Chapter Two

EVEN POST-SUNSET, Luna County burned. The night passed in sweltering increments inside the stuffy church. Diego slept with the sheets draped over his waist, bare-chested on a full-size mattress. The small repurposed bedroom had probably been utilized for storage in its last life. Now, it held a nightstand and a dresser, a tiny closet with shelves and a garment pole, and a skinny window facing the desert.

He’d dozed in fits, waking at the sound of footsteps after midnight, jolting upright as an odd hush whistled through the gaps in the glass. Prayer—spoken by the wind or a nomad—drifted into the room on a breezy whisper. Diego couldn’t help but listen.

And the word was made flesh.

He snatched at sleep, lulled by heat and darkness, but hardly managed more than a few hours before dawn poured through the window. He blinked at the ceiling, searching for cracks in the slanted roof. A spider had strung a web in the corner. Dust clung to the sturdy beams. He reached for his abuelo’s Saint Christopher, given to him when he’d been young and entirely different, and remembered Ariel thumbing at the etched icon. Like most unfamiliar places, Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe had turned him restless. He felt childlike. Embarrassingly homesick. Still, he slipped out of the stiff bed, pawed at his eyes, and got dressed.

Across the hall, the sink ran. The toilet flushed. Diego waited for footsteps to come and go before he cracked open the door and walked into the cramped bathroom. He cleaned his teeth. Splashed his face. Raked texturizer through his hair. Stared at his reflection until his eyes wandered, settling on Ariel’s toiletries—simple red comb, facial moisturizer, damp toothbrush. He touched the wet bristles and jerked his hand away, hyperaware of the awkward excitement thrumming in his veins. Such an intimate little tool, jammed into Ariel’s mouth day after day. His voice rang in Diego’s skull. Whatever I want. Confidence and curiosity. Abrasive, crisp syllables. Diego had never met someone like Ariel Azevedo; the immediacy of it pulled like a thread through his center.

Diego wasn’t sure if he had a reason to be afraid, but he was.

“Are you awake?” Ariel’s voice sounded on the other side of the door, followed by a light knock.

“Yeah—yes, sorry. I’ll be right out.”

“Meet me in the nave.”

Nave? Diego pursed his lips. “Okay.”

He checked his reflection, the tank loose on his narrow frame, blue jeans snug on his hips. He tightened the laces on his boots and searched the mirror again, shrugging on a thin flannel, concealing the tail-end of his scars. Maybe the fear was residual, prompted by instances every person like him tended to face in new situations. The what if, the potential threat, the worrisome undercurrent of being self-built. Lastly, he put on deodorant.

Noises echoed. Tools clattered, and heavy objects were pushed or pulled. He traced the outline of his phone in his pocket and walked into the main room—nave, whatever—to find Ariel, dressed in frayed denim and a white T-shirt, hauling items out of the building.

Ariel paused, midway in lifting a pew, and tilted his head. “Good morning.”

“Mornin’,” Diego mumbled. He pushed his fingers through his hair, a nervous habit. “What’s on the agenda?”

“I need the nave cleared before we replace the floor. I assume you don’t have a problem lifting? Your mother insisted you were strong.”

“I’m strong enough,” he said and nodded at a caved-in pew. “And the broken furniture? Are we breaking it down or fixing it?”

“I’d like to fix as much as we can.” Ariel shrugged toward the open double doors. “Did you eat?”

“Not yet.”

“Help me get this outside, and then we’ll put some coffee on. There’s toast too.”

Diego curled his hands under the bench and lifted, easing forward while Ariel waddled backward. Outside, pews, chairs, and fixtures sat in the dirt lot, shielded from the sun by repurposed bedsheets. Once they lowered the bench to the ground, Diego righted himself and cracked his back, scanning golden desert and hot stone. Last night, he’d shared the kitchen with Ariel, paying mind to each shallow cabinet Ariel opened. “Coffee, here,” he’d said and pointed to Peruvian grounds, filters, sugar, and honey. “Pasta, ramen, frijoles, canned stuff. You’re welcome to any of it. There’re fresh vegetables in the fridge too. Juice, milk, soda—the works.” Diego hadn’t mustered the courage to ask for a beer.

