you had hear him say that.

So, no.

Not serious.

But different.  

“Bullshit.” Lisa spits.

You make a face at her before taking a sip of your beer. Beside you, Maritza giggles into her hand.

The bar you’ve all met up in is crowded, and it’s hard to hear over the buzz of talk and music. Well, it would be. If it wasn’t Lisa you were talking to.

“We’re just friends,” you say. Lisa shakes her head.

“Nope. Nope. We,” she gestures around the table. “are friends. You and he are not.”

“So we’re friends who fuck-”

“Just like me and Frankie were,” Alessa cuts in before taking a sip of her own drink. You wave her off.

“You and Frankie are different-”

“Yeah, they quit playing this bullshit denial game after two weeks,” Lisa says.

“I’m not in denial. I’m being realistic.”

“Whatever, girl,” Lisa says, shaking her head and reaching forward for her beer. Then, deciding she isn’t done after all, she leans onto the table, pointing at you. “You look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t care he’s still fucking other girls.”

You straighten your back and bulge your eyes open, holding her gaze. “I don’t care that he’s fucking other girls.”

Lisa nods. “You’re a shit liar.”

You let out an exasperated gasp. You turn to Maritza for back up, but she holds up her hands.

“I don’t care that he’s fucking other girls!” you practically shout.

“Even if it’s in front of you?” Alessa asks, her attention somewhere over your shoulder.

“What?”

She nods in the direction of where she’s looking. You twist in your seat to follow and see what she means: Javier’s there, in another fucking button-up, and that jacket you like, his back against the bar as he gives a smarmy smile to some hot, young girl practically pressing herself against him. He says something and she laughs, throwing her head back in an exaggerated gesture, a clear sign that she is down to fuck – probably against the bar if he’d take her.

“You care,” Lisa says from behind you. You spin back around to face her.

“What?”

“God, it’s painful at this point.” She finishes her beer and puts it down on the table. “Whose round?”

“Mine,” you lie, standing up. Maritza holds up her still full drink.

“I’m not –”

“You will be.” You say, pulling your purse off the chair. You turn back and see Lisa fixing you with a devilish smile, as Alessa politely looks away.

“I don’t care,” you reiterate.

“Mmmhmm.” Lisa says.

“I don’t. In fact,” you look around, desperately. Your eyes fall on an alright-looking guy standing at the bar. His facial hair is atrocious, and it looks like he hasn’t updated his closet in twenty years- not that that timely a fashion sense matters, considering you’ve been fucking Burt Reynold’s younger, Latino brother for the past few months. You point to him. “I’m going to fuck him tonight.”

“Him?” Maritza’s face contorts.

“She’s not going to do it,” Lisa assures her. “She’s just trying to make him jealous. I doubt she’s even coming back to the table.”

“I-”

“I get it. He’s hot.” She looks back at Javier. You try to think of something scathing to say in return, but your words fail you. Lisa notices, and she smiles that cocky smile again.

“I’ll be right back,” you huff, turning and walking pointedly towards your mark. You slow down, afraid you’re coming in too hot, and stroll up beside him.

“Excuse me,” you smile at him. He turns and considers you. God, he really is a picture of the early 1970s. His hair is down to his shoulders, brushing against the too open collar. A gold chain tangles in his showy chest hair, and you wonder if it’s too late to pick someone else. You turn and see Lisa, Alessa, and Maritza watching you. Alessa and Maritza snap their attention elsewhere, but Lisa smiles and holds up her beer – cheers.

“Excuse me,” he says. You smile and lean over the bar, sticking your ass out just a bit. You try to keep your dinner down when you feel his eyes graze over it, thinking you’re oblivious as you try and get the bartender’s attention. The poor woman is overwhelmed and doesn’t see you, too busy clearing the opposite end. Before you can help yourself, you look over to where Javier is still stood at the bar. As if sensing you, his eyes flick up and meet yours.

You give him a small wave before turning your attention back to your companion, whose eyes are still glued to your ass.

You clear your throat.

His eyes snap back up to you and he gives you a smile, and it takes everything not to grimace at the state of his teeth.

“Come here often?” you ask.

He says something in response, but you’re distracted as Javier’s conquests waltzes by you, headed for the ladies room. He keeps blathering, tells you his name, where he’s from, but you’re too focused on watching as she disappears into the crowd. You wonder if Javier’s just waiting the extra five minutes before following her in as to ward off any suspicion that he’s definitely following her in to fuck her in a toilet when you feel a familiar hand on your ass.

“Sorry I’m late, baby,” you turn just in time for Javier to peck you on the lips. Beside you, your new friend’s face falls, and even though it's loud, you’re pretty sure you hear the girls at the table let out a small shriek at the turn of events. “Work was busy,” he lifts his arm and drapes it across your shoulders before nodding to the man in front of you. “Who’s this?”

“This is…uh…” you turn back and scan the man’s face for any kind of clue. He looks between you and Javier before deciding it’s his turn to speak.

“Miguel,” he answers.

“Miguel,” Javier echoes. He brings his whiskey up to his lips. “Thanks for keeping her company til I got here.”

Miguel looks back to you, waiting for an explanation, but you are completely speechless at the turn of events. Your mouth is even open, a little. A tense moment passes, and Javier’s grip on you tightens. When you don’t move to push him off, Miguel shakes his head and pushes up and off the bar, walking away. Javier settles into his place and fixes you with a smug smile before taking another sip.

“What the fuck was that?” you ask.

“Could ask you the same,” he counters. He looks you up and down. “You look nice.”

“You can’t just do that-“

“You should be thanking me,” he says. “I did you a favor.”

“Fuck you, Javier.” you snap, turning to lean on your elbows against the bar. He smiles, finishing his drink and placing it beside you as he matches your stance. You pointedly look away from him, trying to get the bartender’s attention.

“You do look nice,” he says again. You sigh and turn back towards him.

“Thanks.” You say.

He smiles and glances you up and down again. He’s about to say something when a chipper voice cuts through the noise.

“Heyyyy,” the woman from before comes up, running his hands up his back. She’s young and beautiful and wears a dress that, if you weren’t pissed off at him (if you didn’t hate her), you’d want in your closet.  

“Hey,” he turns and wraps an arm around her waist as she stands on her tiptoes and presses a long kiss on his cheek. You look up at the ceiling, trying to avoid the scene in front of you before you reach forward and grab a fistful of her aggravatingly beautiful long hair. She pulls away, a lipstick mark still on his cheek. Her smile dies, though, upon seeing you.

“Who’s this?” she wraps her arms around his arm, possessively. It makes you want to laugh.

I’m the woman he had bent over his kitchen table last night.

“My neighbor,” he says, not missing a beat.

“Oh,” she says, sizing you up. Your fist clenches beside you.

Pint-sized puta.

She turns back to Javier and pulls on his arm.

“You ready to go?” she moans.

“Just about,” he says. “Let me use the restroom, then we can go.”

“Hurry,” she smiles at him as she finally releases him from her hold. He leaves, making his way through the crowd and leaving you two alone.

She has no interest in talking to you, and you know that, but out of politeness, she turns to you with that sickly, fake kindness all mean girls possess.

“So, Javier’s neighbor?”

“…yeah,” you say, your eyes dropping from his back to her. “Next door.”

“That’s cool.” She looks over her shoulder, hoping he’d changed his mind. When he doesn’t appear, she turns back to you. “You know Javier long?”

“Oh yeah,” you nod.

“He’s great, isn’t he?”

“Oh, absolutely.” You say. “and…brave.”

She flashes you a smile. “I know.”

You clear your throat. “Yeah, I mean, most guys wouldn’t be out, trying to meet people...after a diagnosis like that.”

A flicker of concern crosses her stupid, pretty pageant-ready smile.

“Sorry?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “you know when he first got the results back, it was rough. Had him on my couch for a while, just” you bring your hand to your eyes as if to emphasize the sheer volume “bawling his eyes out. I was finally like ‘Javier, it’s not the end of the world. This isn’t America, you can get AZT so cheaply’,”

Her smile falls.

“Besides,” you shake your head. “Condoms, exist, you know? And people are really understanding if they’re decent. Like you!” you smile at her. “I told him it was just a matter of finding the right girl.”

Just before she can say anything, the bartender finally appears in front of you. Cheerfully, you rattle off your order, trying not to enjoy the smaller woman’s stunned silence beside you. When you finish and turn back, she’s staring at the floor as Javier makes his way back to you.

“Hey,” he drops his hand down her back, causing her to jump. You, in turn, give him a bright smile.

“Hey,” you say. He gives you a look but keeps his smile up. He turns back to the girl. “You ready?”

“I…yeah,” she says, pushing up from the bar. She strides forward, leaving the two of you behind.

“So nice to meet you!” you call after her. You turn back to Javier, a smug smile on your face. His face is blank, those stupid puppy dog eyes bigger under the low light.

“Your date’s getting away,” you nudge him. He looks at you and you think he’s about to say something, but pushes off the bar instead, trotting after her. Moments later, the bartender reappears with your drinks.

“What was that?” Lisa asks when you deposit the drinks on your table. True to your prediction, Maritza has long finished hers and eagerly reaches out for her second.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you shake your head, taking a seat. You reach forward and take the shot you ordered before slamming it back down on the table. You let out a satisfied ahhh. “You guys want to dance?”

When you stumble in front of your door a few hours later, you don’t even look up from your keys when you hear his door open and he steps out, arms crossed and looking like such a cop.

