He slipped into a chair at an empty table and immediately brought one foot up to rest on the edge of his seat, chin on his knee. Staring up at me, his eyes didn’t hold the pity I’d been expecting. He looked confused. “You know, you won’t be able to do any of the things you want to do if they rescind your DACA status without new legislation.”
I lowered my backpack to the floor, forcing myself not to throw the thing—I couldn’t afford a replacement laptop. He spoke as if I didn’t know what was at stake, as if the reality of my situation didn’t weigh on my mind every fucking day. I gripped the back of the chair next to Derek’s, too agitated to sit. “True. But I don’t control Congress. What I do have control over is whether I end up on ICE’s shit list. I can control how well I do in school. I can apply to law firms. I can get a good paying job.”
“So you don’t want to fight?” Derek’s furrowed brow hardened into a frown.
“I am fighting. I’m working my ass off for my family.”
He shook his head. “No, I mean, out there.” He waved toward the front of the library as if there was a brawl out in the parking lot I was expected to get involved in.
The idea was ludicrous. I let out a dry bark of laughter. “No. I’ll leave that to the bleeding heart hippies. I’ve got money to make.”
Derek’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he pressed his lips together, reached for his bag, and started pulling out his things. I supposed that was the end of that, thank god. Except the weird silence that stretched as we set up didn’t feel right, like I’d somehow offended his sensibilities and he didn’t know how to talk to me anymore. I sat down gingerly as if moving too quickly would relaunch the conversation.
I didn’t even see Derek move before his hand clamped down on my knee. He breathed heavily through his nose. “Can you please stop doing that?”
“Huh?” I glanced at his hand on my knee. Solid. Warm through my threadbare jeans.
“The bouncing. Please. Stop the bouncing.”
The bouncing? What the hell?
He slowly lifted his hand away, and my heel immediately lifted off the floor. It didn’t get two bounces in before Derek slapped his hand down again. Oh. That.
“Sorry. I don’t even know I’m doing it most of the time.” Trying to keep my leg still now was making the rest of my body vibrate with the need to move.
“It’s a pet peeve of mine,” Derek said through a tight grin.
Great. More tension. We’d worked together so well on our first assignment—study buddies as Aless had put it—maybe that had been a fluke and we wouldn’t be able to stand each other now? Suddenly, I felt trapped in my body, unable to move, unable to speak, afraid that if I disturbed the air, I’d piss Derek off even more. Except what the hell had I done wrong, anyway?
“So, this week is the trade tariffs, right?” I was like a kid who had angered Mami and was scared to talk to her.
Derek turned his head toward me, but kept his eyes fixed on some spot on the table. “We did the Dream Act last week.”
“Yeah.” What did that have to do with trade tariffs?
“And you were okay with that?” Derek lifted his eyes to mine, they were filled with a mix of confusion and surprise.
“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
Derek’s gaze shot to the table, and it was only then that I’d realized I’d picked up a pen and was tapping it against my laptop. I dropped it. “Sorry.”
I guessed the quick curl of Derek’s lips was supposed to be some sort of acknowledgement.
“You argued against the Dream Act. Put together succinct reasons for why you and other DACA recipients shouldn’t be allowed to stay in this country. Why would you do that?” The incredulity was so blatantly obvious in his voice, in his furrowed brow, in the way he held himself aloft. But the question was ridiculous to me.
“Because that was the assignment: put together arguments for and against the issue. Professor Mallard said that it didn’t matter what our personal views were. We’re lawyers—we’re supposed to be objective and craft the best argument we can.”
Derek was shaking his head. “No one can be completely objective.”
“But we can try.” Why was he harping on this? I grabbed the pen and unplanted my feet from the floor. Derek’s pet peeve be damned. He shot a quick look at me—my actions hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Objectivity isn’t the highest principle. What about fairness? Compassion? Empathy?” He ticked off each item on his fingers as he went.
“They’re all irrelevant to the exercise.”
“Fine, but what about in real life? You can’t tell me that none of those things are important when the law is being applied to real people in real situations.” He waved his hands around as words flew out of his mouth, and I didn’t know whether to watch his gestures or the way emotions flickered across his face: disbelief, indignation, frustration.
“The law is the law. It’s our job to use it for the benefit of our clients. I’m not against fairness, compassion or empathy, but that’s not what we signed up for.” This was such common sense to me. The fact that Derek was like everyone else, assuming that my DACA status defined me more than my ability to be a good lawyer, made my heart drop to my stomach. At some point, I’d come to hope that he of all people would understand.
But Derek’s jaw hung loose. His hands were frozen in midair. He looked like he’d seen an alien. Except he was staring right at me, which I guess was apropos, since this country did consider me an alien. In that moment, I kind of felt like one.
He snapped his mouth shut and turned away, hands fisted in his lap. With his eyes closed, he took several long deep breaths. He almost looked like he was meditating.
“Are you okay?” I whispered, not sure if I was supposed to sit there and wait for him to come around.
Derek shook his head. “I don’t understand how you can just… disassociate like that.”
It was more the way he said it than what he said, like he was disappointed in me. For a split second before my brain overruled my emotions, it hurt. Then the anger took over.
