Chapter Four

SUNLIGHT TOSSED A kaleidoscope around the nave, streaking the newly laid laminate in different colors. Diego had woken with a start, jolted upright in bed, pawing at his chest, feeling across his throat, clinging to the hopeful delusion that last night had been real. That he’d been awake—truly awake. That he’d gone to his knees with Ariel and prayed, and came with a hand wedged inside him, and licked into Ariel’s mouth under a starry sky. Diego had blinked and caught his breath, still damp between his legs. He took a shower to clear his head. When he’d checked his earnings, the livestream session had brought in four hundred and ninety-six dollars. Seven comments had read MORE, three others had read louder pls, and one had said that’s it bitch keep squirming for me. He’d wrinkled his nose at the half-assed, faux-dom demand. But somewhere buried deep, in a place he didn’t dare look, Diego liked the safety of it. Sometimes being demeaned by a username, someone he could attach a made-up identity to, made him wetter, made him come harder, and that always raked in bigger tips.

Last night happened, he assured himself. It did, it did, it fucking did.

Diego had eaten microwaved oatmeal and drunk orange juice straight from the carton. He’d shuffled around the church, accompanied by silence. Outside Ariel’s bedroom, he’d stood listening for sounds of life, and decided to get to work after hearing nothing but the fan. Keeping his hands busy would put his mind at ease, at least. So, he focused on the floor—cutting the door jams, spreading the underlayment, placing the planks—until morning bled into a dusky afternoon, and tires chewed through the dirt lot outside. He paused with his hands curved around a plank. A car door shut, and boots stomped the rocky ground. Diego refocused on the flooring as Ariel walked inside.

“Hey,” Ariel said, curt and polite. There was a bag tucked under his arm and a six-pack dangling from his bent knuckles. “I had to run an errand. Grabbed lunch while I was out.” He jostled the paper bag. “Burritos, chips, the works.”

Diego bristled at the sight of him. It was an animal reflex—looking at Ariel, remembering last night, smelling frijoles and meat and lime. He stood clumsily on the cusp of disbelieving his own memory. Imagined Ariel with a third eye open between his coarse brows, steady and unblinking, the same way it’d been fixed on him last night.

“Thank you for getting started,” Ariel added, filling the awkward quiet. He gestured to the half-finished nave with the six-pack. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving.” Diego swallowed the rest of what he wanted to say: what are you, what did we do last night, what do you want with me, can I have you? “I didn’t know you liked beer.”

“I’m not a nun.” Ariel avoided the fresh laminate and stepped over Diego’s spilled tools, then walked briskly into the hall.

Diego snorted. “Yeah, I’m aware,” he called, wincing at the sound of his brash voice bouncing toward the eaves. Abandoning the plank, he trailed Ariel into the kitchen, tempered the heat in his face, and tried to calm the fluttering in his chest, like a thousand moths bouncing against his heart.

“Pick,” Ariel said and pointed at two foil-wrapped burritos.

Diego took the one labeled SPICY LENGUA and dug in the bag for plastic salsa cups. He found pickled veggies too. “Can I have one of those?”

The bottlecap came away with a snap, and Ariel’s fingers grazed his skin. He pressed the beer into Diego’s palm, offering a meek smile. “I don’t know what you usually get, but I figured you can’t go wrong with…” He waggled his fingers at the table. “…chicken and beef.”

“You weren’t wrong.” Diego took a swig from his beer. He leaned against the unstable table and dunked the corner of his burrito into chunky green salsa.

They ate in each other’s company, filling the silence with mastication and gurgling sips. They sucked sauce and grease from the sides of their hands and stole glances at messy mouths. Last night lingered—the dream, the truth—tilting beneath Diego’s skin like loose water. He finished his lunch, then his beer, and lowered into a plastic chair, studying the dirt on Ariel’s laced boots.

What happened last night? Diego tested the question in his mind, but when he spoke, “When do we need to be finished with the renovations?” came out instead. He licked his teeth and dug his thumbnail into the center of his palm. Coward, he thought, scolding himself. Fuckin’ pussy.

Ariel scrubbed his mouth with a napkin. “I’d like the first service to be on August fifteenth,” he said, nodding contentedly. “The Assumption of Mary.”

Diego tipped his head, furrowing his brow.

“It’s the day the Blessed Mother ascended into heaven, reborn as her holy self, assuming her role in the high kingdom as the earthly caregiver of the Son of God,” Ariel said.

He tossed the napkins and litter in the trash can and grabbed two more beers out of the fridge. After uncapping both bottles, he shrugged toward the nave. As he walked, Diego followed closely behind him, listening. “Technically, scripture doesn’t suggest that Mary lived and died a human life. Some believe she simply left this plane for a different one; others believe she was immortal. There’s interpretive theology around it all—thoughts and hearsay and Catholic campfire stories. But regardless of who-says-what, the Assumption of Mary is still an important date for many people. A bridge, so to speak. Mary lived a blessed, difficult life. She faced trials before entering paradise—became acquainted with grief, knew suffering, witnessed poverty and betrayal. I don’t think there’s a better day to open Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. Do you?”