“You think you’re clever, huh?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” you look up. You nod to his open door. “How’s your girl?”

“I wouldn’t know. The second we got out of the bar she told me she had to go home,” he takes a step forward until he’s leaning against the wall. You unlock the door and stand back up straight.

“Aw, that’s a shame.” You pout.

“Uh-huh. What did you tell her?” He asks.

You bat your eyelashes. “What makes you think I told her anything?”

“Cut the bullshit. One second she’s trying to shove her hands down my pants at the bar, the next she’s getting in the first taxi that stops for her.” He purses his lips. “What did you say.”

You stand up straight, mimicking the statcure he had at the bar, his hand around your shoulder as he scared of Miguel. “ ‘I did you a favor' .”

“What?”

“Oh come on, you don’t want a girl like that, who runs off at the first sign of a health problem,”

“A health – what did you say?”

You shake your head. “I just told her it’s not a big deal, a lot of people have it, and the meds here are really cheap. Besides it’s not a death sentence, and only shitty conservatives who hate gay people-”

“Eloise- you didn’t.”

You take a step closer to him, looking up, daring him. “Are you mad? ‘Baby’?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, his nostrils flare as he frowns, letting out an exasperated huff. Before you can say anything else, he’s got his hand around your throat and his lips on yours. He’s pushing you back, through your door and slams it behind you as his hands continue to grab at you – your ass, your tits, anything. Determined, hard hands pull at the fly of your jeans, yanking them down and spinning you around to press you against your own door with a thud. Behind you, you hear the tinkle of his belt unbuckling and the shuffle off jeans against skin. As you turn to look, his hand grips the back of your head by the hair and turns you back forward forcefully. You let out a small laugh that soon turns into a moan when you feel him press against you. With a violent jerk of his hips, he’s inside of you, pressing you up against the shitty cheap wood of your door. You let out a pathetic little gasp as he pulls out and slams into you again. A hand comes up and grip syour breast through the fabric as you hear him grunt as he pumps into you again, his other hand bringing a slap down on your ass. You pray that no one – oh god, especially not Steve, he seemed so nice – is outside in the lobby right now.

“You’re a fucking brat,” he says, and you feel him hit that sensitive place inside you that causes you to clench your thighs together.

“Fair’s fair, baby,” you squeak again as the head of him hits that spot again. You bring a fist down on the door when he grabs the flesh of your ass and begins to pound into you relentlessly, harder than the two of you ever have.

“Keep-” you breathe, pressing the side of your face into the cool wood.

“Yeah?” he asks, bringing his hips to slap against your ass again. You let out a little cry as he pulls out all the way and does it again, then again. Your eyes roll into the back of your head as you clench around him, earning a groan that falls from his lips. You smile despite yourself when he pulls your head back by your hair, biting your neck with his other hand wrapped around your throat.

“You gonna cum?” he asks.

“Mmmmmhmmmm,” you muster.

“Too bad,” he says, and then a second later he’s off you. Distressed, you turn around to see him tucking his erection, still wet from you, back into his pants.

“Wait- no!” you whine.

“Fair’s fair, baby.” He says, not without a smile. You shake your head.

“No- no that’s not-!” you huff. You try to think quickly, the best you can come up with is turning around and switch the deadbolt. You look back at him. He scoffs.

“You think that’s going to keep me here?”

You kick your jeans off from where they are around your ankles and pull your shirt up over your head. With a determined look, you march forward and pull at his button-up – his stupid fucking button-up – until the first two buttons fly off somewhere.

“Hey-!”

You grasp his chin and bring it down against your mouth, teeth clicking as you kiss him. The fire reignited, he spins you around, bending you over the arm of your couch. You push yourself up, sticking your ass out as he removes his shirt and pants quickly. A hand snakes up through your hair again, jerking slightly as he enters you again. You claw at the leather, as you feel your orgasm start to build again. You smile to yourself when you hear him grunt behind you. You clench yourself around him again, biting your lip when you hear him whine at the sensation.

“Fuck,” he says. He reaches forward and presses you down, face into the couch. He drops his hand down between your legs, circling you there until your thighs begin to shake.

“Ahh-!” you cry out, finally cumming around him. He follows moments later, falling on top of you with a final grunt. The two of you lie there for a moment, huffing from exertion. After about a minute, you push yourself up, urging him back. He pulls out of you and you disappear to the restroom, returning a few minutes later with your last cigarette and a blanket from your bed wrapped around your shoulders. You sit down next to him on the couch, your turn to hand him a lit cigarette. He takes it and leans back, taking a long drag as the two sit in content silence.

“What would you have said?” he asks suddenly. You turn.

“What?”

“If you thought I was sick but wanted to take you home,” he brings his cigarette to his lips again. Smiling, you move over and throw your leg over his lap, straddling him.

“Baby,” you say,  taking the cigarette from his mouth. He looks up at you expectantly as you bring it to your lips. “I would have asked what pharmacy you want me to pick your meds up from.”

—————

It’s a week later and late in the night when you hear the knock. You perk up from where you lay on your bed, reading some new, horrible paperback your mother had sent you the week earlier. Putting it to the side, you throw your legs out of bed and make for the hallway.

Your living room is dark, so you go to turn on a lamp on the end table when another knock comes, harder.

“I’m coming,” you call out. You flick the deadbolt and swing the door open to find Javi standing there.

“What’s wrong?” you ask. When he doesn’t answer, you reach forward and take his hand in yours, pulling him in. You close the door behind him before coming back around and cupping his face in your hand.

“Javier? What’s the matter? Is it Steve? Did something happen?”

For the first time, his eyes meet yours. They’re darker than you’ve ever seen them, shining like they’re threatening to overflow.

“You’re scaring me,” you say.

“There was an ambush tonight.” He says. He swallows. “A lot of guys…fuck,” he runs a hand through his hair. You squeeze the hand you’re holding. “It was information I got. Gave them. Turned out to be a setup. I sent them into a trap.” He pushes past you and sits on your couch.

You stand still, waiting for him to say something else. You have the empty, pitting feeling in your stomach, the kind that accompanies the feeling of something being so unbearable real. It’s the same feeling you got when you were pulled into the staff room months ago and informed of the fifth graders that had died in a bomb.

Helpless.

“I’d be with them- if I hadn’t-” he lets out a shaky sigh. “I should be with them. In a fucking body bag.” He brings a fist up to his mouth. “Fuck.”

You pad over, sitting beside him. You try to think of something to say, but nothing comes to mind. It’s not his fault? It’s going to be okay? Who actually wants to hear that, when they’re so low?

Why say anything?

Instead, you reach to the side table and pull two cigarettes from your pack. You hold them in your mouth, lighting them, before passing him one. He takes it without looking at you, and the two of you sit there in silence. Tentatively, you rest your hand on his leg, squeezing lightly as he stares ahead, lost in his own thoughts.

When he’s let his cigarette burn down to ash, you take it from his fingers and deposit the two butts in the ashtray. You walk to the door and make sure its locked before standing before him and holding your hand out. He looks up at you, his eyes still shining and wide, and takes it. You turn the lamp off and begin to lead him back to your bedroom, moving quietly in the dark. Once you’re in your room, you begin to unbutton his shirt for him slowly, as if he may fall apart beneath your fingers. Once its open, you shuffle it off his shoulders, drawing it down his arms. You fold it and put it on the dresser before dropping to your knees and unlacing his shoes. You tap his ankle, urging him to lift his foot so you can slip them both off. Standing up again, you begin to fuss with the buckle of his belt, then his zipper, before you’ve got his pants down and around his ankles. You stand straight back up and look him in the eye before you pull your sleep shirt over your head. He lets out a sigh when you reach down and take his hand, leading him to the bed.

He allows you to set him down and pull the covers over the two of you. Reaching to the table, you turn the lamp off before reaching out to him in the dark. You guide his head to your bare chest, pulling him onto you. He clutches at your skin, his breaths against you heavy and shaking. You run your fingernails through his hair before bending forward and pressing a long, soft kiss to his crown. In response, he squeezes you tighter, burying his face into your breasts, letting out a small sob. You hold him back just as fiercely, rubbing patterns on his back until he falls asleep.

When you wake, it's still dark. You stir before you feel a gentle hand on your cheek.

“Javi-?”

“Ssh,” he says. Soft lips press against yours. There’s no urgency behind the kiss, and you relax into it and its slowness. So softly, like he’s afraid he’s going to break you, he pulls you closer to him, hands running up and down the sides of your body like he’s trying to memorize each inch of skin. Your mouth opens, letting his tongue press into you as he comes to lay atop of you. Those soft hands are tugging at your underwear, urging them down. You raise your hips to help him, and the fabric ghosts down your legs before you’re completely bare beneath him. A hand urges your legs to open, and he settles between them. You bring your hands to the back of his head, threading your fingers through his hair. You hold his gaze as he pushes into you, letting out a small sigh when he’s fully inside. As he begins to move his hips, he dips his mouth down and captures yours in a long kiss. When he breaks away, his grip on you tightens as you find his eyes again in what little light can make it into your room. You refuse to look away, like doing so would be tantamount to leaving him to deal with this on his own. Instead, you lift your legs and pull him closer, making his slow thrusts deeper.

It’s so slow. It’s so slow and soft and genuine and vulnerable it makes you want to cry. Instead, you bend forward and kiss him with the same gentleness, urging his mouth open. The two of you continue like this in almost silence, the only noises being the small breathy gasps exchanged. When it happens, you pull him closer as you let out a small whine as he sucks on your neck, following soon after.

