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He’s been staring at them for long enough now, sitting sad and alone in the palm of his hand, that the three quarters he fished out of his pocket have gone warm from his body heat alone.
This was a bad idea, an indulgent one, stupid, he should know better by now.
He curls his fingers around them in a fist and slams his knuckles against the top of the laundry machine in front of him. The metallic thump is not nearly as satisfying as he hoped it would be. The hollow, thin metal doesn’t even hurt the way he wants it to.
It’s just a reminder that this is the instinct in his bones, the violence.
He turns and slides down to the floor, his back against the unyielding machine and his tailbone on the faux-tile of the laundromat floor. It doesn't push back, hard and cold, like real tile, just a room temperature give against him.
He tilts his head up to the fluorescents, humming over him like a cluster of flies over roadkill.
He closes his eyes against them and wonders if he could sleep here anyway. Wonders how long he could get away with before being caught. Before he got arrested for loitering, fresh from juvie. If he’d had enough money for a load, that would give him plausible deniability, a reason to take a nap in such a public place, but he doesn’t even have that.
The skin-warmed ridges of the quarters dig into his palm as his fist convulses around them once more.
He hasn’t slept, spent the night on the move, and his brain is slow with it, fuzzy, unable to grasp any solid ideas for his next move. He doubts he would even be able to sleep yet, even if he had somewhere to do it, his heart still beating too fast and erratic with prolonged panic.
He prepares himself to stand, doesn’t know where he’ll go, only that he has to keep moving forward. Breathe and keep moving. The best defense.
The same thud, hollow and metallic, rings out right above his head and he jumps, already caught, and looks up into the same face that haunts his nightmares, twisted in fear then gone slack and often bloody.
Miguel Diaz regards him coolly, eyes narrowed and cast down to him as he moves to empty the laundry hamper into the machine.
Those eyes are flat and hard, cautious and ready, but not cold. Robby’s not even sure that’s possible.
That is the thing that scares Robby, about Diaz. The thing that when he pushed back against it, didn’t give or even break but instead pushed Miguel right over.
Robby watches him methodically sort his laundry out beside him, does not break the stilted silence, and glances around the laundromat. It is completely empty but for them, none of the other machines are going, and Diaz chose this one, right next to him.
Fighting positions.
Even without watching him, Robby is all too aware of the repetitive motion. It’s like sensing exactly how Sam is moving at his back, like knowing who is going to pounce out from the circle at the call of a number and strike.
He waits for a tell.
Robby is already on the defensive, and this is familiar. He breathes a little easier, loosens his shoulders. Ready.
Wait for him to come to you, to strike first.
And Miguel does.
“You want to put your stuff in with mine?”
Robby blinks up at him, uncomprehending.
Miguel glances pointedly at Robby’s open backpack. His own little pathetic attempt at a runaway rucksack: packed in a panic months ago and held for him in a little plastic tray for safekeeping until now. “Doesn’t look like you have a full load there.”
Robby follows his gaze. He’s right.
He doesn’t know the counterstrike for this, if he should be ducking away or blocking, where to hit vulnerable flesh without doing any unnecessary damage.
“Sure,” he says, drawing out the syllable as though stalling for time. “Thanks.”
Miguel shrugs, his eyes still so unreadable.
Robby stands, springing up easy with one palm to the ground, still watching for any sudden movement out of the corner of his eye as he fills up the gap of space that Miguel left him.
Miguel moves with him, mirroring his movements, filling up a second washer, and Robby, before he can think better of it, holds out his fist with his pathetic three quarters in it, without facing Miguel.
Cautiously, Miguel holds out his hand, palm up and Robby drops the quarters, warm and sweaty from his grasp.
“Thanks,” Miguel says, slow and drawn out as well, and Robby isn’t sure how to read that, so he shrugs as Miguel starts the load and retreats to the bank of plastic seats against the floor- to-ceiling window looking out on the gray strip mall parking lot awash with pale yellow morning, shoving his hands in his pockets, his spine stiff.
He sits in the one closest to the wall, his back in a corner, eyes on every exit.
He tilts his head back against the cool glass, not yet hot under the weak morning sun, his tight shoulders shifting against the crumbling back of the chair. The plastic is ancient, decaying in the sun and now an ugly, unhealthy yellow that maybe used to be white. A sharp, jagged part of it jabs into his thigh.
He doesn’t mean to fall asleep, especially when Miguel sits a few seats away, reading something with a cover full of over-emphasized muscles and snarling teeth and what looks like a dragon. The pages look soft and well-loved between Miguel’s fingers. Something guitar heavy and unrecognizable blares through his headphones. His brows are furrowed and his lips twitching, foot tapping.
He doesn’t mean to, but his beating heart gives out and slows, and his eyes slide closed.
“Come on.” Miguel’s voice, and his warm, dry hand shaking Robby’s shoulder, wakes Robby with a jolt of panic in his gut, every joint in his body going rigid. “They’re dry, help me fold.”
Robby’s neck twinges sharply when he turns his head too far to the right and he’s still a little too groggy from cut-short sleep to say no.
His shoulder itches where Miguel shook it. He rolls it, back and forth, checking range of motion as he walks back over to the row of machines, watching the shift of muscles under Miguel’s shirt as he moves. They remain rhythmic and slow, no shifting of weight, no telegraphed shot as he pulls up alongside him.
The clothes are warm against his hands, and he resists the urge to shove his forearms in all the way to his elbows and revel in it for a moment, and instead begins to work.
He’s not good at this. Was never taught any of the tricks of it, and he moves too slow, trying to get it as neat as he can, out of sync with Miguel’s fluid, practiced moves, but, maybe unconsciously, Miguel seems to slow down to meet him, elbow to elbow.
They’re maybe halfway through the pile before their elbows bump and they shy away from the contact, gentle, not even close to hurting, but jarring enough to set them back a beat.
They lose the rhythm after that. Robby’s stomach is cold with a disappointment he can’t place.
He has set aside his own clothes in a small, ragged stack off to the side—all he owns in the world now—and he carefully places them back in the backpack as Miguel hefts his, stack by stack into neat rows back into the two hampers, one atop the washing machine and one on the floor in front of it.
He watches the way Miguel tenses as he bends down to set each one into the hamper that sits on the floor, back muscles bunching and his hips dropping, his position low and stable as though bracing for a hit each time.
He slings his bag over his shoulder and looks away.
“Hey,” Miguel says and Robby looks back to see him tugging the hamper off the top of the washing machine, pulling the weight of it onto his hips. “Get the other one for me?”