Who the hell was he that I needed his approval? He didn’t know anything about my life and the things I’d had to do to get to where I was. If he called that disassociating, then yeah, maybe I was a disassociating asshole, but at least I was a successful one.
I pushed away from the table, ignoring the loud scraping sound the chair made against the floor. My hands trembled slightly as I packed up my things. I’d had enough of this type of judgment from Aless at home; I didn’t need it from some guy I’d just met, no matter how cute he was.
“What are you doing?” Derek sounded bewildered.
“I’m leaving.” I barely got the words out from between my clenched jaw.
“What? But we have an assignment to do.” He stood as if trying to decide whether to physically stop me.
“We can do it over email.” I sidestepped him easily, and he made no move to block my way.
“But I’m your ride. How are you supposed to get home?”
“I’ll take the bus.” I stalked out of the library, my heavy backpack on my shoulder and something heavier weighing me down inside.
3
Aless said that Diego’s garage was down this street, but there were a dozen car repair shops lined up one after another. I kept my foot on the brake and slowed at each driveway, trying to find the right one—why couldn’t these places make their signs more prominent?
Aless had friended me on Facebook almost immediately after we’d met outside the library a couple of days ago. Given the fight I’d had with Diego, I wasn’t sure I should accept her friend request. But I’d been rolling our words around in my head for days and with each replay, I’d felt like more and more of an ass. Sending a text apology didn’t feel like it made the cut. So I accepted her request and asked her where he worked; she was a fountain of information.
Spotting José’s Auto Shop, I pulled into the driveway and park
ed. It was late; most of the garages I passed had been closed up for the day. Even this one seemed empty, save for the one door that was still open. Aless had said that Diego was working late.
It was kind of eerie walking up to the single open door. The light was on, but the place seemed deserted, the only sound was my foot falls on the concrete floor. Then something clanged, echoing from the back, all the way through the cavernous space.
“Hello?” I called out.
Silence.
“Diego?” I took a couple of steps forward. “It’s Derek. Lam. From school?” Yeah, of course from school, idiot. How many Derek Lam’s did I think he knew?
Finally, there was some shuffling, another clang like a metal tool had been dropped on top of others, and Diego emerged from behind a car. Hot damn. He wore a white, ribbed tank top smudged with motor grease and dark blue coveralls with the sleeves tied around his waist. He was wiping his hands with a dirty-looking rag as he walked toward me with a slow, confident gait. My imagination went rogue, feeding me images of Diego bending me over a hood of a car, his body hard against mine. Jesus Christ, what was wrong with me? I had stalked the guy to his workplace to apologize to him, not cast him as a fantasy porn star.
Diego stopped several yards away, and his eyes flicked to the open door. “How did you know where I was?”
“Aless told me.” The fact that I could still speak was a miracle, frankly. My mouth was so dry, my tongue felt like it was going to fall out.
Diego’s deep frown and stiffened posture got me speaking again.
“She friended me on Facebook. And I felt bad about what I said at the library. So I wanted to come apologize. In person. Surprise!” I tried for a smile, but it probably made me look even more awkward than I felt.
The tension melted from Diego in measures. “Fuck, Aless. She’d lead ICE right to our doorstep if given the chance.” He stuffed the rag in his pocket, but it hung out halfway—I bit my bottom lip to stifle a groan—did Diego even know he was a walking wet dream?
“So, uh, yeah. I’m sorry.” I did my best to drag my eyes up to his face—I really did. But there was so much to look at: the curve of his biceps, the hairs on his forearms, the way the tank top left absolutely nothing to the imagination.
He widened his stance, crossed his arms over his chest, and tapped his fingers against his elbow. The change in position didn’t help. At. All. It only accentuated his muscles.
“Um, I really am sorry. About, you know, being pushy about, you know.”
His brows shot up at my disaster of an apology.
“Sorry, I think the fumes are getting to me.” I waved my hand in front of my face, as if that were going to do anything. But I really needed to get the image of Diego as hot mechanic out of my mind if I was going to do a half-decent job at this apology. I turned to step outside, hoping he’d follow me. With a several breaths of fresh air, I willed my body to cooperate for the few minutes I needed to do this properly.
When I glanced over my shoulder, Diego was standing a couple of feet away, arms still crossed, eyeing me like I was crazy.
“So, um, sorry about going off on you the other day.” I looked off to the side, down at the ground—anywhere but directly at Diego. “You have the right to do what you feel will protect your family. Since the election, my friends and I have gotten a lot more active with this type of stuff. But none of us have as much at risk, so we have the privilege to be loud without having to think too much about the consequences.”
From my peripheral vision, I caught Diego nodding, jaw working back and forth. His cheeks were shadowed with a day’s worth of whiskers. I wanted to run my palm across the bristles. I rubbed my hand against my thigh, and I’m pretty sure his gaze dropped down to watch. I don’t know why I thought that was hot.
“I’m sorry too, for bailing on you.”
That had been a little douchey, especially since he hadn’t emailed about what we were going to do with the assignment. I guess neither one of us was completely blameless.
