Citywide

by Santino Hassell

  “Just curious.”

  I swam away from the edge, went under the water to kick my way across the pool, and popped up next to her float. She jumped, startled, and I snickered. It turned into a full-on laugh when she sniffed and rubbed her now-damp phone against her bikini top. If it weren’t for Angel, I’d probably be all over her. Then again, I’d said the same about Meredith before she’d hooked up with Tonya, and every other person who’d almost sparked my interest lately. My “that could be interesting” flag would half-heartedly go up, then wilt almost as fast.

  “Because,” she drawled. “It’d be nice to have some company. After the first day, everyone is focused on work-related things.”

  “Yeah, I’m here because of work, but I don’t plan to talk about work.” I swam around her floatie, being careful not to splash her any more. “Are you having any fun?”

  “There’s a pool, free booze and food, and I’m out of that armpit of a sweltering city. So yes.” Dee turned on her side so she could peer down at me. “You’re the first person to ask me, by the way. I think I’ve been dismissed as Kip’s arm candy.”

  I stopped swimming and hung on to the end of her floatie with one arm. “That’s shitty, but you’re probably right. This—” Maybe it wasn’t the best time to go off about the sexism in the firm. “This weirdly doesn’t seem like a venue conducive to getting to know new people? Everyone is cliquing up.”

  At her slow nod, I glanced over my shoulder again but could no longer see Angel through the doors. I’d been so preoccupied with him that I’d barely hung out with anyone else.

  “So, Dee, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  “My name is Diana.” She wiggled her toes and got into a comfortable position again. “And I’m a nurse.”

  “Oh, nice! When I was applying for colleges, I was torn between the nursing program and the legal studies program,” I admitted. “But I had a specific interest in the law.”

  “Why didn’t you go to law school?”

  She asked like it was the most natural thing in the world, and I’d somehow overlooked it. “I didn’t have money for law school. I put myself through undergrad.” I swam backward a little and looked up at the sky, feeling my hair drifting around me. “Besides that, my primary interest at the time was understanding the law. Specifically, my rights.” And Victor’s. I’d been preparing myself for a lifetime of having to fight for him. “I was disappointed about that reality when I was younger, but I’m happy with where I am now. My work matters, and I feel successful on a regular basis.”

  Dee, or Diana, made a satisfied sound. “Good for you, girl.”

  “Thanks.” I pushed through the water again and ran a hand through my hair. “I’m going to head inside and get something to eat. Do you want to come?”

  “I’ll be in soon.”

  “Cool.” I started to backstroke my way to the edge of the pool, but something about her expression threw me off. The way she twisted her mouth and glanced at the patio doors, then back at me. “What was that?” I asked, laughing. She pursed her lips, expression going serious, and my smile faded. “Are you okay?”

  “I am, yes.” Another pause, another glance toward the doors. “And it’s not my business.”

  “What are you talking about?” I followed her gaze, and my eyes fell on Angel. He’d started pacing in the room. Something he only did when agitated. “Does it have to do with me?”

  “It has to do with him.” This hesitation was shorter before she said, all in a rush, “I was on Tinder, and his profile popped up for me. I don’t know what your situation is, or if you guys are open, but—”

  “Wait.” I held up both hands to stop her talking. “You saw Angel on Tinder?”

  Dee stared at me silently, which was all the answer I needed. My body went on autopilot, swimming to the edge of the large pool and dragging me up out of it before my brain caught up with my actions. Water sluiced down my body as I walked quickly across the patio. A large fan blew a surprisingly cool breeze that should have sent a chill through me, but I didn’t feel anything but anger.

  I jerked the door open and slipped inside, startling Angel into fumbling with his phone. The guilty way he shoved it into his pocket spoke volumes. As did the way his fair skin flushed red.

  “You couldn’t wait one day?” I pointed at him, and was hit with déjà vu. Wasn’t this how all of this had started? Me yelling at him while half-dressed? Him looking at me in confusion like he had no idea what my deal was? I was so fucking sick of the pattern. The way he gave me that ‘Who me?’ look. “You were on Tinder. Just now.”

