Chapter Six

DIEGO HELD HIS phone lazily, tipping the image of Leticia to-and-fro. Her unruly curls were freed from the braid she usually wore, face bare except for a shock of red lipstick. She snapped a pink bubble at the screen, chomping like a truck driver.

“Mom’s still pissed,” she said. The gold hoop punched through her nostril caught a stream of sunlight, momentarily blinding the camera. She adjusted her phone and sighed. “What’re you doin’ out there anyway? She said you’re rebuilding some dumbass church.”

“That’s pretty much it, yeah.” Looking at his sister was like peering into a time warp, seeing himself unmade in a parallel universe. He sat back in the clean pew and glanced around the freshly refurbished nave, which still carried the chemical scent of paint and orange oil. “See, look.” He tapped the screen and moved his phone from side to side, shifting the camera to the polished pulpit, neatly arranged pews, sparkling candelabras, and a golden dish half-filled with holy water. “Not bad, huh?”

“Damn, wow. I thought she was makin’ shit up.”

Diego flapped his lips. “Whatever. How’s school?”

“Oh, it’s hell,” she said, barking out a laugh. “But I’m gettin’ through it.”

It felt like just yesterday she’d been slamming doors, rapping along to Cardi B, and begging him for rides to the mall. Now she was eighteen, applying for financial aid, on her way to working in a high-class medical lab. Solid paycheck, retirement, the works. He was proud of her—the better López. At least one of us has a shot.

“Good,” Diego said. “No hanging around Brandon and his fuckin’ friends. Focus on your classes, hermanita. Don’t be stupid, all right?”

“What, like you?” she teased and stuck her tongue between her teeth.

“Yeah, like me. Mamá’s got one fuckup to deal with. Give her two, and she’ll skin us both.”

“C’mon, Diego, you’re not—”

“Ah!” He cut her off with a sharp hiss. “Don’t be makin’ excuses for nobody. Not me, not yourself.”

“All right, all right,” she said, holding the phone close to her mouth. “When’ll you be home?”

“Soon. I might have a job lined up though.”

“You? Work? Like, an actual job?”

“Hey—cállate. Cross your fingers.”

“Fingers and toes.”

“Te quiero.”

“Love you too. Bye.” She waved at the camera, and the screen went dark.

Diego stuffed the phone into his front pocket and stared at the stained-glass windows. Colorful shards beamed across the walls and hovered over the newly laid floor, giving the space an old-world charm.

Earlier that morning, he’d woken with his face tucked beneath Ariel’s chin, cocooned by wings, held close by four arms. The feathers on his skull had returned, and three eyes had peeled open to look at him. Diego had touched his broad nose and traced the opening on his cheek. He’d pressed his finger to the sharp teeth behind his incisors and tried not to look disappointed when Ariel excused himself to the bathroom.

Afterward, when Ariel was black-haired and human-appearing again, they’d scrubbed the remaining graffiti off the doorframes, nailed the broken furniture back together, rolled matte white paint onto the walls, and peeled blue tape from the baseboards.

La Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe was remade, and Diego López was left with a choice.

Stay. Go. Take the job. Start over in Austin.

He heaved an exhausted sigh and scrubbed his palm over his mouth, staring at the vaulted ceiling. Last night changed everything—everything—and he had no idea what to do.

“Estás bem?”

Diego followed the sound. Ariel stood in the mouth of the hallway, arms folded casually across his chest, shoulder propped against the frame.

“I don’t know Portuguese,” Diego said, which was true, he didn’t. Still, the languages were similar, and he understood what Ariel had asked.

Ariel arched an eyebrow, waiting.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just catching up with my sister.”

“And how is she?”

“Good,” he said and mouthed the word a second time. Good. “Careful.” He nodded toward the bright white wall. “You’ll ruin your shirt.”

“It’s dry.” Ariel knocked on the wall with his fist. His eyes were warm, as always, searching and curious. “Would you like to go to the market with me? We can get dinner while we’re there.”

Over the course of two weeks, their relationship had changed. Transitioned into something more intimate, less abrasive. More blatant, less secretive. But hours ago, after Diego had spent the night worshipping at Ariel’s feet, wrapped securely in his wings, he hadn’t been kissed. Hadn’t been touched again. Ariel had barely spoken to him. Hardly looked at him. Diego twisted his fingers together in his lap and nodded, thinking about saying No, saying I should go, saying Thank you for the opportunity.