Robby does, bending and lifting it with his legs, and follows Miguel to the door.
He has a sudden, vivid image of Miguel throwing out his back, like this, crumpling to the floor and leaving Robby, once again standing guiltily over his broken body.
Miguel backs against the door, pushes it open with deliberate steps backward and holds it open for him.
There isn’t really room for both of them to pass through and Robby almost stumbles getting out of his space too fast as soon as he’s past.
They make it to the car, unbroken, and Miguel holds the hamper up between his body and the car as he fishes the keys out of his pocket, popping the trunk open to slide the hampers in, side by side.
Unburdened, Miguel stretches, facing away from Robby and Robby tries not to look at the strip of flesh the movement bares. Scars and mottled, freshly healed skin.
He stares intently at the car instead without seeing, his stomach cold and roiling.
“It’s my mom’s car,” Miguel says defensively, as though Robby had even noticed what kind of car he was about to hurl against. “I didn’t pick it.”
Robby says nothing, lets him believe he was judging the make of it.
Miguel is still talking, words rushing out like a hole’s been poked in him. “The uh, laundry room at our complex flooded, so Mom sent me to do it today, since there’s no school and she’s going to be working a double. It’s actually kind of nice. She’s been hovering, which I don’t blame her for, but who knew that even just being trusted to leave the house to do errands would feel this good.”
Robby’s mouth quirks. He thinks he may have only seen Miguel on the offensive before. His defense could use some work. It is charming though.
“I didn’t say anything,” Robby says, letting the tiny smile bleed into his tone and Miguel almost laughs, a weird, strangled sound that gets caught in his throat.
Miguel stares thoughtfully at him and the soles of Robby's shoes scrape against the asphalt as he moves into a more solid stance, trying not to fidget under the weight of it. “Hey Keene,” he says after a moment. “You hungry?”
Robby thinks of his quarters, sweaty and warm and carelessly dropped into Diaz’s expectant palm. “Not exactly.”
Miguel rolls his eyes. “I’ll buy. Why?” he asks, and there’s the fight Robby’s used to hearing from Diaz, makes something hot and instinctive rush through him, makes him want to take whatever challenge comes in that tone. “You got anywhere better to be?”
And that's the thing, isn’t it? He really doesn’t.
The diner lacks the almost oppressive silence of the laundromat, with the ambient hum of conversation and the clink of metal on ceramic. Every once in a while something crashes or a child shrieks.
It doesn’t make the silence growing between them, like a spider spinning a web, any less tense.
The spider-silk delicate silence is better than conversation, which, as Robby cycles through potential topics, is feeling more and more like a minefield.
The only things they have in common are liable to blow in their faces, and that was true even before—before.
He’s already ordered. He’s essentially trapped here. What was he thinking?
He shifts on the creaking vinyl and his knee knocks against Miguel’s.
Robby flinches away from the contact, overcorrects and hits the faux-wood paneling of the wall, with a deafening, damning thunk.
Miguel does not flinch.
Doesn’t move an inch.
His head is down, his shoulders stiff. He doesn’t even look like he’s breathing.
Robby takes a deep breath, tries to center himself, even though his stomach is still heavy and full of knots, lungs tight. “What were you reading?” he asks, his voice like a phantom limb, both attached to him and not. “In the laundromat.”
Miguel’s eyebrows do something that Robby’s pretty sure he’s only seen on a puppy’s forehead. “Um,” he replies, gracefully. “It’s kinda convoluted, this is the fifth in the series.”
He says it almost apologetically, like he feels bad he couldn’t catch the weak pass Robby lobbed his way.
Thank God, Robby thinks, happy to just listen, even if it is the most inane thing he’s ever heard.
He shrugs in response.
As it turns out, it is convoluted, and Robby tries to follow it, he really does, but Miguel keeps backtracking, forgetting what seemed like irrelevant details at the time, but are apparently tantamount to understanding the next plot twist. He jumps a little in his seat each time he realizes with a soft oh, like he's been shocked.
Robby finds himself relaxing into it; despite the choppiness of the storytelling, there is a real cadence to it. He rests his elbows on the table in front of him, letting some of the weight he’s been holding up onto it.
He sees Miguel mirror him, slouching into his seat, lowering his eye line to Robby’s and his knees bumping into Robby’s space under the table.
Before either of them have the chance to flinch away this time, the waitress returns with their plates, and Robby jerks back upright as she sets his plate down in front of him.
“Careful, sweetie,” she tells Miguel as she puts his down. “This one’s really hot.”
He flashes her a quick smile, full of straight, white teeth, bright as the sun, and thanks her.
They lull back into silence.
This one is less terrifying to break, looser than the filament that had barely held them at the same table before.
“Sorry to talk your ear off,” Miguel says. Robby looks up. There’s ketchup at the corner of his mouth, but he’s speaking again before Robby can tell him, his hand halfway raised to his own lips. “There are only so many people that are willing to listen to that kind of thing.”
And I’m a captive audience, Robby thinks, wryly, letting his hand drop to the table.
He says: “It’s good. I’m always looking for recommendations. I recently got really into reading. Haven’t read this much since I was a kid.”
“Me too,” Miguel says, vibrant, slapping his chest enthusiastically and leaning forward across the table.
Robby’s smile freezes at the same increment as Miguel’s as it registers to the both of them, why exactly they’d both had that kind of time on their hands recently.
Simultaneously, they look back down at their plates and say nothing.
They weren’t careful enough about where they stepped and now their foot is on the pressure plate and they need to figure out how to defuse this mine before it blows.
“You have ketchup on your face,” Robby blurts out.
It’s clumsy but it works, as Miguel, gratefully scrambles for a napkin. “Where?”
Robby taps the corner of his own mouth to demonstrate and Miguel swipes the napkin across it, leaving a smear. He grins, fake red spread across that blinding smile and Robby’s heart goes flip-flop in his chest.
Huh.
“Yeah,” he says. “You got it.”
Robby feels a bit like a kid, sitting in the passenger seat with the windows cracked.
Like he wasn’t allowed inside, like when his mom would ask him to wait nicely here and kiss his forehead as she walked in brisk, small steps to the liquor store.
Diaz had not kissed his forehead.
There really is no similarity, but the sense memory (the sticky vinyl against his sweaty skin, the smell of tar gone hot and tacky in the midday sun, the car, still and silent under him, full of stale air and muffled sounds of traffic) is enough to make his stomach tighten anyway.
Movement catches his eye as the pharmacy door pushes open and Miguel makes a beeline for the car, tiny white paper bag clutched in his hand, crumpling and creased between his fingers.