The two of you lay there, breathing deeply, together. He stays inside of you, your sweaty bodies wrapped together in a tangle of limbs and warmth. He’s still holding you tightly as if he’s afraid you’re going to float away if he relaxes his grip even a bit. As if reassuring him, you bring your hand up to his back, dragging your fingertips up and down his spine as his breath evens out, and you feel him drop back into sleep, leaving you to stare up at the ceiling.

It’s…

It’s not…

You sigh and squeeze your eyes shut.

Under your fingertips, under the moonlight, you think his skin is the softest thing you’ve ever felt.

“I’m not giving you a drink until I see it.” You pluck the whiskey back up from the table, holding it up.

“I have my own-“

“Javier, you stubborn fucking man-“

“ Fine.” He brings his hands up to his neckline and begins to strip off his bloody shirt. You stand there waiting, grinding your teeth when he pulls off his right shoulder and you see the bloody bandaging underneath. He tosses his shirt to the floor and brings his hands to his hips, before bringing them forward and gesturing, as if to say “enough?”

“Fuck, man!” You stride forward, stopping just in front of him. You raise your hand as if to touch, but pull back. You look back up at him, horrified.

“It’s not a real gunshot wound.”

“Oh, just a figurative one?”

“I-“ he turns his head to the side and growls in frustration. You ignore the feeling it causes between your legs. “It’s just a graze. It didn’t go through.”

You fix him with a look. He shakes his head, like he can’t believe you’re reacting like this. “Am I clear?”

You drop your arms from where you had them crossed and turn back, making your way to the kitchen. “Alcohol thins your blood and delays healing.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” He sits back on the couch, stretching his arms out across the back and dropping his head back. You return to the couch with two glasses, sitting down next to him.

“You’re not taking those pills with this, are you?” You nod to the bottle on the coffee table’s edge. He lifts his leg up and kicks the bottle off. What a baby.

“If you were going to come nurse me, you could have at least worn the little dress.” He reaches and takes the whiskey you offer him. You roll your eyes and relax into the couch beside him, taking a sip.

“How long did they send you home for?” You ask, your eyes falling back to the bandage.

“Two days rest, a week desk work.” He takes another drink.

“Aw, a pencil pusher like the rest of us,” you reach forward and pinch his cheek. He reaches up and seats your hand away. You giggle.

“You’re annoying,” he says, reaching to the side table for a pack of cigarettes. Despite his statement, he pulls a second one out for you.

“I hang around children all day.” You reach out with your lighter and light the two ends for him. He holds the second one out for you. “Probably why I get along with you so well.”

“Ha ha,” he deadpans. He leans back, exhaling a long puff of smoke. The two of you sit in a not uncomfortable silence for a moment. You look around his apartment, scanning for any signs of personality, but find it lacking. No pictures, no books, even the tv looks dusty. You bring the glass to you lips again before asking:

“What are you going to do for two days laid up?”

He shrugs. “Nothing.”

“No but really,” you say. “Like, you going to knit or something?”

“What?”

“I’m trying to ask what do you do for fun?”

He turns and looks at you like you just asked who the president was.

“You’ve seen it,” he says after a beat, dropping his eyes back down and leaning forward to ash. “You’ve been it.”

“And what an honor it was,” you nudge him with your foot. “Come on, not even reading?”

He shakes his head and gestures outwardly. “I fucking hunt down drug traffickers all day, alright? I count corpses for fun, how about that? What do you do, late night book club with third-rate soccer players?”

You frown and put your drink down on the coffee table. Standing, you bend over to put out your cigarette.

“If you want to be a dick, you can drink on your own.” You make to walk past him. “I’ll see you around.”

You hear him sigh behind you.

“El, wait.”

El?

You turn and see him standing, bent over to stub the cigarette out. When he stands straight, you avoid gazing down at the way his jeans fall on his hips.

“I’m sorry, alright?” He says.

You don’t say anything.

He sighs and drops his head. “Today was bad. It’s been bad for a while. I thought I was handling it, wasn’t letting it affect me but...well,” he gestures to his bandage. Your stomach drops seeing the blood again. He waits for a response but when you’re still quiet, he throws his arms up, exasperated. “Look, I’m sorry, alright? I don’t want to be a dick, I just want to drink and smoke and” his eyes dart anywhere else in the room. “...hang out with you and think about something else.” He drops his hands to his side, before looking back at you.

You narrow your eyes and take slow determined steps forward until you’re in front of him. Maintaining eye contact, you bend down and pick up his glass of whiskey, bringing it up for a long pointed sip. You swallow, then extend your fore finger, pointing to his face.

“... second rate soccer player,” you correct.

And it takes everything to maintain your character and not to join him as he bursts out laughing.

———————

“Javi, no, I’m too drunk-“

“It’s just a bandage-“

“I’m not good with blood!“

“You said your dad hunts-“

“Thisisafuckingfleshwound!” You snap. You’re swaying in the doorway of his bathroom, squaring off against him as he leans against the sink.

“I can’t lift my arm, hermosa.” He says. “I need some help.”

You stare at him, a frown on your face. When he shrugs.

“Fine!” You huff, putting you whiskey down on the floor. You go to stand in front of him and take a deep inhale.

“...in order to change a bandage-“

“Shut up,” you cut him off. Nodding at your own resolve, you bite your lip and reach up to grab the corner. Quickly, perhaps too quickly judging by the way Javi flinches, you rip the bandage off.

“Ugh!” You make a vomit sound. It’s much deeper than you thought it would be. Even if it was a graze, that’s a fucking gun shot wound. The angry, red stitches seep with blood.

“I told you! I told you about the alcohol thinning thing!” You say.

“Can you just-?”

“God, it’s so deep-“

“Eloise, put the fu-“

You pull the new bandage open and grimace as you hold it up, hovering over the deep, ugly line. Gently, gently as you can, you press down on the adhesive, nibbling at your lip when it looks like he’s in pain. When you finish you step back, like the thing might bite you.

“There- there!” You say.

“You did it.” Then, he brings both his hands up to run along the outside, smithing it. Be breaks into a smile when sees the face you make. “Pretty good for a beginner.”

“You asshole! I told you I don’t like blood!” You reach forward and push his shoulder. Immediately he hissed in pain. “Shit! Shit! Shit! I’m sorry! I’m sorry-“

———

“I should...take a pain pill,” he says from behind you as he lays down, eyes closed on the couch. You sit up from where you’re sat in front of him, smoking a cigarette, and turn to chide him.

“ No.” You slur. “You’ll...you’ll die.”

He blows a raspberry.

“Shut up, that’s how Judy Garland died!” You turn back forward and lay your head back, resting on his arm. You close your eyes.

“It hurts,” he says.

“You’ve just got to focus on something else. You can will your consciousness-“

“Christ, your parents really were hippies.”

“-fucking told you- anyway, don’t think about that. Think about...” you smack your lips, trying to think. “How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

He laughs. “Psssh. What?”

“I bet you were 15.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Were you?”

“...sixteen,” he concedes. “What about you?”

“...how long ago did we first have sex?”

“... What-“

You let out a deep belly laugh. “Oh my god, you are so gullible. I can’t believe you’re a fucking agent-“

“- I didn’t actually believe you!.”

“Yeah, alright.” You shake your head.

“...Well?”

“What?”

“How old?”

You take a deep sigh. “Twenty.”

He laughs. “Nerd.”

“Slut.”

He nudges your head with his shoulder, and you break out in a smile.

“See? Not hurting anymore.”

————

“-No, where Carter went wrong-“

“Oh please regale me, Mr. ‘Nixon Had his Good traits’ -“

“Will you listen-“

“I bet you voted for Reagan-“

“ Don’t insult me-“

________

“Oh wow.”

“What?”

“No just, you being an only child makes sense.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“What do you think it means?” You laugh.

He smiles, looking away from you. “That I’m...independent...”

You laugh harder.

—————-

“Apartment looks like a serial killer’s-“

“What?”

“Put one picture of your mother up-“

————

“...I should buy a boat-“

“- You should totally buy a boat.”

——————

You wake up to a room lit up by the blue that precedes the rising sun. You pull your head up from where you’ve been leaned back, still resting on Javi’s arm. Pushing up onto your feet like a baby deer, you survey the damage left on the coffee table. The whiskey bottle is empty, and a few cans of beer are scattered across countless cigarette butts and ash, the result of an upturned ashtray and drunken laziness. Deciding it’s a job for later, you turn to Javi, who’s still asleep, mouth agog.

“Javi,” you reach forward and shake him. He barely stirs. You shake him again. “Javier.”

He jolts away, turning towards you rapidly. In the second he doesn’t recognise where he is, his eyes flash in such a way your chest aches. “What...”

“We fell asleep in your living room ...and I am still very drunk...” you swallow. “But you need to sleep in a bed. Come on.” You reach your hand down to pull him up. He takes your hand, standing slowly. You wrap your arm around his waist, urging him back towards his bedroom.

When you get to the edge of the bed, you deposit him on the edge of his mattress. You hear him him as you walk to the adjoining bathroom and fill the cup of water there. You try and drink as slowly as possible, and refill it after you’ve downed the cup. Walking back to the bed, you shake Javi awake once again.

“Javi-“

“Mmrpff.”

“Sit up and drink this.”

