Chapter Fourteen

I don’t bother to lock my door. Not that it matters since Mami doesn’t come after me. The silence hurts the most—that she has nothing left to say to me. The house is eerily quiet. The same as it’s been for months, but this time Mami is just down the hall.

Listening to music helps. I’m too emotionally fragile to focus on homework, so I bury my face in my pillows and listen to “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” enough times that I can easily sing along with the lyrics before I move onto the digital version of Joaquin’s “Driving with Ive” mix CD (the only music we listen to in the car that’s from this decade) and lose myself in the memories of a thousand car rides.

A flash of light snaps me out of my daze, so bright I wince. The ray is gone as quickly as it appeared, only to reappear seconds later. And then disappear just as quickly. And then reappear. On repeat, four times.

I dig myself out of my blanket cocoon and walk on my knees over to the window beside the edge of my bed. Across the darkness of our backyards, Joaquin waves from his bedroom window, flashlight in hand.

“What’re you doing?” I mouth. He makes a gesture I don’t understand before sighing and showing me his phone, pointing to the screen.

Vaguely getting the message, I reach for my phone, waving it for him to see. Within seconds, I have a new text.

sorry thought you might be grounded

wasn’t sure if you had your phone

I snuggle back under the covers, letting myself get comfortable before replying.

nope, still a free (wo)man

For now, at least.

why did you think I was grounded?

Three dots pop up more times than I can count. I’m prepared to call him out on it when a response finally comes through.

macaw

Oh shit. It’s been at least two years since Joaquin pulled the macaw card—a secret code word we came up with when we were ten because we thought it sounded funny. Macaw means you drop everything, no questions asked. We each get one a year—a rule we came up with to stop ourselves from abusing our respective macaw privileges. I already used mine on one of the many nights I came home to discover an empty house, a note on the kitchen table from Mami telling me not to wait up, and her room a disaster of abandoned date-night outfit options.

I type out you okay? before realizing that’s against the macaw rules. You don’t have to have a reason for using macaw, and that’s half the beauty of it. If he wants to tell me, he will.

all right, what’s the plan?

His reply comes almost instantly.

meet me outside in 10

Double shit. I’m not officially grounded, but I might as well be. Either way, sneaking out definitely won’t help whatever Mami and I have going on between us right now. But…you don’t say no to a macaw text. It’s against the Joaquin and Ivelisse Code of Ethics. Freshman year, Joaquin left midway through one of his baseball games to come meet me after I used my macaw on figuring out a way to keep Mami from finding out that I’d flunked my first ever midterm.

We always show up. Always.

Wiping off my cheeks and running a comb through my hair, I grab my purse and an emergency bag of candy—you never know what you’ll need when a macaw text comes along—and crack open my window as delicately as I can. I don’t make a habit of sneaking out—mostly because I hardly have anywhere to sneak out to—but the window is my safest bet. Mami is hopefully asleep, and I just have to make sure I don’t accidentally step on one of the neighborhood raccoons.

As promised, Joaquin is waiting for me in his driveway, leaning against the hood of his car. He’s dressed up, by his standards, wearing a pair of black jeans and an open flannel as opposed to sweats and a muscle tee. Suddenly I feel underdressed for the occasion in my knock-off Lululemon tights and purple hoodie.

“So, I was thinking—”

I press a finger to his lips, hushing Joaquin and pointing back at my place. The windows are still dark. If Mami heard us, she’s not coming to get me…yet.

Joaquin nods in understanding, opening the passenger side door for me.

“As I was saying,” he says once we’re in the insulated safety of Herbert, Janet Jackson playing on Joaquin’s go-to ’90s radio station. “Slushie time? We still haven’t tried out that place in Hamilton.”

“Your wish is my command…or, well, your command since you’re the one driving…but yes. Slushie time.” Another rule about the macaw card—the card puller gets final say. Even if I wasn’t in the mood for slushies, I wouldn’t have the right to tell him. Tonight is about Joaquin and whatever emotional turmoil he’s going through.

