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THINGS EXISTING BETWEEN tonight’s Trainman duties and Nino’s DJ set: a 15-minute break and Diego’s face.
The break on its own would have been sufficient and nice.
Nino had been sitting with his band while enjoying their post-set, midnight snack of choice (tonight was chicharon bulaklak and fried garlic rice) when Diego came upon them. Nino had since been booted out of the table to find a seat at the bar, his surprise guest tagging along with him.
“I can’t explain it,” Diego was saying.
Nino took a deep draught of his spiked lemonade. It reminded him of sunsets, grass, and Santana. It kept his cheer up.
“How come when this is the most logical thing you’ve said to me ever?” he said back to the imploring pout on Diego’s face.
Diego inched his folded elbows forward on the sticky bar top. “I adore you and all the joints in your lovely, long body, Nino Torres, I do. But how could it be that the highest ratings I ever got on ‘Not A Sunday Slowdown’ was when you were guesting?”
“It makes total sense,” Nino said with a swell of pride. “It’s work done right. The world being a good, fair place to live in for once.”
“The mind boggles,” Diego insisted, throwing up his hands as if he hadn’t heard a word Nino said.
“Is that it? You came after me in my place of work for that?”
“Well yeah. It’s a big old reason to celebrate with you, my hunky mister comrade in musical arms,” Diego pronounced, face stretching out in a cheerful leer. “Come on, you beautiful giant. Buy me drinks. That bottle of Green Label is priced at extortionate levels. Ooh, get that.”
The corners of Nino’s mouth twitched. Did he find Diego genuinely, un-ironically funny now, or was it because of the unexpected cool news he brought with him? That on the one time Diego had Nino over on his radio show, their odd pairing had pulled in listeners—more than Diego’s usual, more than anything in his entire career history ever—to tune in to four hours of them yammering and bickering and dropping old-timey, dance-y beats.
Nino had never thought about what good radio ratings meant. Never had to, never felt inclined to when he was doing his own version online. He liked the sound of it, an unexpected validation of something he enjoyed doing.
It could also be drummer’s high and the tequila in his lemonade. Trainman’s set was fun as always and he was seeing Santana soon. He was in a stellar mood.
“So. Nino.” Diego slid further forward, eyebrows hitching, voice dropping. Black eyes boring on his. “You wanna do it together?”
“Please rephrase.”
“Come on, be permanent on the show with me. Let’s do this steady.” Diego straightened up, hung onto Nino’s arm and started swinging it like a child crying for ice cream. “We’re some kind of magic, you and I. The kind of magic my producers appreciate like a lot. I might be able to continue making this my living after all with you by my side.” Diego released his characteristic loud cackles. “So you’ll go on the show with me, right? Like together forever? It’s settled. How about you start later?”
“How about boundaries.”
Nino set a warning hand on Diego’s shoulder to keep him down. But he was laughing, because he wasn’t mad. Because people existed in their own way and this was just Diego’s and Nino was beginning to get that. Maybe this was why Kim was right about the two of them getting along (annoyingly so). And also because he’d said the same thing to Santana, about lines and keeping something for yourself, and he was only realizing how he’d dared lecture her on that when he hadn’t been drawing enough boundaries for himself.
The barman tapped Nino’s arm with a message from the floor manager.
“I’m up, Diego, comma, DJ. Talk again about this another day.” Nino drained his glass and patted the guy’s shoulder again. He didn’t want Diego to think this was a dismissal, because it was far from it. “You could put a whisky shot on my tab—just one shot. One. Not the entire bottle. You hear me? Okay, bye.”
“But I’m super duper hyped, man!” Diego hopped up from his seat when Nino did, threatening to trail him like a lonely bunny. “I’m so ready to go on for days and miles, baby.”
Anyone else would hear the words coming out of the guy’s mouth and they would not make sense. Great, I speak Diego now, Nino recognized. He looked back at the beaming face beside him. Beyond that, he took in the packed bar. The throbbing lights and racing bass surrounding everything.
Energy in excess. A vibrating dance floor. A waiting DJ deck, big enough for two. Realizations, some kind of magic, and boundaries.
You say you have ideas, I get nervous.
“Me too, lovely voice of Santana in my head,” Nino muttered only for him to hear, biting down a grin. “Me too.”
“What’s that, buddy?” Diego raised his voice above the pounding EDM. “I’m not proficient in reading lips yet. It’s a hard language to learn but I’m going to get there!”
“Come on. Not that way, Miki might trip you.” Nino took his arm around Diego’s shoulder and led him through gaps in the dancing crowd. “My turn to drop a surprise gig on you. But you’ll be glad to know you won’t be at it alone.”