Robby remains silent as Miguel slides into the driver’s seat, twisting in a way that makes Robby’s heart lurch at the way it contorts his spine, to toss the paper bag into the back seat.
He turns forward again and starts the engine. His face is impassive and he is watching Robby out of the corner of his eye, like he’s waiting.
Robby opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Has nothing to say.
Let him come to you.
“I don’t really take them that much anymore,” Miguel says after a beat, as he pulls out of the parking spot. “I pick them up so that my mom doesn’t have to worry that I’m in pain. I don’t need them.”
Robby still has no response the this defensive, tough guy talk delivered in a babble. Something like a bubble, empty and fragile, expands in his throat instead of words, so he shrugs, his fingers falling to the fraying cuff of his shirtsleeve.
Miguel chews his lip and flicks his eyes to the road as he drives.
“These things hurt my gums,” Robby says, looking down at the vibrant packaging, testing the elevation-induced turgidity of the bag between his fingers. “Spiky.”
Miguel reaches over the cart and nabs them from between his fingers. “They’re not for you.” The set of his jaw implies he’s about to open the bag of Takis right there in the aisle, eat them all to make a point, but he just tosses them in the cart instead. The impact of it is enough to send the shampoo onto its side. Miguel's mouth tilts at a dissatisfied angle.
Robby turns back forward, hand on the front of the shopping cart to keep it grounded as Miguel leans his forearms across the handle, providing a counterweight.
They move forward like this, Robby leading the way as Miguel frowns down at his mother’s list, concentrating.
“Shit,” he says. “We need to go back for the bread.”
“Seriously?” Robby says, guiding the prow of the cart around the corner at the end of the aisle and backtracking to the bakery section. “That was the first place we hit.”
“My mom has a complicated system,” Miguel says, raising his eyes momentarily from the list to meet Robby’s. “Not my fault I haven’t figured it out yet.”
Robby bites his tongue on the comment he has ready about Diaz as a student—pressure plate—and instead pulls the cart along behind him sedately.
“That one,” Miguel says, pointing at the bottom shelf.
Robby bends easily, reaching for it and holding up for Miguel’s quick nod of approval before placing it in the cart.
“Alright,” Miguel calls. “Veggie time.”
Between the two of them, pushing and pulling, they perform an awkward six point turn in the too narrow aisle and head to the other end of the grocery store.
“These hurt your teeth too?” Miguel asks and Robby looks up from where he’s squinting at a label to figure out what this brown thing is supposed to be—it sure as hell doesn’t look like a vegetable. It feels like a rock, are they selling rocks?—to Miguel, holding up a bag of carrots and wearing a shit eating grin that has no right to be as boyish as it is.
“If you can’t tell the difference between carrots and chips, then I can’t help you,” Robby says.
Miguel puts a hand to his chest. “Hey, I eat my vegetables.”
They’re definitely towing the line here. The careless, casual jabs could very easily turn nasty if they aren’t careful to pull their punches. “And it got you big and strong, huh.”
“Bigger than you,” Miguel shoots back, drawing himself up to his full height.
They both pull back. Too close.
“I think we’ve got everything,” Miguel says, quickly, eyes flicking over the list one more time, already pushing the cart, softly and insistently into Robby’s gut. “Let’s head out.”
Robby gives against the pressure and moves.
At the front of the cart, he’s the one to start unloading onto the conveyor belt, placing everything that Miguel hands him from where he can’t reach, and turning back to find another waiting for him.
When the line moves, Miguel pushes the cart gently into his gut again, herding him back.
There isn’t quite enough space in the trunk for the groceries and the laundry, so Robby ends up bending down to place the last bags in the footwell of the backseat, trying to pack them in tight so they don’t flop over and spill across the floor.
Miguel’s presence looms over him, and when he straightens he catches the tail end of a sweep of the arm and Miguel is already rounding the car to the driver’s side.
Robby shakes his shoulders loose, breathes deep and opens the door.
The moment his seatbelt clicks, Miguel is holding the open bag of Takis out to him in offering, his mouth already stuffed and his eyebrows expectant.
Robby takes one, already mourning his soon to be cut up gums, and Miguel grins around his full mouth and starts the car.
His tongue probing the tiny lacerations, trying to clear them of the hot-chip powder that’s only making them worse, he wonders if that’s what this is, some sort of protracted torture.
He reaches his hand into the bag, swaying on center console between them, and takes a second.
This isn’t torture. This is a murder plot. He is going to die today.
This is worse than waiting in the car, worse that watching Miguel defend his prescription like it was something he felt like he needed to do.
He passes something to be stuck in the fridge to Miguel, who pauses barely a moment to find a home for it as Robby turns back to the bags. It’s like pistons, the way they move, back and forth. Or: more like those pendulums that live on the desks of movie CEOs and science museum gift shops, the ones that clack together endlessly, transferring energy with each impact, and yet come back every time.
All of this under the burning gaze of Rosa Diaz.
The door had opened on her implacable face, her eyes sweeping over him and quite obviously finding him wanting.
He flashed his dimples, a reflex, something that’s gotten him out of worse binds, but she looked so unimpressed that Miguel, shouldering past him with an armload of groceries actually snorted.
Now, his ears feel hot under her scrutiny.
“Hey,” Miguel tells him as they finish up, tying the plastic bags into knots to be stored for later, and bumps his shoulder as they work. “You should stay for dinner.”
Panic rolls through him. “I can’t,” he says, quick, automatic. This is the line. He can’t justify this. Can’t look the entire Diaz family in the eye for long enough.
“You have anywhere better to be?” Miguel asks simply, and it isn’t a challenge this time, just a question. This is his out, if he has somewhere to go now’s the time, but that’s just the thing:
He doesn’t.
Dinner is, as predicted, an achingly quiet affair, with Miguel the only one really speaking, otherwise, the clink of cutlery on ceramic is the only sound.
He keeps his gaze lowered, the back of his neck burning.
He leaps up the moment they’re done, mumbling something about doing the dishes as the stands.
It’s an excuse, something to do with his hands, a way to get away from the glue trap of a dinner table, but it’s also the polite thing to do, even if he can’t charm his way into Rosa Diaz’s good graces. He may not have been raised right, but he’s not feral.
Soft voices drift from the table, he misses most of it, doesn’t try to listen in.
Now that the elephant in the room has left, it can be talked about, apparently.
He slows his motions, for no discernable reason other than it feels familiar, feels good to get lost in the deliberate muscle memory.