Huh. Two breakdowns in two different houses on the same night? I’ll have to ask Anna if there’s a planet in retrograde or something.

We’re quiet for the short drive, Joaquin insisting we blast the CD of my favorite songs even though this is his crisis outing. The bright red date on the dashboard clock glares at me. One week until Joaquin attempts to prompose to Tessa for the fourth time and I still haven’t thought of a way to stop it, other than loosening a screw on the Ferris wheel and causing mass hysteria. I rest my head on the window, away from the clock. My eyes close, and I try not to let the thought of Tessa taking my spot in the passenger seat consume me.


A knock on the window jolts me back into consciousness.

“C’mon, sleepyhead.” Joaquin opens the door carefully, making sure I’m not going to slump out of my seat. He turns around once I’m out of the car, offering his back for a ride.

“I can walk on my own, Quin.”

“Don’t care. This is my macaw day, and I demand that you let me give you a piggyback ride.”

I let out a sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh. “Whatever floats your boat, weirdo.”

Joaquin snaps his fingers, urging me to hustle. “Let’s go, I’m not getting any younger.”

I roll my eyes and pick up the pace. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, waiting until I’m sure my grip is solid before leaping the rest of the way. His hands catch me halfway, hoisting me up by the backs of my thighs.

“Satisfied?” I whisper once we’re settled, my chest flush to his back, our cheeks pressed together.

“Extremely,” he replies, and I can feel his lips tug into a smile.

Being the generous, and very strange, soul he is, Joaquin does me the honor of carrying me up to the to-go counter of Blastoff Burger. Once the cashier returns to their post after handing off an order, I tap Joaquin to put me down.

“Nope, you go ahead and order from here,” he insists, tightening his grip on my legs.

My cheeks flare at the thought of human interaction while wrapped around my best friend like a spider monkey. “What? Why?”

He grins mischievously. “Because I think it’s funny.”

I go to jam the heel of my foot into his side, but he readjusts me before I can, tossing me into the air like a sack of flour and catching me just as easily.

“Hi!” Joaquin greets the cashier while I’m disoriented. “My friend here is ready to order.” He pinches the side of my leg with a smirk so cocky it should be illegal.

I sigh. “Can we get two large slushies, one blue raspberry and one lime? And mozzarella sticks.”

Joaquin gawks at my having the audacity to order his two least favorite slushie flavors, and least favorite side. “You dare disrespect me like this? On my macaw day?”

I ignore him and hand over my debit card. “Not my fault you’re so picky.”

“Blue raspberry isn’t even a real flavor. Something can’t taste blue.”

I brush off his protests with a smirk of my own. “Guess you should’ve ordered, then.”

Instead of admitting defeat like a mature eighteen-year-old would, he lets go of my legs and drops me like a hot potato.

Like a fish gasping for air, I cling to Joaquin for dear life. He stumbles back just as my legs hit the ground, our limbs tangling together as we struggle to get our footing. We never do, both of us tripping over ourselves until we collapse on top of each other.

On top of each other. As in me on top of him. Horizontally.

His arms are locked around my waist from where he grabbed me as we fell, flipping us around so he took the brunt of the impact, his fingertips uncomfortably close to the edge of my hoodie.

I brace my hands against his chest, my heart racing as we both blink rapidly through the shock. Our chests rise and fall together, our breath mingling in the barely-there space between us. Close enough for me to smell his peppermint ChapStick.

His eyes find mine, wide and filled with something that might be terror. His lips part, but the words are caught in his throat. Everything I should say has gone out the window, and everything I want to say feels too dangerous to utter out loud.

It’d be so easy to close the distance. To do the one thing my heart wants, but my brain won’t let me. It would only take one inch to change everything.

“Can y’all move?”