But instead, he said, “Yeah, I’m starving.” Because he was. God, he was.

The aura around Ariel gleamed like a second skin. His lips turned at the corners. “Me too.”

 

THE LUNA COUNTY night market occupied the parking lot of an abandoned shopping center. Boarded windows and burned-out signs decorated the dusty, unmanned shopfronts, supplying an ugly backdrop for the market. Faerie lights stretched between easy-ups, and pungent smoke drifted through the air, mingling with the smell of hot peppers, grilled meat, and halved lemons. Picnic tables and plastic chairs sat arranged around busy food trucks. Vendors hollered and people chatted, drifting between booths, filling reusable bags and woven baskets with spices, clothes, fruits, and candles.

Diego bumped his shoulder against Ariel as they walked, dipping between clustered families and rambunctious children. Nearby, someone shouted ‘mango, manzanas, limón,’ and in the distance, cackling laughter careened over the crowd from the other side of the market. It’d been a while since Diego had been surrounded by brown skin and recipes he knew by heart, even longer since he hadn’t felt the need to look over his shoulder in a crowded place and scan the adjacent areas for ICE, confederate flags, or red hats. A woman selling handmade tunics held a miniature fan in front of her face and smiled as they walked by. An old man spooned jiggly flan into his mouth and kicked off his sandal to scratch the Labrador asleep by his feet. Kids ate ice cream and churros and kettle corn. Diego breathed easily.

Ariel took his hand. “There’s a Brazilian truck,” he said hopefully. “I don’t know if you like croquettes or stew—”

“I’ll try anything once,” Diego said, thrilled to have Ariel’s palm clasped around his own. “I’ve tried a few Brazilian rice dishes at, like, fusion restaurants, but you know…” He shrugged. “That’s not exactly the real deal.”

“C’mon.” Ariel tugged him through the bustling market, past a makeshift altar overflowing with prayer candles, flowers, and tequila bottles, and through a shadowy tent where men puffed cigars and sipped canned beer. Behind the tent, on the outskirts of the market, idled a pink food truck called Sweetfin.

They ordered cheese coxinha, spicy moqueca, and passionfruit sodas, and sat at a picnic table adorned with cardboard coasters. The coxinha—croquettes stuffed with white cheese and shredded chicken—crunched under Diego’s teeth, and Ariel watched intently as he spooned fish stew into his mouth.

“It’s good,” Diego assured. “Really good.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“So, how does…I mean, how’d you…” He paused, sipping the moqueca to buy some time. “You’re Brazilian, right? Did you choose to be Brazilian or were you, I don’t know, given this body…?”

Ariel blinked, considering. He tilted his head back and forth and struggled to find an explanation. His lips parted, but no sound followed, and he furrowed his brow, squinting at the sky before he finally spoke. “I landed here as little more than what you saw last night. My true form is less cohesive. You wouldn’t understand if you saw it—close your mouth, I’m not finished. I’m not saying you don’t have the depth to understand; we were just created that way. To be unimaginable. But I adapted, like we all did. The world grew up around me, and I found myself circling back to Brazil. Building a life there, in Bahia, several times over. I lived in Portugal too. Spain, Italy, Guatemala, Indonesia. But Brazil was always home.”

Diego nodded. He understood it on an evolutionary level: being born one thing and becoming something else, making a home somewhere new. It was in his DNA. Uprooting, settling, transitioning. “I’d like to go, someday.”

“To Brazil?”

“Yeah. Everywhere, honestly.”

“You will.”

“You might be the only person who believes that.”

“Do you believe it?” Ariel asked. He bit the last croquette in half and handed the rest to Diego.

He ate slowly, thinking about the concrete cell he’d paced around for hours, the disappointment on his mother’s face, his sister rolling her eyes, and how his father hadn’t been surprised. Twenty-one with a record. No college. A three-line résumé. “I don’t know— I don’t even have a passport.”

“Well, you’re the only one who needs to have faith.” Ariel scraped the bottom of his bowl and licked cilantro from the spoon. “In yourself, specifically.”

“I wish it was that simple,” Diego said.

“You need to learn how to be gentle with yourself.”

“Gentleness won’t get me anywhere,” he mumbled and set his elbows on the table, cradling his chin on the heel of his palm. He smiled despite himself. “Money will.”