He doesn’t sense that Miguel’s there until he takes the rinsed plate from his hands, and Robby’s entire body goes rigid, uncomfortable with the idea that he let his guard down that much, but Miguel’s grip on the plate is good enough that it doesn’t drop and shatter when he pulls back violently. He just takes it and dries it, setting it aside to be put away.
Wordlessly, they shift into a rhythm, turning to face each other then back forward, each with their own task. Miguel lets him set the pace, his eyebrows at a curious cant, but doesn’t ask.
His fingers are wrinkled and the front of his shirt is wet by the end, but he feels better, like he’s emptied his mind of the tense dinner.
And having a full stomach is doing wonders for his mood.
He picks at the front of his shirt where the wet spot clings uncomfortably as Miguel hefts the last stack of dishes to their home in the cabinetry.
He lingers by the sink as Miguel goes over to where his grandmother sits, leaning over the back of the couch to speak to her. It was a temporary grace, but he still finds himself unwilling to leave it.
Miguel laughs and drops a kiss on the top of her head before he straightens and makes his way back over to where Robby still stands.
“Come on, we’re heading out,” he says with a knowing grin.
Robby nods stiffly and glances back over to the couch.
He squares his shoulders, puts on the sweetest smile he can manage and marches over.
She’s already proven she sees right through the dimples, but he’ll take any advantage he can get.
“Thank you for having me,” he manages, as she looks up at him. “It was delicious.”
After a breathless moment, where Robby almost screws the consequences and leaves, she reaches up to pat his cheek and he has a premonition of her shifting her grip and snapping his neck, but she doesn’t, just settles back against the couch, and waves him off with an exasperated gust of air.
He’ll take it.
The orange sun is kissing the horizon out the windshield, still bright even as it descends through the city haze, so Robby tilts his head backwards against the headrest to avoid looking at it.
Some nonsense eighties ballad emanates from the speakers and the tension in Robby’s neck goes slack at the careless sweetness of the words and the familiarity of it.
His house used to be full of music.
“It’s my mom’s presets,” Miguel explains, unprompted. The tone doesn’t come across as defensive, somehow. “I can change it if you want.”
Robby shrugs. He almost says he likes it, or says something even stupider like it reminds me of my mom’s kitchen, but he dozes off instead.
He comes to in the hospital parking lot and his heart jumps into his throat, fully awake in seconds.
The passenger side door is open and Miguel is a pace back from it, halfway into a fighting stance and his eyes wide enough to see the whites.
Robby forces himself to relax, to look away from where Miguel prepares to fight him.
He breathes and when he looks back, Miguel is upright again, but Robby can see his hands shaking.
He moves slow as he climbs out of the car, projecting each movement in a way he never would in a fight. “What are we doing here?”
Miguel is only watching him out of the corner of his eye and his shoulders are still tense. “My mom works the late shift tonight, so I’m dropping off the car for her to take home.”
Robby nods, running his hands through his hair on an exhale.
“I think I need you to do something for me,” Miguel blurts out, still avoiding eye contact, watching as he scuffs the toe of his shoe against the asphalt instead, like he needs to focus to do it.
Robby raises an eyebrow. “You think?”
That gets Miguel to look at him, lip twisted in something between a scowl and a pout. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”
Robby raises his hands in surrender and waits.
Miguel takes a breath and now he’s not looking at the hospital next to them, lit up from within and without like a beacon. “I need you to take the keys to the desk and tell them to hold onto it for my mom. That’s what we usually do. It’s just today, I…” He sets his jaw and then rubs it as though he pulled something in doing so. “Today I need you to do it.”
Robby holds out his hand and Miguel gratefully drops the keys into them and watches as Robby makes his way to the hospital. Robby feels the muscles in his face ease into a smile and he slides into the persona that’s never done a bad thing in his life, the one you can trust with anything, just as the automatic doors slide open for him.
“Hi, I’m a family friend and I'm here to drop these off for Carmen Diaz,” he says, key ring held over his forefinger casually.
The keys get taken and he gets waved off before he can even explain, with a quick “great, I’ll pop these in her box.”
And then he’s back outside.
Easy as that.
Miguel’s sitting against the hood of the car as he approaches. There’s a defeated slump to his shoulders. He straightens them as he catches sight of Robby, but his eyes are slower to return to normal, wide and wretched.
“What now?” Robby asks, settling on the hood next to him. The metal is still warm as the engine clicks its way cool underneath him and Miguel is just as warm next to him.
Miguel begins walking, tilts his head to the bus stop at the corner in silent answer.
Robby pushes his way off the hood and follows.
“We’re not going back to your place?” Robby asks, eyes on the flickering sign at the front of the bus that announces the next stop.
“I mean,” Miguel begins, all faux-innocence. “I could leave you alone with Yaya instead, if you think you could handle her, but I’ve got plans.”
“Funny,” Robby says, settling further into the seat. Miguel has slowly gotten looser the further they’ve gotten from the hospital, unwound. Loose enough that their shoulders occasionally knock together as the bus sways dangerously in its lane. “So where are we going?”
He tries not to think about the backpack left carelessly at the Diaz residence. The one currently holding his whole world. He was wrong: this isn’t torture, or a murder plot; it’s a hostage situation.
“Do you have a good fake?” Miguel asks him out of nowhere and bile rises sudden and hot and quick in Robby’s throat. This is the other shoe dropping, finally. This is why he’s here and this is going to be what gets him arrested again.
Miguel must see it on his face or feel it in their arms pressed together, because he quickly continues. “Sorry, that was a stupid question. We don’t need one.”
Being apologized to is weird enough that he laughs, quick and short.
Miguel is looking at him, mouth caught halfway between talking and smiling, slightly open and uneven. “We don’t need it,” he repeats. “We’re going to a party and I wanted to do the polite thing.”
“It’s a high schooler’s rager,” Robby points out. “Not a dinner party.”
“Some of us have manners,” Miguel says, settling back to face the front of the bus again.
“I saw you talk with your mouth full at least twice today,” Robby shoots back easily.
Robby feels Miguel’s shoulders shake with silent laughter, and when they go still, the last of the tension is gone from them.
Robby doesn’t look over, but his heart still does the funny flip.
Huh.
They’re still shoulder to shoulder when they walk into the party, so Robby can feel more than see how the wall of heat and sweat and sound hits Miguel after walking several blocks in the cool evening air.
Robby slows alongside him, takes it at his pace, tries to cover the sudden balk for him.
Miguel recovers fast, straightening and taking the onslaught of attention suddenly geared his way as a stream of people Robby doesn’t recognize clap Miguel on the shoulder, clasp his hand, pull him in for a one-armed hug.