  His brows crashed down, eyes narrowing. “How the fuck do you know?”

  “Because Dee was on, and she told me!”

  Angel inhaled through his nose, but deep breathing exercises weren’t keeping him from reddening further. “Look—”

  “Why couldn’t you wait one more day?”

  “What difference does it make?” The incredulity on his face was killing me. “Mira, nena, we just said last night that this is over starting tomorrow. It was my idea, I know that, but—”

  “So why couldn’t you give me one more fucking day?” My voice was too loud, too shrill, too goddamn angry. And there was no way it had gone unheard by anyone in the vicinity, but I couldn’t stop the rage that was contorting me into a version of myself that I hated. The one who let people know they’d gotten under her skin. Judging by his slack-jawed expression of surprise, he knew all right. “You think I have no feelings because I’ve never been in a relationship?”

  “What?” Angel shook his head quickly. “No, of course not.”

  “Then why couldn’t you wait?”

  “Because I didn’t think it would matter! It’s not like I’m going to meet a new girlfriend—” He stumbled over the words at my flinch. “I mean, my . . . whoever I’m looking for.” Angel cringed harder. “Fuck. Stephanie. I wasn’t seriously looking for a girl in Lake George, okay? I was just . . . preparing myself.”

  “To find your new girlfriend,” I repeated bitterly. “I guess that’s on tomorrow’s agenda. Maybe the bus ride.”

  He lifted his hands and buried them in his hair, closing his eyes and taking another deep breath. It made me want to shout at him, because I hated this act. Like he’d done nothing wrong, and he was dealing with some irrational, out of control person. Or maybe that was just how I felt? How the hell was it possible to tell anymore?

  “I told you I loved you, and you respond by . . .” I looked down at his pocket as if I’d be able to see his phone. Or his Tinder profile. “By immediately looking for someone else.”

  “I responded by trying to do the only thing I can think of to save myself from pulling way back from you,” Angel said roughly. “Because if I don’t move on, I’ll end up staying away from you, and I fucking know it. I’ll put up a wall between us because it will be too hard to see you.”

  My stomach sank, so I crossed my arms over it as if that would help the sick feeling. It didn’t, but the anger seeped from my body and dripped onto the floor like the water sliding down my skin. I was suddenly very aware of how ridiculous I looked. How fucking stupid I was for charging in here and demanding anything of him after I’d once again asked him to do something against his own best interest—coming here and pretending to be my lover. My fiancé.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, looking away from him. “It’s none of my business. I have no right to be jealous. Or angry.” Angel made a sound low in his voice and took a step toward me, but I held up my hands quickly. “Please don’t. Just let me be sorry. Let me feel like an asshole.”

  “But you’re not an asshole.” He maintained his distance for a moment longer before taking two steps closer and pulling my wet body against his dry clothes. My back straightened, and I wanted to pull away, but instead I tilted my forehead against his chest with a sigh. “Mamita, if you’d been out there flirting with some dude so you could hurry up and move on, I’d have cracked his skull open on the side
of the pool. For a hot second I thought you knew I was on Tinder because you were on it, and I got instantly pissed. How fucked up is that?”

  A hysterical laugh burst out of my mouth, but it borderline sounded like a sob. Bringing my hands up, I clenched my fingers in his shirt and squeezed my eyes shut. “Why are we so bad at everything?”

  Angel kissed my forehead. “We’re bad at trying not to be in love with each other. That’s it.”

  He was right. He was so fucking right. The truth of it cracked the dam inside of me, and tears welled up in my eyes, spilling onto his shirt. I sucked in deep breaths, trying to control myself, but the tighter he held me . . . the harder it was for me to hold myself together.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here,” he said softly in my ear. “We can get a taxi to the nearest car rental, and go home.”

  “God, that sounds so good.” I pulled away, gazing up at him miserably. “But it would look really—”

  “I’ll kill off a relative. My tio Ivan.”

  Another wet laugh escaped me. “You’d kill Ivan for me?”

  “I’d do anything for you.”