His eyes still closed, he sits up and takes the glass. He gulps it down before handing it back in your vague direction. You place it on the table beside him.

“Before I go-“

“Wha? No, don’t be stupid.” He reaches up and pulls you down to lay beside him. He turns on his back, giving you some room “Go to sleep.”

You open your mouth to protest, but you then you think...why not. You’re still drunk, and while you know it’s going to hurt in the morning and you’ll want nothing more to be in your own bed, in your own wallowing, something’s keeping you on the mattress beside him. Convenience, you decide.

“These sheets better be washed,” you mumble as you settle in beside him. You hear him chuckle before you’re asleep.

———————

You’re right.

It does hurt.

You can barely open your eyes before the morning light is giving you a headache. Turning away from the light, you open your eyes further to see Javi standing by the bed, the pain pills bottle open and in his hand.

He looks rough, and he’s ready for you to scold him. He holds up a hand in pre defence.

“Don’t -“

“Sssh,” you wave your hand. You reach out your palm. “Give me two.”

—————

The two of you wake again a few hours later. In your drugged, heavy sleep you seem to have gone diagonal in the bed, forcing Javier to the edge, your face pressed into the back of his neck. You try righting yourself, giving him some room as you stretch. You sit up and press the heel of your palm into your eyes, shaking your head. You turn to look down at your companion, who’s stirred awake.

“What time is it?” He murmurs. You turn to look at the clock.

“1:30,” you say. He shakes his head.

“Not ready.”

“Me neither.” You say. You feel a tug on your shirt from behind you, urging you back. You give in, and lay back. He puts his chin on your shoulder, burying his nose in your neck, an arm sling across your front.

“Hmmm,” he says as way of an invitation.

And you drift back off.

————

When you both wake up again at 4:40, you pull him out of bed and into the living room to try and get some food in him. All he wants, though, are cigarettes. It turns into a tense negotiation, with you threatening to light his pack up on the gas stove if he didn’t try to at least east a piece of toast. After the first, though, neither of you can get enough, and you end up making the worlds shittiest grilled, hungover cheese sandwiches. When you’re both sat at the table on your second sandwich, you raise your head.

“We slept the whole day, and I still feel like shit. And now my sleep schedules fucked.”

“We could go back to sleep,” he says taking another eager bite.

“How is that possible? We slept about 12 hours.”

He holds up the pill bottle, rattling it.

“...Aren’t you in the DEA?” You hold out your hand.

He pops the lid and deposits two in your palm before dropping two more in his own. “I’m off today.”

————————

When you wake up on Sunday morning around 11, he’s already up, sitting on the couch with a coffee and plate of eggs. As you wander into his periphery, he turns to look at you.

“Made coffee,” he holds up his mug. “Eggs.”

“Thanks,” you walk over to the sink and fill up a glass of water. You walk over to the couch and drop into the corner. He’s still shirtless in his jeans, but looks a lot cheerier.

You, on the other hand.

“Ugh,” you bring the glass to your mouth taking a deep gulp before continuing. “I have to grade so much today,”

“They’re kids, how hard could it be?” He shakes his head. “I’d kill for some work right now.”

“I have a pile over the past few weeks. They’re writing assignments, I have...have to leave little notes on each one...on their grammar.”

You’re both quiet for a second before he realises what you’re thinking.

“Javi-“

“No.”

“You just said it would be easy.”

“I want real work.”

“Wow.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Come on,” you moan. He shakes his head.

“No.”

“...I’ll suck your dick.”

————

“...is this comma supposed to be there?”

“Let me see? ......Ah, no. -2.”

“...kind of severe.”

——-

By the time he’s pants up, hands shaky as he recovers from frankly some of the best fellatio you’ve ever performed, the sun is just about to set. You finish your sip of water from where you’re stood in the kitchen, skimming over the assignments to check they all have a grade. When he comes up to kitchen, his hands pressed into his back pockets, you look up and give him a smile.

“Good job,” you say.

He nods and reaches for the water. You return to his bedroom to pull on the jeans you had discarded two nights earlier, the first time he had pulled you into bed to sleep, returning minutes later. When he turns and sees you, he raises his eye brows.

“Headed out?”

“Desperately need a shower.” You walk to the counter and pick up the papers. You examine his bandage. “How you feeling?”

“Better,” he runs a finger along the underside. “They said I can come in a day earlier, but they want me to stay home tomorrow.”

“Didn’t even offer to bring you homework?” You ask. He shrugs.

“Steve might. Not til 5 though.”

“A whole day of nothing.” You make a face.

“...I like reading.” He says. You look back up at him.

“Huh?”

“For fun.” he  clarifies. Then, as if realizing he may have just disclosed something, he clears his throat and looks away “Maybe I’ll find something.” He says. He nods to the door. “I’ll see you out.”

You walk with him to the door and wait as he unlocks it. Holding it open he leans against it.

You’re about to say goodbye when he leans forward and catches you in a kiss. It’s longer than you would have expected from him, given whatever this arrangement was. Yet you’re not pulling away. When he finally does break, you find yourself leaning forward, chasing his lips.

“Get home safe,” he says. You roll your eyes, making for your door. When you get it open, you look up and see him still watching you. You look down and smile, pressing forward and closing the door behind you.

A moment later, you rap three times on your shared wall.

If you’re not mistaken, you hear a muffled laugh.

————

When he opens the door at 7:00 the next morning, he’s surprised to see you on the mat.

“Hey,” he says, pressing his hand into his eye, rubbing the sleep out. “What-“

“Sorry, I have to get to the school early, but,” you reach out your items to him. Still bleary eyed, it takes him a moment to focus.

“I bought them at the airport when I came down,” you shrug. “They’re shit, but they hold your attention. This one actually is decent by the end, if you can push through .” You tap the cover on top. “Just in case you need something to do.”

He looks up at you, his face still perplexed. You shake you head.

“You’re welcome,” you sigh. You turn and begin walking to the door when you hear him behind you.

“Hey,” he says. You turn and see him standing on the mat, outside of his house. He holds up the stack. “Thanks.”

You stop and sigh.

Then you smile.

“Just take care of yourself today. Don’t need that bursting open the minute you don’t have adult supervision.” You point to has bandage before turning to walk out. Just before the door closes, you hear it.

For half a second, its tense. Then, in an act that even amazes you, you smile at him, like he hadn’t just used you and your body and your fucking beer (which was expensive, by the way) as therapy nights earlier.

”Hey Javi,” you say. You pull the key from the door and stand up straight.

“Hey,” he says softly, not sure if he’s just been caught or if you really are this casual. To seal the deal, you check to make sure his date is looking up and elsewhere before you point to her and make a show of checking her out. Turning back to Javier, raise your eyebrows and hold up your hand, curling your forefinger down to your thumb in the universal sign of nice (👌). The dumbfounded look on his face makes you genuinely laugh, and you stride past the two of them with a smile.

“See you later, neighbour.” You call back without turning around. You don’t wait for a response before you let the door close behind you, and you’re stepping out into the sunshine.

You’re surprised you don’t fall asleep at your desk that day. Your neck is still aching from your sleep on the couch Sunday night, probably the second worst decision you made with your body all weekend. When you return to an empty stoop, you’re almost grateful he’s not there, sitting casually like he had just happened to choose that spot to sit and smoke. God, you really had been easy for him. One night of getting drunk and giving in and now you had to spend the rest of your tenancy pretending to be the cool girl neighbour who doesn’t care that he wallmate fucked her and chucked her.

Twice.

Its not surprising, really. Men have done this before to you, and while it sucks you should know better by now to view these kind of guys as the ones you use just as much as they use you. The only thing really hurting here, you think, is your stupid ego. It’s not even like you were going to try and date the neighbour. You didn’t really want to date anyone.

You stop in your tracks, midway up the stairs.

Yeah, actually- what were you complaining about?

You had a hot neighbour who was good in bed and showed he had no qualms about letting you crawl in with him. He wasn’t pressuring you to tell him how you felt, or dragging you out on dates you didn’t want to go on, or playing passive aggressive little mind games with you. He was just fucking you. And sharing cigarettes. Sure, maybe he came over and dropped some heavy emotional labour on your lap every once in a while, but he had paid you back for your time by making you cum so hard you honestly think you lost vision for a few seconds. And you actually did like hanging out with him on your little routine smoke breaks. Yeah. Yeah! This actually worked out really well for you, now that you thought about it critically.

Pleased with yourself, you wander over to your corner and pull a cigarette from your purse, bringing it to your lips. Just as you light it, from the corner of your eye you see a patch of blue walking your way. You look up and see Javi just as he notices you, making his way towards the steps. You smile and press the lighter into your pocket.

”Hey stranger,” you tease. His face is still a bit confused as he looks up at you once, ascending the steps.

“Hey,” he says, coming to stand beside you. He reaches into his own pocket and pulls out his pack. He pats himself down and you roll your eyes, pulling the lighter from your pocket and holding it out to him. He smiles when he sees it and takes it from your hand and, despite yourself, you smile too.

”Thanks,” he says before clicking the lighter and holding the cigarette out. He hands it back to you and the two of you stand in silence for a moment, watching the sunset across the sky.

”Some kid got glue in my hair today,” you say, taking another drag. You turn to look at him. “Lorenzo.”

“The one with the eye?”

You he told him about Lorenzo’s fake eye.

”Yeah,” you say, trying not to seem to impressed he remembered. “Took forever to get it out.”

Javier nods, taking a long drag.