“Hopefully, we can start on the foundation today,” Ariel said. He set his hands on his hips, squinting at the displaced furniture. “Elena said you’ve done construction. Have you ever worked with laminate?”

“I’ve helped my dad with a few jobs. Nothing major, just framing and tiling. Some kitchen redesigns. Laminate’s easy though. Shouldn’t be a problem.”

Ariel hummed thoughtfully. “And what made you decide to drive all the way out here for work?”

“My mother decided for me.” Diego ignored how Ariel flicked his gaze from the horizon, shying under the careful once-over Ariel granted. He cleared his throat and swatted dust off his hands. “Coffee?”

Ariel nodded. “Eat too. You’ll need your strength.”

At that, Diego stayed quiet. Onyx rosary beads curved around the back of Ariel’s neck, and red slid over his shoes as he walked through a patch of sunlight colored by a stained window. His age was still a mystery. His purpose too—what he wanted from this church, why he hadn’t hired a larger crew. Diego had seen people like him in crowded malls, on busy streets, quiet and well kept, striking and unique, usually moving with purpose. Here and there and gone. Men like him, the secretive kind, usually made Diego wonder who he was meant to become. But this one, this Ariel Azevedo, tripped Diego’s fight-or-flight.

“Grab the bread. There’s apricot jam next to the egg carton,” Ariel said.

Diego slid four slices into the toaster. “So,” he tested, propping his hip against the counter. “What made you want to renovate this…” He shifted his gaze around the small kitchen, situated at the end of the hall adjacent Ariel’s bedroom. Shithole, he wanted to say. “Place.”

“Church,” Ariel corrected. The coffee pot hummed and spat. He crossed his arms over his chest, watching Diego down the arc of his nose. “People need something to believe in, don’t they? Señora de Guadalupe is the perfect opportunity to restore faith, inspire change, ease the disbelievers into believing in something holy again. In something higher and mightier than us.”

“Restore faith, huh? In what? God? Heaven?” He slathered butter onto his toast, followed by orange-colored jam. “That’ll chase poverty away? Extend visas? Tear down the wall? Because according to your front door, that’s what people want.”

Ariel took the sticky knife from Diego’s hand. “Faith isn’t a catchall, Diego,” he said smoothly, as though he’d said Diego a thousand times. “But it’s a comfort. Challenging, unruly, peaceful. Church gives us a place to worship, and worship gives us a chance to mend our wounds.” Ariel dragged the dull knife between his lips, sucking away apricot jam. “You’re wounded, aren’t you?”

Diego paused midbite. “No,” he said and bit through the toast. “Why?”

Ariel laughed, a single, quiet hah. Another once-over, quick as a snakebite. “I see it here.” He pointed to Diego’s eyes, then lowered his hand and prodded him gently in the chest. “And here.”

“You always make assumptions about people you don’t know?”

“Who says I don’t know you?” Ariel’s lips curved.

Ariel had shown nothing but matter-of-fact kindness, yet Diego still couldn’t fucking breathe around him. Couldn’t stand his elusiveness. Hated his ability to guard himself against intuition. For the most part, Diego got a good read on people. Like his own version of animal instinct—prey drive, primal understanding, wild perception—he usually dug to the root of someone within the first two interactions. Good, bad, somewhere in-between. Good enough to stick around and find out more, bad enough to turn and run, somewhere in the middle: hackles raised, teeth bared, standing his ground. Ariel gave him nothing though. Diego had no sense of who he might be or might’ve been. His heart skipped, anxiety swelling like a second skin.

Ariel’s question echoed. Who says I don’t know you?

Something hot and sharp crowded Diego’s throat. He took a step back, putting necessary distance between himself and Ariel’s hand. Before he could say stop, Ariel reached for his necklace again and lifted the Saint Christopher charm toward Diego’s chin.

“The patron saint of travelers, said to protect those of us who search,” Ariel mumbled, eyeing the golden icon. His brows knitted, smile inching into a small grin. “What is it you’re looking for?”

Diego swallowed hard. “Another chance, I guess.”

“And what makes you think you don’t already have that?”

“Mi familia no perdona,” he said, too quietly. “One too many mistakes.”

Ariel clucked his tongue and dropped the necklace. His gaze lingered on the bruise darkening Diego’s jaw. “Let those who are without sin cast the first stone.” He placed two fingers on Diego’s chin, easing his face to the side. He dusted his thumb across the sore bruise. “Do you know the gospel?”