The cashier pokes his head out of the to-go window, pulling off one side of his headset as if that’ll help him glare harder at us.

Joaquin and I go as red as the bag in the cashier’s hand, jumping to our feet so quickly it makes my head spin. “Sorry, yeah, thanks,” I mumble incoherently as I struggle to wipe dirt and grass off my hoodie and grab the slushies at the same time.

A twentysomething couple hovering beside us cover their grins behind their hands, waiting patiently until we’ve collected our order and left the cashier a ten-dollar bill as a tip to step up and place their order.

“You okay?” Joaquin asks as we head back to his car.

“No, I’m mortified,” I say with a groan. “This moment is going to come back to haunt me in the middle of the night for the next forty years.”

“I meant, did you get hurt?” he clarifies with an unusually somber expression. “Like, in the fall.”

“Oh.” The lack of humor on his face throws me for a loop. Normally he’d quip back with some one-liner about how I have worse things to be embarrassed about. Which I do. “ ’M fine. You?”

“Probably a bruised butt, but I’ll live.” This time there’s a hint of humor, and the pressure in my chest eases up.

We sit cross-legged on the hood of his car, spreading our bounty between us. Joaquin pokes at the blue raspberry slushie like it’s a suspicious unlabeled package before taking a cautious first sip. His entire face screws up like he just swallowed a dozen lemons.

“Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.”

“You’re such a baby,” I tease, knocking my knee against his and swiping the cup out of his hand.

A piercing, sour taste rushes through me the second the slushie hits my tongue. My face scrunches up just like his, unable to resist the shock of the unexpected flavor. “Okay, never mind, you’re right. That’s vile.”

Joaquin waves his arms in a way that screams “I told you so” without actually saying it.

We set aside the noxious blue raspberry in favor of the lime—which, somehow, is nowhere near as sour as the blue raspberry is. Even combining our slushies together doesn’t do anything to save the overpowering flavor of the blue raspberry. Definitely not shimmy worthy.

“All right,” I announce after we’ve taken a few sips, pulling out my phone and opening the Notes app. “What’s your ranking?”

Joaquin takes one more sip before making his final judgment, swirling the plastic cup around like a sommelier. “I’m feeling generous. Four.”

“Very generous indeed,” I reply, adding Blastoff Burger to the location column, and adding Joaquin’s rating to his column. I reach for his cup, taking another sip to be sure before giving my ranking. “The blue raspberry is trash, but the lime isn’t half bad. And I’ve gotta give ’em props for having this many flavors. Four and a half.”

Joaquin nods in agreement as I add my own rating to the final column. “Sorry this place turned out be a dud.”

I shrug. “I mean, it probably would’ve been better if I ordered flavors we actually like.” He lets out a soft, quiet laugh. “And I’m the one who should be sorry. We wasted your macaw on a place that kinda sucks.” I hold up a rubbery mozzarella stick with my phone-free hand. Neither of us are huge fans of deep-fried cheese, but these are thin, chewy, and an insult to mankind.

“Okay, now that we’ve sampled all our contenders, the winner is…” I scroll through our list. “Marco’s. Shocker.”

Iggy’s Ices put up a commendable fight, but no one stands a chance against Marco’s—the only establishment we gave tens across the board. Sure, it’s probably the sentimentality speaking, but it really is a damn good slushie.

“All hail the champion,” Joaquin says with a smile as he leans back against the car’s windshield, gazing up at the full moon. After a beat, I join him, carefully situating myself so I’m not leaning against Herbert’s wipers.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Joaquin asks once I’m settled.

“You’re a flat earther?” He gives me a confused frown. “What? That’s exactly the type of thing you’d want to keep a secret.”

He rolls his eyes. Then he stays quiet for so long I start to wonder if he’s actually waiting for permission to tell me, or if I’ve ruined the moment by making a joke out of it. I open my mouth to apologize when he finally speaks up again.