“We arrested Escobar today,” he deadpans.

“ What.”

He turns back and smiles.

“I’m fucking with you.”

You smile, letting out a huff as you shake you head.

”Got me.”

“What are you doing tonight?”

You turn and see the preschool teacher - Maritza, you think - standing to your left. You had been in such a daze as you waited for the coffee machine to finish you hadn’t noticed her come and stand next to you. She was a cute, small woman with big brown eyes and severe bangs, and the way she looked at you now reminded you of a little kid waiting for their parent to give them the present behind their back.

”Probably getting drunk at home and watching bad tv,” you say, turning to face her. “What’s up?”

“A few of us are going out tonight,” she says. “We thought you’d like the join.”

You stop and think of all the reasons going out now, on a Friday night, with a group of other women, in the middle of one of the deadliest cities in the world, would be a bad idea. But you also think of the three day old arepas waiting for you at home and the empty, stale apartment air you’d be eating them in. Your last few months had fallen into such a boring routine (with obvious exceptions) that you had completely forgotten going out was even a possibility. You told yourself you would wait until you had a group of friends to go out with, just to make it safer, but the only person you had gone out with was Javier, just that once.

“Come on,” she said, her round face breaking into a cute smile.

You found yourself smiling back.

”Yeah, why not?” you say.

Maritza tells you she and her friends will catch a taxi over to yours around 8. Ridiculously, you feel giddy as you catch yourself hurrying home. While you had only had a few pleasant exchanges with Maritza over recess, she had the kind of chaotic energy that accompanies all women who voluntarily spend most of their time with children under the age of six, and in your experience those were the bitches who always got the wildest. You were negotiating with yourself how drunk you’d let yourself get when you turned and walked up the stairs, barely noticing Javi in your smoke spot before he called out to you.

”Hey hermosa,” he said. You snapped your head back up, your concentration on whether or not there was really that much of a difference in your behaviour depending on three to four drinks shot. You were just compromising with yourself that it really depending on the liquor when he had called out to you.

”Hey,” you smile, coming to a stop beside him. He holds out a cigarette to you and you take it, popping it in your mouth. Before you can ask he’s got the lighter, and you lean in for a light.

“Want to grab a drink tonight?” He asks once you’ve settled into your spot beside him. You shake your head.

”Can’t. Got plans.”

”Oh yeah?” He turns to consider you. You give him a nod, unable to suppress the smile.

”Girl’s night,” you say. “Preschool teacher asked me to join.”

”The one with the bangs?”

You had told him about her bangs.

”Yep. The popular girls noticed me.”

“Where are you going?” He asked.

You shook your head. “Nope. You are not invited.”

He smiled. “I wasn’t-”

“Oh sure,” you say.

“You should just be safe, is all.” He says. “Stay out of certain places, you know, walk home together.”

“Believe it or not, this is not my first night out of the house ever.”

He frowns. “It’s dangerous. Just be smart.”

“Thanks mom,” you take a drag and turn towards him, your arms crossed. “And what shout I tell Bobby if he wants to go all the way?”

He scoffs and you break out in a grin. Shaking his head, he tosses his filter and moves around you, making for the door.

”Fucking smart ass.”

You’re always too eager to be on time. It’s a bad habit. It always ends with you showing up to parties too early and then it’s just you and the host making small talk over the fruit salad they thought they had at least another half hour to make. Whatever. Tonight that means you just get to spend the next hour looking really hot in your own apartment.

You find yourself standing still for a moment, wondering what you should do. Sitting down and reading seems like a weird thing to do when you’re dressed like this, but neither does sitting and watching tv. You wish for a minute you had been more picky about make up or hair but everything has set and you don’t want to risk fucking with it. You make for your kitchen and pull the bottle of tequila from the cabinet, reaching to grab a glass. You take a quick shot and are about to pour another when an idea runs through your head. You walk down and across to the wall opposite of the couch and knock three times.

You hear faint movement from the other side and grin to yourself.

“Javi?” You call.

A moment later, you hear a muffled “Yeah?”

“You want a drink?” You wait for his response, but instead of answering you hear his door open and close. You smile, pulling another glass from the cabinet when there’s a knock on your door.

“It’s open,” you shout, pouring two fingers into one of the glasses. A moment later he walks in, his eyes on the floor.

“You should really lock that,” he says, turning to watch you walk down towards him with two drinks. His eyebrows raise as he looks you up and down, and even though you’re supposed to be the cool girl who is very unaffected by her hot neighbour who she just sometimes fucks, it makes swell with some pride.

“I’ll be fine, I’ve got a cop next door.” You hold out the glass for him. His eyes flick back up from your waist as he reaches out to take it, wetting his lip with a dart of his tongue.

“Can’t get over here that fast enough.” He says.

“Hm,” you walk over to the wall. “Two knocks for ‘help’, three for ‘I’m fine.’” You demonstrate.

“Or you could just lock your door,” he looks at you over the rim of his glass. You roll your eyes.

“Such a cop,” you toss back your out drink. You wipe your mouth as he watches. “My parents would kill me.”

“Drug traffickers?” He asks

“Almost. Hippies.”

He cracks a smile at that. “This when you tell me your real name is Moonbeam or something?”

“It’s Starlight, actually.” You sit on the couch and gesture for him to join you. He follows your lead, sitting in the exact spot where only a week earlier he had post coitally confided in you. You try and ignore it.

“I’m an agent,” he corrects you.

You kiss your teeth. “Even worse. They’d keel over if they found out baby Starlight fucked ‘the man’.”

“You haven’t for a while,” he says, reaching out to lay a hand on your ankle. You’re embarrassed by how the electricity shoots up you leg, directly to the apex of your thighs.

You laugh. “A week is not a while.” You kick your feet onto the floor and stand, walking back to the kitchen for more drink.

“You sure you want to go out tonight?” He turns and watches you as you pull the cork from the bottle and pour yourself a third drink. So much for that negotiation. You wonder if you can buy bread on the way there. Surely. “My offer for a drink still stands.”

“Mmm, I wonder what that’s code for.” You sit down on the other side of the couch and, feeling bold, stretch your legs out again. “Thank you, but I already told them I’d go.”

He shrugs, bringing the drink back up to his mouth. “Gonna be a boring night,”

You tap his thigh with the tip of your heel. “First I need to be safe, now it’s going to be boring?”

He shrugs again. “Just saying. When you’re disappointed later, you know where I’ll be, hermosa.”

You’re not disappointed.

You and Javier drink for a while longer, swapping stories about Texas and being an expat and dumb, innocuous work shit when you hear a cacophony of giggles followed by a rapid series of knocks at your door. You stand and grab your purse, Javier following in your step as you swing open the door and see Maritza with her two friends, tipsy and giggling on your mat.

“Heyyyyuu guapa,” Maritza says. You’re thankful you weren’t the only one drinking early. The woman behind her- tall and beautiful, you’ll learn her name is Alessa- offers you a small bottle of liquor. You raise you hand to take it as all three of their eyes flick towards the man approaching from behind you.

“Ladies,” he says, hovering behind you. You can’t see his face, but you know the smug bastard is loving every second of this. You recognise the look that flashes across their faces as their eyes flick from him to you, and you smile as you take a quick swig from the bottle.

“Javier was just leaving,” you explain, reaching back and ushering him out by the shoulder.

“Does he have to?” The third girl - Lisa - asks. Alessa gives her a quick seat on the arm.

“He does,” Javier answers, nodding. “You ladies have a good night.” His eyes meet yours for a brief second before he’s turning and walking to his apartment. The girls watch him as he disappears inside as you lock your own door, and when you turn around to tell them you’re ready, the looks on their faces are demanding answers.

Fuck it. You’re drunk.

“Yeah, I am.” You laugh, and all three of them squeal.

Fuck. You had forgotten how fun this was.

The taxi ride over had been a whirlwind of questions and much to the annoyance of the driver, you answered each and every dirty one with as little detail as to remain polite but still subtlety brag that you indeed were fucking the hot guy in your apartment. You missed having girlfriends to gossip with, to giggle over sex and boys. Alessa was married without any kids, but she turned out to be the most curious about you and Javier’s situation. Even though there wasn’t much to tell, you were high on the attention and leaned into each question, a little surge of what could only be feminine pride exploding in your chest when the women blushed at your answers and squealed in delight.

Maritza had said she knew the owner of the club( “she’s lying, she doesn’t know shit.” Lisa laughed with you as she handed you the bottle) you arrived at, and disappeared for a few minutes before reappearing at the back and waving the three of you in. Turns out the owner was actually the janitor, but the result was the same: four passes inside without having to pay. (“Not that we would,” Maritza had said. “But just in case.”). It was thrilling, sneaking through the dark hallways, each of you with their hand on another woman’s shoulder as you giggled, trying to keep quiet. You were drunk enough that you let Alessa pull you onto the dance floor as Maritza and Lisa went to the bar to get drinks. The lights and sounds were overwhelming and you felt blissfully lost in the sea of bodies that, to you, seemed to flow together. When the girls returned, some fruity concoction in their hands, you were already sweating for exertion, and felt larger, warm hands encircle your waist.

For a brief, fleeting second, you thought Javier had followed you to the club, but upon turning around you realised it was very much not Javier. This guy was younger, maybe even a few years younger than you, with big hazel eyes that somehow - alcohol? Magic? - shone through the pulsing lights of the club. Deeming him handsome enough to allow it, you turned and began to grind against him, for a few songs. Finally, during a lull in the music, he leaned forward.