  Forget Ivan, he was killing me, my resolve, and all of my rationale as to why this would never work for me. Why promises I’d made to myself as a kid still mattered today in the face of someone I’d never replace. Someone I never wanted to replace. Someone I didn’t want to lose.

  I bit down on my lower lip, and he kissed my forehead again.

  “We’re leaving. Ivan’s toast.”

  He was trying to make me crack another smile, but I was all smiled out. Instead, I nodded wearily and let him leave the room to make our excuses while I dripped all over the floor.

  We got stuck in traffic almost instantly. As much as I told myself I didn’t believe in signs, it sometimes felt like I was presented with one example after another that they existed for real. Case in point, us leaving the lodge so we could get out of the unfortunate position we’d put ourselves in, just to get trapped on I-87 in a complete standstill.

  Angel drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, slouched in the driver’s seat, trying hard not to look annoyed by the situation. He occasionally sighed or sucked his teeth before muttering under his breath too low to be heard over the warble of the radio, but he kept his irritation to himself. Maybe because he’d wanted this ride back to be low-key, or maybe because he knew aggressive drivers put me on edge. Driving in a car with Raymond was an adventure between one explosion of rage and the next.

  After twenty minutes of not moving an inch, I unclipped my seat belt and extended my legs so my feet rested on the dashboard. Angel glanced over, eyes skimming my legs before returning to the road.

  “You’re still allowed to look, you know.”

  His mouth quirked. “Yeah?”

  I shrugged, going for nonchalant. “I’m going to keep admiring the goods.”

  “‘The goods,’” he repeated with a laugh. “Which goods are those?”

  “Hmm.” Smiling slightly, I rolled my head to the side so I could give him a long exaggerated once-over. “The shoulders for one. And your ass. I love a guy with a bubble butt.”

  “You like a guy who doesn’t mind having his bubble butt pegged.”

  My smile widened. “Damn right. I love that sound you make when I play with your prostate.”

  Angel scoffed, but heat was already rising up his neck. “I barely make any sounds.”

  “Lies. You moan really loud, then try to hide it so it comes out like a growl.” At the sight of his flush turning a deeper shade of red, I lowered my voice and mimicked the sound. “Mmm . . . Ugh. Oh fuck, St—” Angel reached over to cover my mouth, but I dodged him, laughing. “Don’t be embarrassed. It’s hot.”

  “Yeah, but I don’t really want to think about fucking while I’m trapped in this tiny vehicle.” He made a grumpy face and shifted in the seat. “Me being horny is a waste of energy when I can’t do anything about it.”

  On a usual day, I would have zoomed to discussing all the things we could be doing if we weren’t in a car trapped around hundreds of other cars, but now my enthusiasm dimmed. I slumped against the seat, legs still stretched in front of me, and toyed with the frayed hem of my jean cutoffs. After a beat of us sitting in silence, he shot me a worried look.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing!” My voice came out too loud and bright. Cringing, I dialed it back. “Everything’s fine. I’m fine.”

  Angel continued to observe me from under the brim of his cap. “Don’t be weird.”

  “I’m not being weird.” It was a complete lie, and judging by the way he kept giving me the same dull stare, he knew it. “Fine. I’m trying to act normal.”

  “Nothing about you trying to sound super upbeat is normal, babe.” He poked my side, smiling when I inched away quickly.

  “Don’t even try, León. I’ll kick your ass right here.”

  He pretended to poke me again and laughed outright when I nearly threw myself against the side of the car to escape his fingers. “So ticklish. Remember on our senior trip when you snuck into my and Chris’s cabin?”

  I rolled my eyes. Our senior trip had been notable primarily because Raymond had been banned from all field trips due to one fight too many, and Tonya had not gone to any of them in solidarity. The senior trip had been me, Chris, and Angel getting into shenanigans at a weird dude ranch. And me ducking my other school friends to hang out with them the entire time.

  “Yes. You got drunk on that shit Crystal snuck in and made the mistake of tickling me.”

  “Yeah, you kneed me in the balls, and Chris nearly pissed himself laughing.”

  “I told you not to tickle me,” I said, smirking. “But you were so dramatic and pathetic—”

  “Dramatic? That shit hurt!”