“I heard you. And your mom. Earlier.” The words come out in clipped staccato, as if he’s measuring out each syllable before he says it.

An uncomfortable chill runs through me at the thought of anyone, but especially him, hearing my blowup with Mami. “How much of it?” I ask, not that it matters. The entire debacle was a shitshow.

“Most of it,” he answers sheepishly. “I got back early from practice and saw you throw your bike down out front. I thought something might’ve happened since you weren’t answering your phone, or you needed help, so I came running over, and…well…your voice, uh…carries.”

“Oh.” So much for keeping my baggage to myself tonight.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, forget I said anything,” Joaquin offers quickly, waving his hands in the air like he’s sweeping away the fact that he even brought this up in the first place. “We can go back to roasting these shitty slushies.”

He says that last part a little louder than he should. Over his shoulder, the cashier narrows his eyes. Guess the cashier must be the manager—who else would care about some teenagers not liking your product? Joaquin must feel them boring into his back, making him turn with a wave. “Food’s great!” he calls out, as if that’ll make the situation any better.

It does make me snort, though.

“Guess Abuela has a point about me not having an inside voice,” Joaquin mumbles as he turns back around.

“Well, you know I can relate,” I reply. Apparently, my voice is loud enough to carry outside of an entire house.

Joaquin scoots closer to me, the two of us pressed shoulder to shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?”

I nod. “Yeah.” The thought of the argument threatens a fresh wave of tears—seems I’m not as cried out as I thought I was—the memory of Mami, heartbroken and furious, swimming through my blurry vision. “I just lost it.”

My voice cracks on the last syllable, and I use every ounce of strength I have not to let the tears fall this time. Not here, not now, not when this entire outing is supposed to be about Joaquin. “Things have been…a lot lately. With things at home and school and work and…y’know.”

No need to mention the emotional whiplash of trying to help him orchestrate his fairy-tale ending with Tessa while I grapple with my own complicated feelings about him. And, thankfully, Joaquin doesn’t press.

“You deserve a break,” he says, reaching over to take my hand and squeeze it. “Think you can survive two more months of school? Then it’s slushie adventures and day trips to Marco’s for three full months, baby,” he sings with a pleased smile and a wave of his hand. “And then you’ll abandon us small townies for New York.”

The absurdity of his voice keeps the tears at bay, a watery laugh bubbling up inside of me. “Says the one who’s abandoning me to live your best life in San Juan.”

Joaquin stiffens at the mention of the trip, his cheeks visibly pink even in the darkness. Suddenly, he’s become fascinated by the moon again. “I’m not going to Puerto Rico,” he says.

“What?! Did something happen?” I gasp. “Wait. Is your abuela okay?” I whisper as quietly as I can, as if speaking the words out loud will manifest something terrible into existence.

“Everything’s fine,” Joaquin reassures, his tone casual enough that I release the tension in my shoulders. “It’s…not a good time. Isabella just found out she got this internship she applied to, so she’s going to stay in DC over the summer. Plus, Abuela’s vertigo has gotten worse this year, so we don’t think a three-hour plane ride would be the best idea and leaving her here alone isn’t really an option…Maybe next year.”

He tries to shrug it off like it’s no big deal. Except I know him. That he’s valiant, and selfless, and puts everyone and their mother before him. It doesn’t matter that he’s been excited about this trip all year—so much so that he has that countdown on his phone—or that things haven’t been the same for him since his mom and Isabella left.

“But my mom and I can keep an eye on her!” I offer, already brainstorming how we could watch Doña Carmen over the summer. Sure, Mami and I might not be on speaking terms right now, but nothing mends bridges like banding together to take care of your favorite viejita. “My mom can check on her before work, and I can when I’m back from my shifts. Nurse Oatmeal’s useless, but at least she can keep your abuela company during the day too.”

It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s solid. We may not be Doña Carmen’s doting, beloved grandson, but we’re a second family.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” he says with a shake of his head. “Not after everything you’ve already done for me.”