Robby doesn’t recognize them, but they clearly recognize him, giving him cautious, curious sidelong glances, and they falter every time, like the shock of seeing him throws them off their rhythm.
Miguel seems to stand taller each time he notices them stumble, keeps Robby in his space as they navigate the party, and the penny that's been hanging in the air all day finally drops.
He's wearing this—friendship? Are they friends?—like an armor. Or: more like the bright, fuck-off colors of a poison tree frog. Like a warning and a challenge all at once.
Say something, it demands, every time they move in each other’s orbit, Robby shifting to accommodate Miguel next to him against the wall or Miguel slapping Robby’s shoulder when he passes him a drink that Robby will not touch. I dare you to ask.
(No one does.)
And it’s not like Robby doesn’t get the impulse. Doesn’t want the world—and, specifically, his dad, maybe—to look at him and go ‘what the fuck? How could you choose that? Why would you want that?’ and leave them wrong footed and questioning. Off balance while he remains unshakeable.
Before, he would have leaned into it, striking when they faltered, turning the tide in his favor. Would want to get his delinquent hands all over the golden boy, to say… he doesn’t know what he’d be trying to say, but to definitely get a reaction or something-anything. Get them to start it, so that all he has to do is defend himself, like he was taught.
But that was then. This is now. Things are different and Robby wants to be different too.
He doesn’t like those colors on himself, anyway. Makes him feel too much like his father’s son. On Miguel, however, they work.
Maybe it should bother him that Miguel is using him, but this is far from the worst way someone has used him and it’s reassuring to know, to have a reason now. God. Shelving that one for later.
So he plays his part. Bares his teeth in something like a smile and comes to heel when Miguel gives him a look.
“Come on,” Miguel says and pulls him along by his sleeve, guiding him to a ring of people, and through and into the cleared space between.
The ring looks downright gladiatorial, and Robby’s sure Miguel sees it too, he must, the familiar wall of cheering, goading faces.
The only sign he does, however, is a slight convulsion of his fingers on Robby's sleeve before letting go. He is otherwise, loose and easy, his eyebrows quirked in an invitation, the corner of his mouth ticking up and his eyes going sly.
And like Robby’s gonna turn that down.
Beer pong is not karate, but there’s something to be said about the overall hand eye coordination that’s been trained into them.
He sinks the cup at the very tip on his first go and Miguel’s hand burns when he grips his shoulder.
The burn evens out against the furious heat of the eyes on him.
He can feel the sway of Miguel lining up his shot beside him without looking, can picture the trajectory of his arm as he sees the ball arc into the cup.
Miguel snags each drink they lose off the table and downs it before Robby has a chance to, without asking, and Robby wonders if this is a power move or if he's noticed how carefully Robby tries not to react to any alcohol placed in front of him.
But Robby's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. It’s been a long time since he’s had someone alongside him like this, even in the context of a stupid game. It feels good.
It also feels good to win.
Miguel’s smile, when he turns to face him, is all teeth and Robby matches it. Caught up in the moment, he maybe pushes too far, too close, because Miguel pulls back, has the advantage of reach over Robby, and ducks past him fluidly, murmuring something about getting a drink as he goes.
Robby’s heart sinks and he slinks away, blindly groping for some blank space in the crowd to curl up and lick his wounds.
Someone’s shoulder bumps his and he feels his lips pull back in something that no longer resembles a smile, turns away before he snaps.
He really hasn’t changed. Out of juvie for, how long? And he’s already so desperate for anyone’s approval, he latched onto Diaz of all people.
His fingers scrabble over the cool glass of a sliding door and grasp onto the handle, pulling it open gratefully.
The balmy night air fills his lungs and he shuts the door behind him, cutting off the noise of the party inside, leaving the world feeling strangely muffled.
So maybe he was also using Miguel as a shield, he thinks and shakes himself, smooths down his hackles. Something to put between the beaten dog and the innocent public.
That’s fine, right? Whatever this is, it’s equivalent. They can probably never balance the scales of all the wrong they’ve done each other, but maybe they can balance this. Not so much mutually assured destruction as a series of favors.
Is that what friendship is? A pile of small debts you can never settle? No way for them to ever just leave, or for you to repay them?
Not like Robby’s an expert.
He stumbles his way to a pool chair, and sinks into it, swinging his legs up and leaning back to stare at the sky.
It’s just dark, too much light here to see anything but black.
As he breathes, the muffled feeling in his head and the ringing in his ears subsides and he slowly gains awareness of his surroundings. The slight sound of traffic, unavoidable, in the distance, the way the dry air is wicking the sweat away from his skin, leaving him shivering even though the night is warm, the hard bands of plastic across his back, where his knees bend. The couple on the chair next to him, making out.
His ears go hot and he doesn’t look at them, tries not to listen as the chair squeaks with movement and they murmur to each other.
In his periphery, he sees one of them stand and walk back inside, legs wobbly like a newborn deer, while the other sinks back against the chair with a dreamy sigh.
“Hey, it’s Robby right?”
He nearly jumps out of his skin.
This is the first time tonight anyone has acknowledged him directly, as anything other than an accessory.
So it takes him a minute to find his voice, as his head snaps to the side. She’s matching his position, on her back, hands clasped over her sternum and head turned to face him. She’s smiling, which is also new.
“Yeah,” he says and winces, wracks his brain for her name. They ran in similar circles, before, but he’s not sure he ever actually talked to her. “Moon?”
Her nose scrunches up in delight. “Yeah, I thought it was you. Love the haircut by the way. You had a bit of a River Phoenix thing going before but this is very young DiCaprio.”
He blinks at her, at a loss. “Thanks.” He runs his hand through his hair, self-conscious, wondering when the last time he washed it was.
She sits up, swings her legs over the side so that she’s facing him, crossing her ankles and tucking them up under the seat. “You know Josh?”
“Uh,” he says, smooth and intelligent. “Who?”
“This is his party, but it’s cool if you don’t,” she says with an easy wave of her hand. “I bet a lot of people here don’t, word got out fast. But hey, the more the merrier, yeah?”
“Right,” he says, looking a little to her left. He’s got nothing. He never expected anyone to talk to him like he was normal, like he was anything other than a threat or a bruise, ever again, but she seems utterly unafraid.
She’s not a fighter, he remembers. Remembers her getting between the rest of them anyway, using nothing but her very presence to try and deescalate, and he blinks a bit, reassessing.
She knows what he did, and here she is, sitting across from him at the poolside, alone and at ease.