“A church named after the Blessed Mother, opening on the day she ascended into heaven? No, I think that’s pretty fitting,” Diego said and took the beer Ariel handed him. He tipped the bottle against his mouth just enough to wet his lips and licked the skunky flavor away. “What’s next?”

“Finish the floor, fix the furniture, paint. That’s it.” Ariel heaved a sigh, surveying the half-finished nave with a slow, steady sweep. “Do you think we can manage that in three days?”

“Two if we’re quick.”

“Good. Then let’s be quick.”

Diego snatched the unlaid plank, slid it into place, and hammered the edge until it sat flush with the one beside it. He drank his beer slowly, internally flinching at every hard smack of a tool, bang from a plank, crunch of a handsaw. Ariel worked swiftly, moving around the church with efficiency Diego still wasn’t used to. Every movement made sense. Each turn of his hand and gathered breath and sturdy step was meticulous; precise in a calculated, inhuman way that made their kiss—dream or not—seem outside his realm of possibility. The way Ariel had surged toward him. How he’d been vigorous and hungry, fitting himself into Diego’s rhythm. That version of him didn’t match what Diego saw right then, what he’d noticed since the first day he’d arrived.

But Ariel looked at him. Shifted his eyes toward Diego like a wolf watching a deer, like a hunter watching the hunted. Like Diego was a twenty-point buck, and the wolf was weighing his options. Like Diego was something sharp, and the hunter was counting his bullets.

It made him feel extraordinarily powerful to be looked at like that by someone like Ariel.

Powerful, but uneasy.

They worked well into the afternoon. Ariel left his shirt bundled on the floor next to the tool case, and Diego tossed his tank into the hall. Sweat left his skin shiny, his pink scars standing prominently against his copper skin. At one point, he righted himself and sat back on his heels, wiping his brow with the back of his hand.

Ariel cleared his throat, cutting another quick glance along Diego’s body. “What’re those?” He asked the way most people who already knew the answer asked, politeness giving way to curiosity, hoping for an interesting answer.

“Double lung transplant,” Diego said sarcastically. “Brutal, man. Total bloodbath.”

A soft laugh bubbled up and out of Ariel.

Diego caught himself thinking, Laugh more. I like the sound.

“Well, you have a…” He paused to clear his throat. “I was going to say beautiful, but I don’t know if that’s the right word.”

Heat unfurled behind Diego’s sternum. “A beautiful what?”

“Body. I like what you’ve done with it.”

Diego stifled a surprised laugh. He turned toward the window, shielding his bewilderment. “Oh,” he blurted stupidly. “Beautiful is a strong word, but it’s not…it’s not bad.”

“Or wrong?”

“Depends on who you ask.”

“You don’t think you’re beautiful?”

Diego finished pounding one of the last planks into place. His stomach turned to ribbons. Air thickened in his chest, and his skin became feverish, unused to acknowledgement. Typically, he fucked in the dark. In shadowy alleys outside crowded clubs, a wandering hand crammed in his pants on a neon-lit dance floor, tumbling around a bed with nothing but moonlight skating through the blinds. No one called him beautiful and meant it. Sometimes handsome, mostly hot. Whenever beautiful had been used, it’d been tit for tat. Praise for an act during a livestream session or left in a crude comment beneath a purchasable video. Come for me, beautiful. Show me agony, beautiful. Lick my boots, beautiful. He never deleted them, but he never read them more than once either.

He didn’t know how to answer. Not really, at least. Not honestly. “I don’t…” He struggled through an awkward laugh. “I don’t know.”

“You are,” Ariel said matter-of-factly.

“I’ll take your word for it.” Diego stood, trying to shake off the tightness pulling his skin closer to his skeleton. He felt seen again. As if Ariel had yanked back his ribs and peeked inside. “We should let the laminate rest overnight before moving the usable furniture back inside. Should probably tape and tarp for paint too.”

“If we paint tomorrow, we can have the furniture assembled and placed on Saturday. We'll finish with a day to spare, like you said.”

Diego nodded. “We haven’t missed anything, right? The roof is done. Public bathroom is remodeled, windows are solid, walls are patched. Anything else?”

Ariel hesitated, shifting his weight from foot to foot. For the first time, Diego saw his hand twitch, watched his throat flex around a nervous swallow. It was a slow thing: Adam’s apple bobbing, neck elongating. He parted his lips but didn’t speak for a long, calculated moment. “There’s one more thing,” he said. Caution guarded his eyes and filled his voice with an unsure rumble. “I can trust you—can’t I, Diego?”