Diego nodded, frozen in place by fear or curiosity. The urge to shrink came and went, replaced by fervent defiance. To be seen, to be touched—these were desires he rarely entertained. But right then, he couldn’t move, couldn’t blink or lie. “Yeah,” he said, the word gusting on a long-held breath.

“But I say to you, do not resist evil. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other,” Ariel said. “Do you understand what it means?”

“Turn the other cheek. Yeah, I get it—”

“Allow God to act on your behalf,” Ariel said sternly. The side of his thumb caught Diego’s mouth, flitted across the Saint Christopher, then dropped. “Make room for divine intervention.”

“God has never looked out for me.” Diego glanced at the two empty mugs on the counter and turned toward them, severing the channel between himself and Ariel. He filled both mugs and stirred cream and sugar into his own. Grasping the steaming top with his fingertips, he endured the heat on his palm, in his chest, deep in his center.

“It might feel that way, but whether it’s God or one of his creations, you’re certainly looked after. No one goes unnoticed,” Ariel said.

Diego grabbed the other mug and handed it to Ariel. “If you say so.” He snatched his second piece of toast and took brisk steps down the hall.

For years—an entire lifetime—Diego López hadn’t felt the presence of a deity, a guardian, an anything. He’d been alone, stumbling through a childhood racked with confusion, landing in adolescence he’d tried to tear himself out of. He was just now beginning to understand what he had the potential to look like, sound like, feel like, and never once had he warmed under the attention of a greater being. At his weakest, he’d prayed; at his strongest, he’d prayed, too, but no one had ever made themself known. Not a devil, not a goddess, not the God. Diego had spent his life filling the silence with his own voice, rasping his vocal cords with cayenne and tequila and hormones until he finally recognized the sound.

Coffee burned his lips, scorched the roof of his mouth. He exhaled harshly and walked outside, welcoming the morning sun on his blushing cheeks.

Whatever Ariel thought he saw in Diego, whatever presence he thought Diego would feel, simply didn’t exist. Faith was prescriptive, a placebo. Something brandished like a weapon in one breath and offered like a blanket in the next.

Diego fished a cigarette out of his back pocket and lit the tip.

“Those’ll kill you,” Ariel said. He’d arrived silently, like something with pawed feet, like something used to stalking.

“Why didn’t you hire, like, a crew for this…?” Diego blew out a curl of smoke, shifting his gaze sideways as Ariel came to stand beside him.

“Didn’t need one.”

“You definitely need one.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

“I’m not enough. What’s your timeline anyway? When’s this place supposed to be suitable for…” He sipped the cigarette. Exhaled. Laughed a little. “Worshippers, whatever.”

Ariel was quiet for a long moment. His deerlike lashes cast thin shadows across his cheekbones, and his eyes were rich as soil, laced with honeycomb and amber.

Too beautiful, Diego thought. Too perfectly made.

“You’re enough,” Ariel said and set his coffee atop a covered pew. He nudged Diego with his shoulder as he swept into the church. “C’mon, we’re losing daylight.”

Diego drank his coffee, flicked his cigarette, and followed Ariel.

Get the job done, get paid, go home. The thought became a metronome. He tried not to think about Ariel’s hand on his face, tried to ignore the thrum in his veins at the thought of being seen, of being excavated. Get the job done.

Diego worked until the summer heat crept under his skin, and then he stripped away his flannel and left it on the floor, wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. When the sun was high in the sky, Ariel tossed his shirt in the corner of the nave, and Diego snuck glances at his bare chest, his hard planes and broad shoulders, smooth stomach, and lean arms. Brazilian, probably. Permanently sun-stained and ruddy like terracotta.

After he’d torn up the floorboards beneath a brightly colored window, Diego tipped his head back and caught his breath. As he stared at the ceiling, thinking get paid, go home, he saw Ariel in his peripheral, standing across the room, watching him inhale and exhale. Against the wall, sunlight pulled Ariel’s shadow upright.

The dark patch spread outward, winglike and beastly, and when Ariel lifted his arm, raking his hand through damp hair, Diego swore the shadow bent, quivering like a nightmare.