“I come bearing gifts.”
Robby’s head snaps up to the girl with the fawn legs—sturdier now—and the cloud of hair who has returned, carrying two plastic cups. She smiles down at Moon, who tilts her face up imploringly, and gives the requested kiss easily as she passes one of the cups to her. As she straightens, she flicks her eyes, wary but open, over to Robby. “Hi.”
He waves a bit. “Hey.”
“Piper, baby,” Moon says, dreamy. “This is Robby. Robby, this is Piper. My girlfriend.”
The way she says it, like it’s new and exciting and yet still comfortable in her mouth, makes his chest ache. She doesn’t wear it as something abrasive, a challenge or a fight to be picked, just an earnest part of her, whole and balanced and unafraid. He wants it so bad it feels like his heart is actually yanked out of his chest for a moment before it snaps back, as though magnetized. “Good to meet you,” he manages.
Piper settles alongside Moon on the seat, and something lights up in Moon's eyes, illuminated as though a lightbulb had gone off above her head, and Robby shies away from it, like it’s a spotlight on something he doesn’t want seen just yet.
“I only got the two drinks,” Piper says, then graciously: “Do you want one?”
“Oh, I’m good,” he says.
“If you’re sure?”
He nods, though he does wish he had something to do with his hands. They feel empty and restless like this.
It must show, because Moon reaches out into the space between them unprompted and takes them, holding them still. Her hands are soft. “It’s okay,” she says and Robby opens his mouth to respond when the movement of the door opening over her shoulder draws his eye.
His mouth snaps shut. It’s Miguel, wound up tight like a loaded spring trap. Robby watches him close the door and sink against it, his shoulders shaking.
His weight shifts, ready for action, though he doesn’t know what he'd do, and Miguel looks up to meet his eyes. His gaze is wide and wretched, but his shoulders go even and he stands up straight, making his way over.
“There you are,” he says, as though he’d been looking for Robby, and Moon, thrilled, drops Robby’s hands to jump up and throw her arms around Miguel.
Miguel wraps one arm around her, meeting Robby’s eyes over her shoulder. Still too wide.
“Oh, you have to meet Piper,” she says, letting him go and reaching for Piper’s hand, her smile and eyes going all soft again.
Miguel smiles at her, and it’s real, and Robby’s heart does the thing. He’s almost used to it by now.
Miguel sits down across from Piper, right at Robby’s shoulder so Robby can feel all the shaking tension he's barely holding in.
Before he can think better of it he leans in and says: “Don’t you need to get home before your mom does? Should we head out soon?” softly, just for Diaz but loud enough for Moon and Piper to hear. Plausible deniability.
The tension does not ease but Miguel’s eyes are thankful when he nods. “Yeah,” he says, more of an exhale than a word. “Yeah, we should.”
“Oh!” Moon says. “I can drive you. I haven’t been drinking, and we’re about ready to ditch too.”
Piper’s smile is half indulgence half mischief. “Sure are.”
Moon takes her hand and rises. “I have three seats in the back, so we’re going to grab someone else and meet you out front?”
She squeezes Robby’s hand once more with her free one and as they leave, Miguel turns to him with a pointedly raised eyebrow at this.
“Stop that,” Robby says. “It’s not like that. She has a girlfriend.”
He doesn’t say something stupid like: not like that stopped you.
Miguel opens his mouth, rethinks that, and shuts it again, looking away.
So they hit another pressure plate. They aren’t really getting any better at navigating this, are they?
“Let’s go around the side,” Miguel suggests. “I really don’t want to go back in there.”
The fence is high, but easy enough to swing over once he’s climbed on top of the trashcan. At the apex he looks back, heel braced on the other side and knee crooked over the top, and offers his hand to Miguel.
Miguel cocks his head, the line of his mouth gone arrogant, waves him off and, eyes scanning for his own line up and over, smoothly steps, launches and catches the top. His mad scramble over is far less graceful, but Robby’s still a little breathless from the easy display anyway.
He drops to the ground, the jolt of impact fizzing up his shins and to his knees and back down to the balls of his feet like a shaken up soda bottle.
Moon and Piper are waiting for them by the door, a boy that Robby doesn’t know draped between them, an arm over each of their shoulders.
Moon smiles brightly at them, doesn’t mention the fact that they came from the side of the house rather than through the front, and nods to the red crossover parked a ways down the block.
Wordlessly, Miguel and Robby both move to take the kid off their hands, dead weight slung between them instead as they make their way to the car.
They manage to muscle him into the back seat, Robby stepping up and in, knee braced on the leather seat, to sit him up against the other door, taking a quick moment to check his responsiveness. The kid grumbles sleepily and Robby gets an elbow headed toward his nose for his trouble.
Robby easily ducks the drunken swipe and clicks the kid’s seatbelt in place before turning to find his own.
Miguel clambers in after him, closing the door and Moon’s big eyes meet all of theirs in the rearview mirror.
“Everybody buckled?”
At the chorus of agreements she starts up the car and drives.
“Who is this kid?” Robby asks.
“Oh I don’t know him,” Moon says. “But I figure it’s my, like, civic duty, with a limited number of designated drivers out there, to take the drunkest person I can find safely home. Speaking of, Robby? Would you get me his phone? See if we can find his address?”
Robby shifts, rifling through the guy’s pockets and finding an iPhone. The guy snores at him loudly.
He presses the guy’s thumb to the home button and the screen unlocks. Easy as that.
“Come on,” Robby scoffs, opening maps and to see if his home address is saved there. “Isn’t anyone paranoid anymore?”
Next to him, Miguel snorts and says: “You sound like your dad” leaning into his space.
Miguel’s breath ghosts across his ear, and his nose bumps against Robby’s cheek as Moon hits a pot hole.
“Got it,” Robby says, passing the phone, open on the directions to the home address, up front to Piper to navigate. He quickly tucks his shaking hands under his thighs before they betray him.
“Great work, team,” Moon says, playfully.
“Hey, Moon,” Miguel says, and pushes himself up between the front seats, hand pushing off Robby’s knee like a gymnast off a spring board, sending a jarring impact through his whole body, the solid core of him barreling into Robby’s space, sucking the air out of him like the rush of a passing bullet train. Robby feels the fizzing impact of it run through him and come to rest in his palms. “You had chemistry last year, right? Do you still have any notes? I'm still playing catch-up and it’s kicking my ass.”
“Yeah, of course,” she says. “I can bring that on Monday?”
“Right here,” Piper announces, forehead crumpled up in concentration, her face lit up by the screen held inches from her nose.