The question held weight. He considered it, thinking no, thinking yes, and remembered the shock on Ariel’s face after they’d kissed last night, how his inhumanness was abrupt and unexpected, as if Diego had called it to the surface without realizing. He toed at the smooth floor, watched Ariel breathe and blink, and finally said, “Yeah. Can I trust you?”

“Yes.” Ariel turned and strode into the hall. “C’mon, I have something to show you.”

At first, Diego didn’t follow. He stood rooted in place, waiting for wings to sprout through Ariel’s back, feathers to cover his skull, eyes to stare out from hidden places. But Ariel didn’t change, he just paused in the mouth of the hallway and glanced over his shoulder expectantly, prompting Diego to step forward. Ask, Diego thought, again and again. Ask, ask, ask. And then, Demand. Make him tell you the truth. But what was the truth? That Diego had imagined being touched last night? That he’d thought about Ariel while he fucked himself for an audience? That he’d dreamed about the church caretaker and imagined him as something impossible? Diego inhaled sharply, trailing Ariel through the basement door next to the bathroom, down a set of wooden stairs. An exposed bulb buzzed to life, illuminating the dingy space, filled with sacked flour and plastic-wrapped cots, water jugs, and clean linen. Diego turned his eyes from the washer and dryer against the wall to Ariel, waiting for a clue, an explanation. Something, anything.

“Nice basement,” Diego said and lifted his brows.

“Do you know how long it takes to walk from here to Chihuahua?” Ariel asked.

He blinked, taken aback. “Mexico? Like, forever, I guess? A day at least? I don’t know. Why?”

“Just over fourteen hours. Two days, seven hours each day. Three days, four and a half.”

“And…?”

Ariel lifted the edge of a ratty Persian rug thrown across the floor and rolled it away, revealing a hatch built into the floor. He huffed through a sigh, eyes heavy on Diego, before he unfastened the lock and pulled the door open. A short ladder, propped against the inside wall of the tunnel, led to a dirt foundation.

Reality struck Diego, fast as a rattlesnake, and he caught himself tripping through surprised laughter. “You…” His smile stretched into a grin. “You’re a coyote,” he said, hushed, like a secret.

“No.” Ariel lifted his gaze, staring at Diego through his lashes. “But I need a coyote.”

Diego cinched his eyebrows. He tilted his head, glancing from the tunnel to Ariel, back to the tunnel, back to Ariel. The pieces slipped into place inch by inch. A rundown church, renovation that would’ve taken two days with a full crew but took longer with a single work-for-hire, Ariel’s constant reinvention of faith, of boundaries, of bridges. Diego blinked several times. He reminded himself to take a breath. “You…you want me to…?”

“It isn’t free work, Diego. You’ll be compensated. I’ll take care of you. But I need someone I can trust, someone who understands, and—”

“You realize I crashed my mother’s car into a light pole, right? Got caught with Xanax, Vicodin, Oxy? That’s the reason I’m here—make enough money to cover what my mother loaned me and start over somewhere new. I…I have a record, Ariel. You can’t seriously expect me—”

“I expect nothing,” he said. Gentleness warmed the disappointment swelling in his voice. “I only ask that you think about it. There’re two other safe houses on the tunnel route. An animal sanctuary just outside the border and a homestead near Sunshine that belongs to the same family who owns the taquería where I got our lunch today. I spoke to them about the technicalities—payment, safety, timing—and we came to an agreement. The only thing I need is a man on the ground.”

“A coyote,” Diego said, snapping at each syllable. “If I get caught, I’ll go to prison—”

“You won’t get caught.” Ariel snapped too. Elegantly. Like he’d perfected the art of persuasion.

Diego rolled his bottom lip between his teeth and chewed. His mind whirled, tossing scenarios around—handcuffs around his wrists, blue and red lights flashing, people running—but his thoughts were cut short by the suddenness of Ariel’s hand on his jaw, cradling his chin.

“I will keep you safe,” he said again, his voice low and baritone.

Everything faded—fear, anxiety, helplessness, curiosity, thrill—until the only question Diego had left came skidding out, whispered and raspy, like something mistaken. “Did I kiss you last night?” He swallowed hot saliva and cleared his throat. “Did we—”

“Yes, we did.”

He expected relief, but anger spiked through him. Anger and excitement and ferocity. “What…” He made an effort not to close his eyes, leaning into the tender pass of Ariel’s thumb dusting his mouth. “What are you?”

Ariel’s eyes scaled his face. He dropped his hand and tapped the Saint Christopher charm centered between Diego’s collarbones. “Something that can keep you safe,” he said and walked away. His boots thumped on the stairs.

Diego listened to each footstep and sent a prayer into the tunnel at his feet. “Quédate conmigo,” he whispered. Be with me. Give me answers. “Darme respuestas.”