  “I offered to kiss it better,” I reminded him, grinning. “And then you nearly pissed yourself. Chris was so ready to watch me blow you.”

  “Yeah, because Chris couldn’t get anyone to blow him,” Angel grumbled, as if the memory still annoyed him.

  “No. He was just a baby smut muffin who didn’t realize he was poly as fuck even back then.”

  Angel made a low sound in the back of his throat that was half laugh, half incredulous grunt. “You know, it’s really weird how I can look back on all of this minor shit that happened when we were kids, and see signs that were always there and that I never noticed. Chris and Ray didn’t change, they just became more confidant in who they are. And stopped being afraid of what they wanted.”

  “What specifically do you mean?”

  “Everything that’s happened with our friends in the past couple of years.” Angel shook his head slowly, squinted at the traffic, then shifted the car into park. He arched his back. “Chris being queer and poly, but also Raymond. I was all shocked when I realized he was bi, but thinking back . . . it was pretty obvious. I’d catch him looking at guys sometimes, but he was so . . . Ray-like that I never thought twice.”

  “‘Ray-like.’” I snorted. “Meaning, he was like a prettier version of my tough-guy brother, and tough guys don’t like dick?”

  Angel rolled his eyes. “I know it’s stupid, but I was a teenager. Teenagers are stupid.”

  “Especially teenage boys.”

  “Especially teenage boys,” he agreed. “I spent so much time wishing and worrying and fantasizing as a kid that I let a lot of experiences pass me by. But it’s easier to think of what we could have done in retrospect, right?”

  The words hit close to home, so I only nodded.

  Right.

  I watched him twist and stretch and roll his shoulders until the car filled with the nerve-racking sound of everything popping. I knew he was probably sore and uncomfortable from being cramped in the tiny car we’d rented, and I itched to rub his neck and shoulders. Before this trip, I would have without a hesitation. Even when we were in our “off again” stages, we didn’t hesitate to casually touch each other. He wasn’t wrong for not being sure
of how we were supposed to act around each other. I played it cool like I had this all figured out, but I didn’t have one clue who we were if we weren’t the Stephanie and Angel who’d carried not-so-secret torches for each other for years.

  It didn’t seem possible to go back to being just friends when we hadn’t been just friends since we’d met. He’d said it was easy to see things more clearly in retrospect, and in retrospect, I now realized I’d always been infatuated with him. Since that first day when he’d walked in wearing a Nas T-shirt, my eyes had locked on him with laser focus.

  Not only had I been charmed by him, I’d wanted him to notice me. To see me. Later, I’d loved that he’d had a crush on me without ever confessing it in some stupid text message or passed note like all the other boys in school. I’d loved that he’d been kind and sweet to me without expecting anything in return. It was partially why I’d kept us in that place—never acknowledging his crush or my own developing feelings. I hadn’t wanted to spoil it by making us like all the other couples who inevitably crumbled to dust, and I hadn’t wanted to lose his unconditional sweetness.

  Now, as I nibbled my lower lip and gazed into the hazy distance, I realized this was why I’d felt so threatened by Crystal. All she’d done was want him. Want him, tell him she wanted him, and they’d wound up together. That simple. I’d seethed and hated her for it, thinking she should have somehow known he was off-limits because of my weird thing about him, but in reality . . . I’d just resented her for doing something I’d not allowed myself to do.

  And it was going to happen again in adulthood. Me wanting him, holding myself back, and . . . losing him to someone else. And maybe this time, as adults, there would be no second chances.

  My eyes slid shut, and I took a shaky breath.

  “You okay?”

  I inhaled again, slow and deep, and wrapped my arms across my stomach. Angel touched my cheek, those callused fingers rubbing gently against my cheekbone.

  “Hey. If you need some air or something, we can—”

  “I want us to try,” I blurted.

  Angel’s hand stilled, but he said nothing. I covered it with my own and opened my eyes, trying to convey calm while shuddering from the storm waging inside me. There was a push and pull of what I wanted versus what I thought I should want, and in the middle of it all was the part of my heart that had always been reserved just for him.