“You’re a shit dancer,” he said

You laughed before reaching back up and pulling him back down to whisper in his ear. “I’ve got better rhythm on my back.”

Messy. But it got the point across.

You felt his thumb on your chin, tilting you up to face him. When he kissed you, he tasted like chapstick and cheap beer. It wasn’t warm or soft or desperate, but it was nice. And nice was enough for you tonight.

The girls behind you cheered in approval when they saw you. Blushing, you turned back to face them, grinding your ass against the growing hardness in your partner’s jeans. At some point during the night you were separated, but you quickly forgot about him when it was Lisa’s turn to pull a man. Doing your friendly duty, you cheered along with Alessa and Maritza as you watched her lead the tall stranger back to the bathrooms, only to reappear fifteen minutes later slightly rumpled but much happier. She did three shots after that.

The night continued to go well- true to you hypothesis, Maritza was a wild card. At some point she managed to crawl on the bar and convince three different men in soccer jerseys to take a shot from between her breasts, before reaching behind the bar and stealing a whole bottle of vodka while the barkeep was distracted. It was only about fifteen minutes before she had passed the bottle to every member of the soccer team when the manager finally noticed and kicked the whole group of you out.

As you stood outside, the four of you giggling and hovering around the equally drunk soccer players, you felt a hand wrap around your waist. Turning, you recognise your dance partner from earlier.

“Hey,” you say. Behind you, your new friends are busy flirt-arguing with the soccer captain.

“Hey,” he says back. “You want to get out of here?”

You give him the once over. He’s cute, toned, and he’s wearing the same jersey as the rest of the teammates. You laugh and look over to the line of taxis, wondering if you’re really about to take this guy up on his offer.

“How old are you?” You ask.

“25.”

You shake your head. “You look like trouble.”

“I am.” He smiles, and you catch those hazel eyes once again.

Fuck it.

You catch a taxi pretty easily, and once you two are in the back seat he’s all over you, pulling you against him to kiss your neck and fondle at your top. For a grown man, he acts like a boy getting to touch his first tit. You send an apologetic look to the driver when you arrive at your apartment after he pays, but quickly forget your embarrassment when he catches you around the waist and pulls you into a sloppy, messy kiss. You’re giddy off the drink and the energy of the night and kiss him back with equal finesse. After a moment you realise you’re still in the street and reach down to take his hand. You’re just outside your apartment door, shamelessly making out, when Javi’s door swings open.

Oh. Oh to be able to record the way Javier’s face falls the moment that cocky smile and planned, snide comment he had ready dies upon seeing another man draped around your back, sucking at your neck. He must have heard you return and come out to bully you into admitting it wasn’t really a fun night without him, and now he’s standing frozen, the extra cigarette you imagine was meant for you caught between his fingers. The man currently sucking a welt onto your neck looks up.

“You want a picture or something?” He asks. You swat his arm and turn, unlocking the door to your apartment quickly before they can engage in some bullshit machismo. You reach down and take your companions hand and urge him to follow you in before shooting Javier an apologetic look.

“Sorry Javi,” you say. “We’ll keep it down.”

And you shut the door behind you.

Look. You weren’t trying to get revenge. It just turns out Isaac (that’s his name) is really, really good at sex. That, or you’re really really drunk. Either way, you’re not the quiet partner you usually are. It doesn’t help that he, unlike the last person you slept with, has a young, heavily exercised back and can flip you into positions like the two of you are competing in couples ice dancing at the fucking Olympics. You even remember, in between rounds, to shove a sock between your headboard and the wall. Not that that really helps, when you’re about eight tequila drinks in and a young, stupidly ripped athlete is railing you from behind.

You also really, really didn’t think that in the morning you would be even awake enough to fuck, let alone do the breathy moaning that’s falling out of your mouth now as he hoists your leg over his side and pumps into you, flicking at your clit like he’s playing a guitar. You honestly, in your still drunk haze, forget that Javier is even on the other side of your wall.

When the two of you finally finish and Issac turns down your offer for breakfast, you throw on a sundress and walk him to the door. The two of you pause before opening the larger door outside, and he leans down to kiss you and assure you that, although it’s such a bummer his team has to go back to Cali, he had a great time with you. You play along, letting the kid have his ego stroked, and kiss him before he turns and heads out the door, into the morning and out of your life. Still smiling to yourself, you don’t realise Javier is standing in his doorway, lit cigarette dangling from his lips with his arms crossed.

“When’s the wedding?” He asks, and you know he’s trying to play it off, to be the cool guy in all of this. But you also hear that buried edge in his voice, and you know you’ve gotten under his skin.

Smiling, you saunter up to him and pluck the cigarette from his lips, holding his gaze as you take a long, large inhale.

“It’s about 100,” he jokes back. You twist your face as you bend down to snatch your shirt from the floor and pull it over your shoulders.

“Pricey, but fair.” Somewhat dressed, you stalk over to his side of the bed and pluck the cigarette from his lips, taking a long drag yourself. His hand comes to rest on your thigh as you exhale.

“This isn’t going to be weird, is it?” you ask, flicking your eyes back down to him. “It was good, but I hope I didn’t lose my smoking buddy.”

‘Buddy’? God. You hang out with kids too much.

He smiles and reaches up to take back the cigarette you hold out. “Don’t worry, hermosa. I don’t scare easy.”

“Friends then?”

His eyes flick up and down your body before falling back on your face. He takes a drag.

“Yeah, friends.”

The way he enunciates tells you exactly what being friends with Javier is going to entail. You smile and bend down, catching his mouth in a quick peck.

“See you later, friend.” You stand up and give him a quick smile before picking up your purse from where you left it by the door and saunter out to the hall.

You don’t see him until the late afternoon Sunday when you take a break from grading to go stand on y’all’s usual spot to light up. He’s already there, smoking a cigarette that’s more ash than tobacco. He doesn’t even look up when you saunter up next to him, your hair up in a nest, and light your own.

“Lot on your mind?” you ask.

“What?” his voice is more on edge than you expected. You frown and gesture to his smoke.

“Think you forgot to ash,” you say.

He huffs and pulls the cigarette out of his mouth, pressing it into the concrete on the steps with more vigor than is required.

“Something up?”

“Mind your own fucking business, will you?” he snaps. You physically recoil from him as he starts down the stairs, his hands in his pockets. You’re too stunned to say anything, watching his back until he’s out of earshot. Annoyed, and suddenly not in the mood, you stub out your mostly intact cigarette and head inside.

To be honest, you’re still steaming about it when there’s a knock on your door that night. Already in your sleepwear, you push yourself up from where you’ve been lounging on the couch, reading some trashy paperback you picked up from the airport months ago. You leave against the door, avoiding looking through the peephole – some trick your dad taught you.

“Yeah?” you call out.

“It’s me.”

You frown. You do want to open the door, but there’s a question of self-respect. Do you let the man you’re casually having sex with, who then treated you like shit, into your house, where you know you could happily drop your pants for him once again if he looks at you with even the slightest bit of regret and/or horniness? You’re a strong woman but you’ve been walking funny all weekend, and if you’re honest it’s been pretty nice.

Your indecision speaks for you because from the other side you hear:

“I thought- I’d explain. About earlier.”

Yeah, there goes that resolve. You flick the deadbolt and swing the door open so you’re sat in the doorway, your hand still resting on the doorknob as you consider him with a look you hope is at least a little intimidating, although it’s hard to maintain upon seeing him. He looks rough.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” you echo back.

“…What’s up?” he asks.

“Mostly just minding my own fucking business.”

He purses his lips and looks beyond you. “I deserve that.”

A beat passes. You try and keep up your icy, indifferent demeanor, daring him to explain himself, despite the teacher in you wanting to pull him into a hug or potentially ask him to express his emotion through a crayon drawing. Instead, you fight the urge and just raise your eyebrows expectantly.

“Can I come in?”

You pretend to think about it for a moment before making a show of stepping aside and waving your hand into your apartment dramatically. He nods before walking in and stopping at the edge of your couch, letting you close the door behind him. He turns around at the sound, his hands on his hips pushing his jacket back just so. You both wait a minute, daring the other to speak, before giving in at the same time.

“Do you want something to drink – “ “I’m sorry about earlier-“

You both stop, waiting for the other to finish. He speaks first.

“Yeah, what you got?”

“Water, beer, or tequila.” You say, gliding past him to the small kitchen that overlooks the living room. You turn back, awaiting an answer. He’s still a thousand miles away.

“Beer.” He says finally. You nod and go to the fridge, retrieving two cans from the bottom shelf. Closing the door with your foot, you walk forward and hold the can out for him. He takes it but doesn’t open it. Annoyed, you make for your spot on the couch and plop down, pulling the tab back as you tuck your legs under you.

“You can sit down,” you say.

As if snapped out of a trance, he comes forward and sits on the opposite end of the couch. In a fluid motion, he opens the beer and throws it back for a long gulp. You study him from your perch, nursing the cold can in your hand. When he finishes his gulp, he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. The air around the two of you is tense, and the stomach makes your stomach flip.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he says. You sit up, prompting him to look up at you. You bring the beer to your lips and take a sip, letting him know he’s got to offer a little more than that. He shakes his head.

“It’s- it’s a shit excuse. It’s just work.” He says.

“Yeah? Did the embassy cut the janitorial budget? No more Comet?”