“So, uh, how much time until your DACA status runs out?” The question had been nagging me ever since I found out Diego was a DACA recipient.
His gaze burrowed into me, dark and heavy, and seconds ticked past before he spoke. “I renewed it right before they announced they were ending the program, so I’ve got some time.”
The relief was unexpected, like a weight I didn’t realize I’d been carrying had been suddenly lifted off my chest. I took a deep breath. He had time.
“Aless is a citizen?”
“Yeah, she was born here shortly after we arrived.”
“And your mom, she’s really undocumented?”
He nodded, gaze dropping to the ground. “Yeah, not much we can do about that.”
“In Jane the Virgin, Alba got her green card after she witnessed a murder.” Where the hell did that thought come from? Diego looked at me like I was crazy, and honestly, I probably was.
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” I nodded back toward the garage. “You always work so late?”
He shifted on his feet, uncrossing his arms to tuck his thumbs into his pockets. “Yeah, José lets me work late because of school.” He sounded more relaxed now that we’d moved beyond his family’s legal status. He even gave me a little smile, dimples making an appearance.
I shifted on my feet, as something warm sparked in my tummy. “Have you had dinner? Want to grab something to eat?”
He seemed to hesitate, working his jaw a moment before speaking. “I don’t really eat out.”
Right. Old car. Old laptop. Working odd hours after a full day at school. I could put the pieces together. “I can cook! How about you come over to my place? Besides, we kind of still have to do the trade tariffs assignment.”
Diego narrowed his eyes at me, then scraped his gaze down my body, leaving not one inch unexamined. I shivered and told myself it was because of the stray gust of wind that happened to blow past at the same time. From the way Diego’s lips curled into an unholy smile—dimples on full display—he knew the real reason.
“Sure.” Did his voice sound lower? No, that had to be my imagination. “Let me close up here, and I’ll follow you home.”
* * *
Derek lived near the UCLA campus in a sweet apartment complex, one of those with an exercise room and a swimming pool and everything. A far cry from the dated house we rented over in East LA, held together by Mami’s sheer will and my ability to learn how to fix things from a young age.
Derek was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs after I parked in a visitors’ spot. With his bottom lip caught between his teeth, he tracked my every step as I approached, as if he was planning on having me for dinner rather than the food he’d promised to cook. I was still in my work clothes, covered in grease and smelling like it too—I wasn’t sure what my appeal was, but the heat in his eyes made me smile.
“Are we going to stand here all night?” I didn’t stop until I got close enough to smell the scent of the ocean on him.
He blinked at me, brown eyes wide, lips parted. It would have been so easy to lean over and kiss him like I’d imagined doing a dozen times since we’d met. But despite the urge, I was still pissed at him for all that shit about getting politically involved. Besides, I was hungry.
Derek squeezed his eyes shut, took a step back, and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Uh, this way.”
I followed him to a second-story apartment—a one bedroom with a balcony overlooking the pool. The living room held a trendy sectional in front of a giant TV and a couple of PS4 controllers sitting on the coffee table. In one corner was his desk with his MacBook Pro set up on a stand and an external keyboard and mouse. None of it was really that fancy, I supposed—solidly upper middle class. But compared to the hand-me-down furniture we used and my old, barely functioning laptop, Derek’s apartment was like the lap of luxury.
“You want something to drink?” Derek had his head stuck in his fridge. “I’ve got b
eer.”
That surprised me for some reason. Derek hadn’t struck me as a drinker, at least not one who kept his fridge stocked with beer. “Sure.”
“Corona okay?”
“Yeah.” I set my backpack down behind the couch as Derek pulled out two bottles and a lime—dude was not playing around. He cut up the lime and stuck a slice into the mouth of a bottle before handing it to me.
“Cheers.”
“Salud.”
We clinked glasses and made eye contact as we drank. The liquid was cool sliding down my throat as Derek’s eyes heated me up. It almost made me want to forego dinner altogether and see if we’d be as compatible as study buddies as Aless had assumed—goddamn Aless.
Derek cleared his throat, turned away, and the moment slipped past us. “Is a stir-fry okay?” he asked as he started pulling tools from drawers and cabinets around the kitchen. It was fascinating to watch him move with practiced efficiency, closing doors with a kick of his heel, drawers with a bump of his hip.
It was only after he paused, arms full of fresh veggies from the fridge and a question in his eyes, that I realized I’d been too busy devouring him with my eyes to answer. “Oh, yeah, stir-fry is great. I’ll eat anything.”
The smile he gave me was the epitome of adorable—a little squinty, chin tucked in. This night was obviously heading toward the bedroom. Despite the mutual flirting between us, that hadn’t been the reason I’d come over, but now that I was here, it felt almost inevitable. I was completely onboard with the prospect, but I was not in a presentable state for when we got there.
“Can I use your shower?”
Derek’s gaze raked over me again for what must have been the millionth time that night. My skin was almost raw with the desire he either couldn’t or didn’t want to conceal. Something inside me vibrated in resonance with it. If he didn’t answer me soon, I’d just as well skip the shower and hit the sheets.
Rogue Nights (The Rogue Series Book 6) Page 17