Over the past fifteen years of knowing each other, we’ve done a thousand favors for one another. He’s sat through dozens of plays and musicals, let me sit on his shoulders at every parade we’ve been to, and stayed up until 2:00 a.m. making me a three-layer cake for my quinceañera after the allergen-free baker we’d hired dropped out the night before the party. And I’ve made him flash cards for midterms he was sure he’d fail, sat in the stands of every one of his games, and driven two states over and back just to get him a pair of sneakers he’d desperately wanted for his birthday.

I’d do all of those things again, and a thousand more, if they made him smile.

“But you’re not asking me to do anything,” I tell him. “I’m offering, huge difference.”

“Thank you, but it’s fine, seriously.” He turns his head, raising a brow. “Unless you’re just desperate to get rid of me this summer?”

I throw my hands up in defeat. “You got me.”

He chuckles softly, ramming his shoulder against mine hard enough that I nearly topple off the side of the car. Before I can fall, his arm wraps around mine and narrowly guides me away from the edge.

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer,” I mutter in mock outrage once he lets go, his fingers leaving an explosion of goose bumps where they brushed against my bare skin. “Will Isabella at least come home for the beginning of her summer vacation? Prom wouldn’t be the same without her roasting you for whatever you decide to wear.”

My laugh dies when Joaquin shakes his head. “She starts this week,” he mumbles.

“Well…what about for your game next week? That’s on a Saturday, she can just come for the day.”

He shrugs sheepishly. “Guess she forgot. I didn’t really mention it either, since she’s been busy with…y’know. College stuff. Hanging out with her friends down there.” He peeks up at me from beneath his miles-long lashes. “Promise you won’t forget me when you have all your cool Sarah Lawrence friends?”

He tries to keep his tone light, but the hurt in his voice is so strong it cuts right through me. There’s no world where I ever forget him, no lifetime where he’s not at the center of mine.

“I could never forget you.”

I’m not sure about much of anything when it comes to the future, but I can be sure about that.

His smile is warm but fleeting, and I fight back the urge to hold his hand. As he turns away from me, I realize Isabella staying in DC means no one from his family’ll be at the championship game. Doña Carmen would go if she could, obviously, but she’s at an age where she can’t handle sitting on those rock-hard bleachers for an entire game. How can the star that led the team to the championship look out into the crowd and not see any of his family there? Some last hurrah.

“Is that why we’re here?” I ask before I can stop myself, breaking macaw rule number one—no questions asked.

Joaquin doesn’t answer immediately, shaking his head before replying. “No.” I wait for him to elaborate, and when he doesn’t, I shift onto my back, ashamed for asking.

“I thought you could use it,” he says several seconds later.

For what feels like the hundredth time tonight, I turn to him in shock. “What?”

He shrugs. “After the whole thing with your mom, I thought you could use a night out. If you weren’t grounded for life.”

The sweetness of the gesture flies over my head, my pea brain only able to focus on the sanctity of this silly tradition we came up with when we thought bird sounds were the height of comedy. This is who Joaquin is. He’ll give up anything if it makes someone else’s life easier. If it makes someone else happy. “But you only get one—you can’t waste it on me!”

“I didn’t waste it, Ive.” He leans in, eyes on mine, and tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear. “I got to spend tonight with you.”

His hand lingers on the nape of my neck for a moment. Before I can speak, he reaches for the blue raspberry slushie and leaves me breathless and shivering. His face contorts for a second time, his tongue now stained blue.

“Nope. Still tastes like battery acid.”

While he dumps the rest of the slushie onto the ground—carefully out of the cashier’s line of view—I’m left with the enormity of what just unlocked inside of me.

That I don’t care if what I’m feeling could ruin anything. That all I want is to take his hand and hold him close and lose myself in his eyes. That I love him in a new way.

And I think I’m ready to tell him.