Moon takes the turn a little too quick to make it in time and Miguel’s hand slips off Robby’s knee, his chin goes for the seat and Robby moves, sliding his arm in front of Miguel’s chest, bracing for it.
The way it lands is this: with the hollow of Miguel’s throat too close to Robby’s elbow and his neck held too rigid.
Miguel looks up at him with those wide-white eyes, but his tone is flippant when he says: “Okay, Mom.”
Robby retracts his arm, his heart pounding. Stupid. He’s a hazard to just be around.
“This is it up ahead,” Piper says and they both look forward up the driveway to the imposing house above.
“Okay,” Miguel says, his throat bobbing on a swallow. “How are we doing this?”
They decide on a classic ding dong ditch, with the kid once more slung between Miguel and Robby, as they stumble up to the front door, and Moon keeps the getaway car running.
Robby posts the guy up against the doorframe, and he seems at least sober enough to stay upright by himself. Not taking any chances, Robby hovers, ready to catch him, up until the moment Miguel presses the doorbell.
At which point they both run, hell for leather, back to the car, the balls of his feet hitting the concrete drive with the kind of force he’ll feel in his bones tomorrow.
Robby’s blood is pounding in his ears and Miguel woops next to him, for the sheer thrill of running.
Miguel gets there first and opens the door for him. “Get in, get in.”
“I’m goin’,” Robby insists, placing a hand on the seat and hopping up easily.
Miguel slides in with a little grin, and Moon is peeling away before the door is even fully closed.
Robby’s eyes sting, and his cheeks hurt and it takes him a moment to realize he’s grinning, too. His blood sings with the adrenaline rush of a fight and his skin bears none of the consequences.
“Babe,” Piper says, reaching out a hand and toying with a lock of Moon’s hair in a way that sends an itchy shiver of longing throughout Robby’s entire body. “I want chicken nuggets.”
Moon takes her hand and kisses the back of it before dropping it. “Then we’ll get you some chicken nuggets.”
Piper was kind enough, and definitely not swayed by Moon’s protruding lower lip or Miguel’s big, doe eyed looks, to share, so with the warm night air ruffling his hair through the open window, a full stomach and Miguel’s head dropping dangerously close to his shoulder, Robby feels calm. A kind of ‘live in the moment’ type calm. The type of calm he’s been lost without, too busy being torn between horror at his past and fear of the future.
Miguel's head never actually makes it to Robby’s shoulder, popping back upright at the last moment each time and Robby is almost enjoying the slow roll his stomach performs in time with it. Exciting rather than sickening.
He almost forgets that it will end until the car comes to a gentle halt and Moon says: “This is you, Miguel. Robby? Where to next?”
Robby goes rigid. He still has nowhere to go, and he spent all day on bullshit instead of finding a place to sleep for the night and for what? Some scrap of attention from the kid whose life he ruined? His hand gropes for the backpack he knows isn’t there, heartrate ratcheting up.
“He’s with me,” Miguel says sleepily, pawing at the door handle.
Robby’s head snaps to Miguel at that, so fast he thinks he hears something in him break, and Miguel smiles, slow and wide. “Why, Keene? You got somewhere better to be?”
Robby’s lips fumble between and scowl and a helpless smile.
Robby pauses at the open driver’s side window, stalling, words stuck in his throat.
Moon smiles up at him. “Get a good night’s sleep slugger,” she says, all playful energy, and punches his gut gently with poorly formed fist. If it had been a real hit, with force behind it, she would have done more damage to herself.
He rubs where she hit him, though he barely felt it, and says: “Thank you.” He doesn't say for what, because he can’t come up with a normal way to tell her that she was honest and kind and unafraid and that he is wildly jealous of how she holds herself.
She looks like she gets it, though. “No sweat,” she says and pats his side before facing forward and driving off into the night.
Miguel’s key screeches in the lock and they both wince as it echoes between the tight knit buildings of the complex.
“Oh I am so going to hear about this tomorrow,” Miguel hisses, trying to ease the door open cautiously. It, thankfully, goes quietly and they step inside, feet as light as they can make them.
The floor doesn’t creak as they pad to Miguel’s room, and the ambient light from outside is just enough to avoid any obstacles. The apartment looks different in the dark; without the warmth or movement it’s a little too similar to his dad’s, its gray, empty mirror across the way.
Robby feels his hackles rise and bites his lip, digging his canine in a little too hard.
“I know,” Miguel is saying once the door is closed, as though the thin, hollow barrier is enough to block out their voices if anyone were actually listening. “It’s cruel of me to do this to her. She’s just worried, and it’s not like I blame her, but it’s like.” Miguel shrugs, tugs at the corner of the blanket strewn across his bed carelessly.
The room is full of that, careless dabs of personality that Robby hasn’t seen in a while. He hasn’t had the kind of time to build up a personality around him. He thinks of the military precision of the beds in juvie, all starch white sheets, hospital-tucked over stained mattresses, and he thinks of the too-polished veneer of the Larussos’ place, so shiny and clean he felt like he slipped right off of it like butter on a non-stick pan.
“She barely even let me use the car today. Just did it so that I could move the laundry. It’s a pain to do it on the bus. God if she knew—” He bites the tail end of his words so fast his teeth click like the snap of a slammed door, terrifying and unsatisfying.
—that you were here. With me. All day.
To his credit, Miguel doesn’t pretend he was going to say anything else.
She’s right, Robby wants to say, suddenly feeling too big for his skin, like something is itching and burning under his breastbone. “She’s a good mom,” he says aloud.
Miguel’s smile is soft in the shadows, rounded out and flickering, like an optical illusion. “The best.”
“You’re a good son,” Robby says. He’s not sure if that meant to have a bite to it or not, but it comes out soft and flickering instead, like that optical illusion. Different each time you look at it.
Miguel freezes and remains silent, like he knows he’s not supposed to respond to that. Like he knows what Robby was actually trying to say, but doesn’t want to bite back for whatever reason. He unfreezes, like a scratched up disc, out of sync and jerky, he continues tugging at the blanket, like he can make it more presentable moments before it gets slept in.
“I wasn’t exactly expecting company,” he says apologetically.
Robby shrugs. “You take it. I’ll sleep on the floor. I’ve had worse.”
Miguel’s jaw drops, his expression horrified. “No,” he gasps, and it comes out so earnest Robby’s heart slams once-twice hard against his ribs. “You’re the guest, my mom would kill me if she ever found out.”
“No,” Robby says, slow, after a pause like if he can get that heart back under control before he speaks it won’t leap out of his throat. He even goes so far as to put the flat of his palm on this diaphragm, to physically hold it back. “I think she would kill me if she even knew I was here.”