Ariel sighed, mouth ticking into a crooked smile. “Maybe you’re right. Do you want something sweet before we head back?”

Diego met Ariel’s earthy-brown eyes, searching for something he’d missed. A hidden message, maybe. The subject shift jostled him, but he gave a curt nod. “Sure, yeah.”

Ariel stood and walked back to the Sweetfin window. Diego peeled the label off of his glass soda bottle, digging his thumbnail into the gluey paper. He imagined a life in Austin again, bartending in a big city. Then he pictured himself walking cobblestone streets in Prague, eating paella in Barcelona, and cutting through the jungle in Sumatra. Hope was dangerous, so he’d never given himself the chance to dream. He’d taken what he’d needed, done what he had to, made mistakes along the way. What he’d designed for himself, how he’d clawed out of an ill-fitting suit and restitched his skin in the likeness he’d always seen, always wanted, had been enough until right then. Until he gave himself permission to imagine adventure, to indulge in a fantasy.

But hadn’t Ariel Azevedo been a fantasy too? And yet he was real. Flesh and blood. Touchable and corporeal.

Diego finished his soda and hiccupped on a small laugh, nodding appreciatively when Ariel set a plate between them. Fluffy frosting slathered the coconut cake, speared with two forks.

They ate together, listening to music boom from a nearby speaker. When the cake was gone and the sun was setting, Diego caught another glimpse of Ariel’s angelic shape. His glimmery aura undulated—huge wings folded against his back, arms tucked into his lap, third eye settled intently on Diego. He looked regal. Like a thing too grand for reality. A creature made of legend, meant to be praised.

“Ready?” Ariel asked.

Diego turned toward the bustling market. People perused the booths, smiling and laughing, patting shoulders and hugging friends. “In a minute,” he said and let the feeling wash over him. Homes left and remade, countries carried from one place to another, rituals remembered in tangled languages.

Ariel followed his gaze, watching the crowded market with kind eyes. “Whenever you’re ready.”

 

THE CHURCH STOOD dark and new in the wilderness.

Ariel turned the key in the ignition and stared through the windshield. Diego stared, too, shifting his gaze from the refinished front-facing windows to the patched roof and clean doors. He tipped his head against the seat and glanced at Ariel. He was so steady. Posture, perfect. Expression, tender and open. Different from when they’d first met, when Ariel had been kind but distant, and Diego had been defensive and barbed. In the beginning, when Diego’s misplaced fear had burned through him, he’d thought Ariel might’ve been a test. A way for life to say, Look at this man, this presence, this unattainable beauty, another thing you cannot have. He reached across the center console and touched Ariel’s face, palm to stubbled cheek.

Ariel closed his eyes and nuzzled Diego’s hand. His lips met heartlines and scarred knuckles, opened over thrumming pulse and highwayed veins. The old Jeep was stuffy with the windows closed, but Diego didn’t mind. He unclicked his seat belt and pitched his body closer, angling Ariel toward him. The kiss was soft at first. Closemouthed and polite. It grew quickly, deepening as Diego pried at Ariel’s lips, asking to be kissed, to be consumed. Ariel kissed like a person who hadn’t done much of it, like someone still learning what they liked. He let Diego set the pace, made quiet, pleased noises as Diego licked into his mouth, and jerked against the seat belt still clasped across his torso when Diego snared his lip, biting hard.

“It’s my turn to worship,” the angel said, so close Diego felt the outline of each syllable against his lips.

The promise of being with Ariel again shot through him, knotting like a rope around his spine, yanking inward, sending heat spiraling between his legs. Diego got out and shut the passenger door. Telling his legs to behave, to keep him upright, he walked into the church. He inhaled sharply the moment his hips were seized and allowed Ariel to stop him in the aisle between pews.

“You are blessed,” Ariel murmured, his voice amplified. He dunked his hand into the holy water and stroked Diego’s face from forehead to chin, sinking two wet digits into his mouth.

Diego sucked at him, mouth framed by his thumb and pinky. His vision blurred, unfocused, and his head spun, thoughts hazed and whirling. How could he become completely undone in the span of a few seconds? How could a handful of movements cause him to writhe in his own skin? To be suddenly, gratefully overwhelmed? He hadn’t realized he’d walked forward until Ariel turned him around, hadn’t noticed they were near the pulpit, easing into the corner until his shoulder knocked the wall. Ariel stripped efficiently, and Diego watched his body morph, his wings unfold, his hair melt into feathers. He became holy and extravagant, filling the church with power.