He shakes his head. “You’re smarter than that,”

You fall silent and look at the space between you. You both know you never bought the excuse he gave you that night out, you just let him have it because it was easier to let him have his secrets, even if he noticed your eyes lingering on the gun strapped to his side when he first went up to the bar.

It was just supposed to be a drink.

Nothing serious.

“I am,” you say, setting your beer on the coffee table. You sit up and wait for him to respond. Instead, he takes another sip of his beer and makes to stand.

“I shouldn’t have bothered you,” he says, adjusting his jacket. “I’ll let you get back to your evening-“

“Javier,” you say. As you see him making for the door, you pounce up and grab his arm. He stills, and you drop it as if you just breached a barrier.

“You’re not bothering me,” you say. “You can tell me…or you don’t have to. It’s fine.”

He turns back and regards you with those eyes. Those fucking eyes. In this light, with the beers you’ve had, you feel suddenly so undressed in front of him. You bring an arm up to hold the opposite arm. It makes you feel less exposed

“Friends, remember?” you say, trying to recapture the jokey feeling from the previous night. Trying to make him feel comfortable. Like he can be light in here. With you.

He’s still for a second, but just as quickly as he popped up from the couch he’s got his hands on your face, pulling you into a desperate kiss. It’s messy and hard, but you let him take the lead, opening your mouth when he presses his tongue between your lips.  His hands drop to your waist and clutch at you, pushing your ugly, old University shirt up to touch your skin. Everything feels so urgent like if he let his hold on you relax even a little you’d float away from him. You feel the hardness in his jeans as he holds you against him, and you try to kiss him back with equal ferocity before realizing maybe he needs this kind of harsh control. So you relax, letting him take the lead and paw and gnaw at you. He leaves a trail of harsh, open mouth kisses along your neck that you know are going to leave marks, and you make a mental note to wear a turtle neck tomorrow to avoid the inevitable, unintentionally shaming little innocent voices asking “Señora, qué es esto?”.

Why do little kids notice everything?

Eagerly, as if he’s realized it’s the one thing that’s been keeping him from peace all day, he pulls your shirt over your head and throws it somewhere behind you. You’ve already taken your bra off, and his head dips down to take one of your nipples in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the point before giving it a quick, testing bite. You let out a little gasp as he switches to the other, and for a moment you forget his face at your door – sad, like a puppy dog that got kicked – and the dullness of his voice, so different from just a few days earlier. This feels different too- not so much fun, but release.

You’ll let him have it.

Your knees hit the edge of the couch and, a creative idea coming to your head, you drop from the kiss and sit yourself on the arm, focus now on undoing his belt. Above you he strips his jacket off, dropping it to the floor. You pull the belt out of the loops with all the show of a circus lion tamer cracking a whip and immediately being to pull at the buttons and zipper. Aggressively, -maybe too aggressively, calm down, the dick isn’t going anywhere, Eloise- you pull the jeans down past his ass and lurch forward, catching the head of his cock between your lips and sucking. Above you, he hisses, and you bring your hand to him, wrapping your fingers around the top as if it were an extension of your mouth. Gathering spit from the back of your throat, you take him deeper, trying to coat his length. His hands come up to grab at your hair, and you’re encouraged to go faster. Suddenly taking care of him is the only thing that matters anymore. Your other hand reaches forward and presses up against his sac, and the groan from above you is enough of an indication that he approves. You pull him out of your mouth and flick your eyes up forward, holding eye contact as you lick along the side of him. The way his mouth falls open is enough encouragement to return to your work in earnest, and for the next five minutes, you’re working your jaw like a fucking snake – pulling him into the back of your throat, tickling the underside of him all the while before returning to give attention to the head.

Without warning, you feel hands on your shoulders, and before you can protest – no, I want to do this, I want to do this for you – your back is against the leather of the couch cushions. You stare up at him as he finishes undressing, his eyes are so dark and focused as he drops the clothes to his feet. In a fluid motion, he pulls your night shorts and underwear down, depositing them with the rest of his clothes as he crawls over you. You scoot back until your head is pressed against the pillow just fifteen minutes earlier you had nearly fallen asleep drooling on. He hooks your leg up, opening you up for him as he slithers up to kiss you again.

“Are you-?”

“Yeah,” you say.

It’s enough. Seconds later he’s sheathing himself inside of you, and despite yourself, despite that stupid cool disposition you opened the door with, you let out a moan. Harsh fingers grab your chin and pull you back into a kiss, cutting you off as he continues to pound into you at an unforgiving pace. God, it feels good. It’s been years since you’ve had sex without a condom, and you’ve forgotten how nice and right it can feel to have someone inside you without a barrier. You hum into his mouth as he pulls away, dropping his lips to your neck as he continues, hard and unforgiving and perfectly painful in a way that you’ll carry in your walk for a week. Embarrassingly, you’re so wet, and the excess slick only makes the sounds coming from between the two of you more obscene. You clench yourself around him, earning yourself a moan as he sucks a bruise onto your collarbone – it's okay, remember, turtleneck -and bucks into you, faster than before.

“Fuck,” you breathe as he continues. “Fuck!”

“Yeah?” he asks, his hand coming up to grab your breast. He pinches your nipple between his forefinger and thumb, and you let out another moan. Instead of answering, you dig your nails into the meat of his ass, urging him forward and deeper into you. It must have an effect because it’s his turn to moan into your ear, for you to hear the string of curse words that tumble from his stupid, perfect mouth. Encouraged, you press against his back, bringing him closer as you ride him from below. He sucks as his teeth and leans into it when you try again. You bend down and suck at the spot where his neck and shoulder meet, doing your best to leave a mark. Fair’s fair.

A few more minutes into this and you don’t think you can hold it off any longer. Opening your legs as much as possible, begging him to go as deep as he can, you finally let your body go. It’s deep and internal, a different sensation than when you’re circling yourself alone in your bed. It seems to pull him deeper and crush him in between the impossibly strong spasms. You let out a little cry, which is all it takes for him to finish. Seconds later you feel him pulse inside you, warmth spreading deep inside of you. He falls atop of you, both of you breathing heavily as you come down from the high. You both stay like that for a moment, two sweaty bodies flopped atop of the other, basking in the afterglow. After another minute he pulls back and kisses your chin before pulling himself from you – you’re proud, you only let out a small pathetic sound of disapproval – before he’s up, making for your kitchen. He returns a moment later, a wet rag in his hand. You try not to remember that you used that same cloth to clean up split orange juice that morning as you take it, pressing it between your legs as you sit up. You reach forward for your beer and take a sip as he settles beside you, two cigarettes once again caught between his lips. He lights yours first and passes it to you, which you take gratefully. For a moment, the two of you relax in the afterglow, naked and sweating on your shitty couch, sucking on cigarettes and waiting for your heart rate to go back down.

“I saw a kid get shot,” he says out of nowhere. It's enough to jolt you upward. You turn to look at him, but he’s staring forward, lost in his own thoughts. He brings the cigarette to his lips again.

“…Fuck.” You say. Because what else can you say? Try and make him feel better, tell him you’ve lost students to the same bullshit he seems to be fighting? Yes, that’s always the solution- more dead kids.

“Couldn’t have been older than nineteen,” he says. “Other…kids were there. Saw it.”

You bite your lip and study his profile. You’re not sure what to say. Is there anything? If you were in his position, you’d probably hate someone trying to fill the silence. To make you feel better. Like people can’t just sit with something uncomfortable and true. It reminds you home, of the family you grew up in. You want to show him that isn’t you.

So, you swing your legs onto the ground and move to sit closer to him. He notices but says nothing. The two of you sit in silence, the smoke from your cigarettes intermingling in the smell of sex and sweat that permeates the air around you. He finishes his cigarette first, and you stub yours out – in what, solidarity? – before reaching to catch his hand in your own. He stills, but lets you interlace your fingers.

“You don’t have to-”

“Friends, Javier.” You say again. He turns to look at you and you hold his gaze, daring him to say something against you. A beat passes, and he drops his head. Reaching out, you pull his head to your lips and press a kiss against his temple. Leaning back, you pull him down with you, letting his head lay on your chest as you pull the ratty blanket over the two of you. You listen to his breaths go in and out, as you trace mindless patterns through his hair. After a few moments, his breathing evens out, and you realize he’s asleep. Letting out a sigh, you close your eyes and soon follow suit.

The next morning, when you wake up alone on your couch, you try not to let the ache in your chest settle. When you leave that morning, alone for the first time in weeks, you try not to overthink it. And later, then night, when you’re lying in bed and hear another woman’s groans permeate the wall between your bedrooms, you try not to finger the bruises on your neck and ignore the ache between your legs.

Maybe he said something that first morning, but you're not sure. The first week was a blur, most of it spent untangling the mess of wiring in the hull he had made trying to fix it himself. By the end of those first few days, your fingers were singed so badly from these messy nest you finally just decided to cut your losses and replace half of them. Sometimes he would pass by you, hovering just for a moment, but never said anything. Other than that, the only social exchange between the two of you was taking turns making caf and leaving the pot half full for the other.

The only other notable encounter happened in the second week when the hammock you had strung up in a little, out of the way nook had fallen right on your tool kit in the middle of the night with you in it. Before you were even fully awake, there he was at your door (er, curtain), blaster in hand and flipping on the light, ready to shoot the intruder. But it was just you, groaning on the floor, rubbing the part of your spine where you had landed on a wrench. Did he mumble an apology before leaving you to privately writhe on the floor? Or the next morning, when you had been checking out the bruise in the fresher when he walked in to see you crouched on the sink, lifting your shirt and contorting your body around to see your lower back in the mirror. He had left pretty quickly after that, but he must have gotten a good look and the large, angry mark because there was bacta gel left on your newly re-strung hammock that morning. It helped.