This seems to fluster him, and Miguel is shifting again, running a hand through his hair, leaving it just a little to the left of disheveled.
It’s still weird, being on the receiving end of this, the softer gentler Diaz he’s only seen from afar ‘til now. Robby’s gotten used to the polished, severe champion. Has seen him combative and yes, charming too, but this is the first time he’s really felt charmed.
It’s really like: there’s so much other shit between them, now, besides Sam, and it’s not like he ever really blamed her anyway, forgave her easy as anything, but he wants to tell her now that he gets it. He sees the appeal. Can imagine, in the dark and quiet with a gut full of vodka, how easy it would be to get pulled in, like that bright smile has the gravity of the sun.
“Can you take the floor, Diaz?” he says instead and immediately regrets it.
It stops Miguel dead, gone completely still again but for his shaking hands, and Robby wants to drop dead, almost bolts right then and there.
“Stay, Keene,” Miguel says, like he can tell, and shit, Robby must be telegraphing, shifting his weight back, ready to retreat. Or maybe Miguel is just that good. He knows Miguel is just that good. “You got anywhere better to be?” He doesn’t reach out, doesn’t grab Robby, but he may as well have for how that anchors him to the ground.
Robby’s pulse slows and his spine straightens, up and solid. Not running. “I’m taking the floor,” he says. “Don’t fight me on this.”
Flash of white teeth in the dark. “Like I could.”
Robby’s blood turns to ice and he sees Miguel’s eyes go wide, another flash of white in the dark.
“Oh, too soon?” Miguel says, mouth still round from the oh as he continues. “I thought we broke the ice on that, but yeah it felt wrong when I said it.”
“Yeah,” Robby says, crossing his arms across his chest, holding in a shiver. “Yeah. Probably best to keep that sealed up for a while.” He laughs, a panic response. Breathes with it. “But uh. Before we do. I’m uh. Sorry. I’ve been… I’m not… I’m not good, and that’s the worst thing—” Breathe through it. “The worst that I’ve—you know—been. So.”
He got out an apology, half-assed as it was. He’s only ever heard the meaningless ones, the ones followed by empty promises, he doesn’t know how to do this. Just another life skill he was never taught, had to teach himself and learned wrong as a consequence.
Miguel opens his mouth and Robby sees it and cuts him off. “Don’t. Don’t feel like you have to say you forgive me, just because I said sorry, this isn’t an exchange. I needed to say it, you don’t.”
Miguel shuts his mouth but his jaw is familiarly stubborn. Robby kind of wants to touch where it hinges.
“I’m not exactly sure what this was, for you, today,” Robby says, and it’s all spilling out now, no going back. “Like, if parading me around was supposed to tell everyone you’re fine now, strong enough to let me into your space, after—” he shakes his head, sniffs, plays it like the abrupt cut off wasn’t there. Like that was a complete sentence. “Or if like, this is some sort of self-inflicted exposure therapy, or what but. You don’t have to put in the forgiveness.” He pauses. “Unless, you actually think it might make you feel better?”
What looks like a smirk has been growing across Miguel’s face and when Robby’s stopped speaking, just ragged breathing left in the air between them, he says: “Can I talk now?”
Robby’s ears go hot.
The smirk spreads. “Come on, I thought you had the whole mysterious badboy thing on lock. Doesn’t really hold up when you babble.”
“Does it undo everything I just said if I say you’re a bit of an asshole?” Robby says.
Miguel shrugs it off, an easy roll of his shoulders and maybe he’s always been better at cooling his temper than Robby is, despite the opposing philosophies that have been drilled into both of them. Maybe there’s something to be said for nature over nurture. “I’ve been called worse. Look,” Miguel says, collecting himself. “It was shitty of me, to drag you around like that today. But in my defense I kind of figured you deserved it.”
Robby holds his tongue. Waits.
“It’s like,” Miguel starts and then stops, exhales, begins again. “It’s like I’m scared all the time, again. Like it was all for nothing. And, I don’t know, I kind of hoped that if I couldn’t be scared of you then everything else would just. Stop being so…much.”
Robby’s fingers convulse, he doesn’t know what to say. Multiple apologies always rang so untrue.
“I guess,” Miguel continues. “If you don’t want to hear me say I forgive you, which yeah.” Miguel holds out his hands palm down, a placating gesture. “Is definitely too big to think about right now. Then, I guess, thank you?”
Robby blinks. “For what?”
Miguel huffs out half of a laugh, tilting his head up and the light from the window, blinds only half done, falls across his profile in slats of orange. “For letting me? For saying you were sorry?” He turns to fully face Robby and grins and Robby’s heart does that flip-flop again.
Huh, okay. Message fucking received, already.
“Did it work?” he asks. “Did you tame your demons?”
Miguel slouches down onto his side on the bed. A relaxed and exhausted crumple. “I’ll let you know. I don’t think we’re there yet, but we’re definitely less scared of each other now. We’re at the stage where they feel okay sniffing my hand, but would probably still bite me if I move too fast.”
“Okay,” Robby says, settling down as well, looking up at the ceiling where the faint outline of press on stars no longer glow. It’s easier to say when he’s not looking at Miguel so he offers: “If you ever need help with that I’m, you know. Around.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Miguel says from above him, and it sounds like his mouth is turned up when he says it, his voice all open and airy like he can’t quite close his lips over teeth.
Robby breathes in the slight smell of cloves from the living room and the smell of Miguel’s deodorant and tries not to think about where he’ll sleep tomorrow night. Doesn’t think about how he’s here, making promises that he’s not sure he can keep and Miguel just believed him. Took him at his word.
Instead, he indulges in imagining walk of shaming it past his dad tomorrow morning. Unrealistic, of course, he plans on booking it before dawn when Johnny Lawrence is scheduled to be sleeping off the night before, but it’s nice to think about: walking out of Diaz’s front door, saunter and grin like yeah, how does it feel now?
“Motherfucker,” Miguel says suddenly, soft and full of feeling.
“What?” Robby sits up, guilty. “What’s wrong?”
Miguel is on his stomach and blinks at him from where half his face is buried in the pillow. “I forgot to get onions at the store,” he mumbles, distraught.
Robby isn’t sure if he’s supposed to laugh. “Oh,” he says diplomatically. “Want to go get some?”
“Right now?” Miguel asks with a laugh. He shuffles around on his back. “Nah, we’ll go tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow,” Robby says and the we echoes in his chest. “Right.”