So, the routine went like this: he piloted, he went out to hunt, and he polished his guns. You kept the systems working, the lights on, and made the caf in the mornings. Most days he took the drink back up into the cockpit with a little nod of thanks. Sometimes you’d join him, and the two of you would sit silently, sipping the oily, black tar together before a little bell went off in both your heads to get to work. He’d go out, you’d stay in. When he returned and dealt with the bounty, you’d nod at each other like spice dealers in a back alley.

You’re here.

I am.

Still alive.

So are you.

Then up he went again, into his little hiding place, leaving you in a mess of wires.

Three more weeks into the usual, though, and you were getting bored. There was always something to fix, but lately, your jobs had become more cosmetic, and what monotony was broken up by your silent companion were few and far between, as his jobs took him away for increasingly long stretches of time, leaving you to your little projects. Once you had gotten the door to stop making that awful noise every time it opened, you had begun buffing out the dents and scrapes on the wall. When that was done, you fixed the bum lightbulb in the fresher and the track lights that ran through the ship, up until you got to his quarters. Then, you went to the cockpit and, using some old paint you had found in the ship's storage, that you had nearly pulled a muscle stirring with water it was so old, you color-coded the buttons. Yeah, the fucking buttons. When you decided to join him in the cockpit the next morning, the two of you silently drinking caf together, he pointed to them. You shrugged. You try being on a ship with nothing to do for weeks.

Maybe it was because you were so starved for any kind of interaction, but you began to sit with him in the cockpit more. Morning caf quickly became a routine, the two of you sitting and staring out into space together as you tried to wake yourselves up. Then, when your projects were small enough, you'd haul them up and deposit yourself into the co-pilot's chair, tinkering mindlessly as the two of you cruised through the infinite. In turn, sometimes during the evening, he would sit with you at the table as you ate. He never ate with you, but you always made extra in case he wanted to. Most mornings you'd find an additional empty dish in the sink, and smile in spite of yourself.

Maybe it would have kept going like this, this socializing like house cats, content to just be doing things around each other, you finding odd jobs and him continuing to do his broody badass thing if you hadn’t brought the caf up to the cockpit this morning and saw him with his head – his actual head- in his hands.

To be fair, you were usually noisier when you clambered up the ladder. And, also to be fair, he didn’t act like it was a big deal. But you nearly dropped the cups. Six weeks working for the guy and you had just kind of assumed the helmet was a permanent thing. Like, maybe he was disfigured or scared underneath that visor, or a breathing apparatus. Hell, you kind of had a running bet with yourself that he might just be a droid. But…ah, nope.

So when he turned to you and you met those big brown eyes for the first time, you jumped, like he had just caught you watching him undress. Hot caf spilled on your fingers.

“Fuck!” You rush over to the chair and set the mugs down before pulling the injured finger to your mouth and sucking.

“So she can talk.”

You swivel around and shoot him a look. He’s sat up now, reaching for one of the cups.

“I thought you were mute,” he says before taking a sip.

“Me?” you talk around your finger before remembering it was even in your mouth. You pull the digit out and move to take the other cup before taking your seat. “I thought you didn’t have a face.”

He puts his drink down and gestures with his palm under his chin as if presenting himself. “I do,”

“Yeah, and I talk.” You say before taking a sip. The two of you fall into an easy silence again.

“You snore.” He says.

“So do you,” you counter. “Shake the damn walls.”

There a flash of a smile before he finishes his drink and places the mug down again. Before you know it he’s pulling the helmet back on and standing.

“I’ll be gone a few days,” he says. “I left some credits in the cooking area. Not much but enough to buy anything we may need from the market.” He strides past you and makes for the ladder. It feels strange, not acknowledging how your silent routine has just been unceremoniously upended. But you don’t want him to stop talking.

“Any requests?” you ask just as his shiny little head is about to disappear down the ladder. He pauses.

“…yeah.” He says. “There’s these…blue cookies.”

“Blue…cookies…” you repeat.

“Yeah,” he says. “like little sandwiches.”

When you don’t immediately respond, he speaks up.

“Just if you see them,” he grunts. Then he drops down before you can open your mouth.

“Aye aye,” you call after him, but the bull door is already opening, and it’s still a much noisier operation that you’d like. You doubt he hears your before it shuts behind him.

Alone in the cockpit, you smile to yourself.

The big, scary Mandolorian likes cookies.

The market ends up having the cookies, which makes you a little happier than you thought it would. The market also has whiskey, which definitely makes you happy. It’s a little pricey, but you plan to tell him to take it out of your pay – which he hasn’t given you yet. So, really, it’s fair game. You keep to yourself as you wander down the stalls picking up the random things you can justify purchasing – soap for the laundry, more ground caf, some produce. You don’t realize until you’re nearly back to the ship how little you talked. It surprises you.

Thought you were a mute.

Why does that annoy you?

“Not a mute,” you say to yourself as you key in the door’s code. When you deposit your haul on the table, you hum to yourself, if only to remind yourself that you can.

"Mute. 'Oh I'm the big scary Mandalorian with my secret pretty face and I never thought to start a conversation with the woman who fixes my piece of shit ship'." You begin to put the goods away. "'I don't appreciate good button paint jobs, stock the kitchen with shit caf, and snore LOUDER THAN A BANTHA.'  " You huff as you close the cabinet before stomping over to the table and grabbing the whiskey by the neck. You're just about to put it away before the thought occurs to you.

You hold the bottle up and bite your lip.

Well, buckethead isn’t here to judge you, and a clean ship is a clean ship.

Fuck. Alright.

Fuck.

You didn’t mean to get this drunk.

You had taken maybe two shots before you began to scrub up the cooking area and for fifteen minutes you thought you had just bought some shitty juice – your Jawaese isn’t great, maybe you misread the label – but now.

Hoo boy.

“You’re good,” you tell yourself. You squeeze the sponge out in the sink and momentarily become amazed just by how much water it can hold. You do it again. And again. “You are sooooo good. You’re just a little drunk and you’re on a ship,” you fall into a sing song rhythm.

Yeah. You’re drunk.

“Yeah, you’re just a little drunk and you’re on a ship, bada bah bah,” you drum on the counter before sashaying over to your little nook to collect the dirty clothes from the shameful dark corner. With more pageantry than is necessary, you swing the door to the washer open and throw the pile in with a flashy swish of your wrist. “you’re doing laundry because you smell like shit, bah dah bah bum” you skip into the corridor and head to the fresher. There’s an extra basket in there that you know is filled with towels, and in this very heady musical moment you’ve decided that you are just the best housekeeper. Gods, he’s lucky to have such a considerate employee.

“You’re doing the launnnnndry,” you sing as you kick the door open. The lights come on and you shimmy over to the basket. “Cause you’re just so connnssiiiidddeeerrrATE! Bah dah bum!” you bap the top of the basket. You haul the whole thing from the fresher and skip to the washer, banging the bottom against the floor in time.

“Uh! Uh! Yeah!” you crouch in front of the washer and begin loading in the towels, trying not to think about which ones are from you and which are from him. You are not going to think of him naked. “They don’t quite smell, but they need a cllleeeeAAAANNNN!” You reach for one last towel.

This is not a towel.

Oh Maker, if this is his underclothes-

Well, you’d just have to leave then, wouldn’t you? It took six weeks to see his face and hear him speak, for fuck’s sake, if this is what you think you’re really rushing down the hill of intimacy.

Feeling brave, you pull the garment up from the pile and glance down.

Oh god it’s brown –

And….not underclothes.

It’s…a tiny robe?

Before you can even begin to worry if this means he has a secret doll collection presented proudly somewhere in his room –

“What happened to the singing?”

-you nearly shit yourself.

“What the fuck!” you kick back from the washer and land hard against the counter.

“Don’t stop on my account.”

It takes you a minute before you put two and two together. Your eyes flick up to the comm box on the wall.

“Are you- have you been – are you listening to me?”

“Are you spending credits on booze?”

You huff and pull yourself up to stand.

“This is a glaring invasion of privacy,” you say, crumpling the small article in your hand.

“Don’t worry. I just turned it on to tell you I’m coming back early. But seems like I caught you in the middle of the show.”

“Ha ha,” you say. “He’s got a face and he tells jokes.”

“I’ll be back after sunset. Don’t dent anything drumming” And with that you hear what you think is the click of the comm turn off.

“Hello?” you call. Nothing.

“Are you still there?” you try again. Silence. Well, now you’re angry. “You asshole. What if! What if I had been…” you reach for the bottle on the counter and begin to unscrew the lid. “…having a private conversation?” you pour a small amount into the glass.

“What if I had been actually singing? I’m a good singer when I try, you know.”

(you’re not).

The comm is quiet.

“I think this merits a serious discussion about boss and employee trust!” you screech up at the box.

Nothing.

Maybe that’s what makes you bold.

“What if,” You put the glass to your mouth. “I had been loudly masturbating, huh? Just really going to town, thinking of your stupid, surprisingly sexy face? ‘Uh! Uh! UH! YEAH! Keep the gloves on!’”

Smiling to yourself, and blushing just a little, you take a sip.

“Would you have drummed just as loud?”