“Do I have your permission?” Ariel asked, cradling Diego’s face in two hands and unfastening his jeans with the other two.

“Yes,” he said, already trembling, already wet. His breath hitched around a choked-off gasp.

Hands closed around Diego’s waist and hoisted him onto the windowsill. Etched into the glass, Christ held his arms open, welcoming his disciples. Colored moonlight poured over naked skin. Diego touched Ariel’s sternum. Traced the delicate skin around the eye on his abdomen, and spread his legs, baring himself, becoming an altar. He gazed at a miracle, at something incomprehensible. For the first time, Ariel kissed him in his angelic form. His mouth felt the same, plush and lovely, dripping down Diego’s throat, teeth grazing his nipple, lips landing on his pelvis.

“I’ve come to pray,” Ariel said, and his knees thumped the floor. “Through you,” he added, breath gusting over Diego’s cunt. “Into you.”

Diego gripped the edge of the sill and held his breath, staring at the plumage on Ariel’s skull, listening to his wings beat and ruffle. He tried to keep his eyes open, willing his focus to sharpen, but the pleasure rolling through him made it impossible.

Ariel opened his mouth over Diego’s center. Licked and kissed. He was unnaturally warm, tending to Diego’s clit with his tongue, lapping at him, sucking eagerly at slickened, swollen flesh. Diego let his head hang heavy, face tipped toward the ceiling, panting and moaning. It’d been a long, long time since anyone had treated him tenderly, had drawn out his orgasm slowly, tentatively. Even longer since he’d endured overstimulation, quivering in someone’s mouth—Ariel’s mouth—as he was taken apart, piece by piece, lick by lick, whimpering please and God and don’t stop and more. Ariel held the back of Diego’s knees and pushed his legs toward his chest, widening him, spreading him open.

“I am devout,” Ariel said. His tongue circled Diego’s clit, and he sucked until Diego jerked and whined. When he stood, Diego glistened on his chin. “How could I ever deny you?”

The church was awake. Dark and beautiful and unmade by their collision. Diego clung to Ariel, gripping his face with one hand and cramming the other between their bodies. One of Ariel’s cocks dragged heavy and thick inside him, the other rested above, stroking his clit on every thrust. Diego gripped his second cock and kissed Ariel hard on the mouth, welcomed quiet, slow lovemaking. Diego met his three eyes, aware that many more were fixed on him, and let Ariel take his weight, gave himself over to being held. He touched his tongue to the narrow point of Ariel’s elongated teeth, took shelter in the strong arms curled beneath his legs and wrapped around his middle, kissed him with a hunger he’d never experienced.

“I could worship you,” Ariel whispered raggedly.

“I would let you,” Diego said.

“Stay with me. Stay, little coyote,” he said, breathing hard. “You’ll be safe.”

Diego surged forward and sealed their mouths together. “Because you’ll keep me.” He quite liked the idea of being kept.

“Because you’re mine,” Ariel rumbled.

Ariel carried him out of the nave and propped Diego against the shower wall, let lukewarm water rain down on them. Fucked him hard and fast while Diego cried out, eyes unfocused and pinned to the dewy ceiling, mumbling incoherently, “Por favor, más dura, no pares.” After that, they tangled together in cotton sheets, and Diego found himself straddling an angel—a fucking angel—thanking a God he barely knew, discovering faith in damp skin and pearlescent feathers.

So many things he’d been, so many things he’d become.

Caged, kept, coyote, sinner, idol.

Diego López kissed an angel—his angel—until dawn pinkened on the horizon.

 

THE FIRST SERVICE at Catedral de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe began at eight o’clock, sharp.

People arrived in dusty sedans and pickup trucks. Most wore Sunday best, dressed in collared shirts and ankle-length skirts, but some carried remnants of late-night shifts on their work clothes. Abuelas and parents quieted grandchildren, and tías fixed crooked ties. Hushed chatter fluttered through the nave, and Diego López stood in the corner, sipping coffee as families streamed inside and filled the pews.

Strange, standing in the aftermath of a rebuilt sanctuary. He’d thought the work wouldn’t be done—couldn’t be done—but there he was, watching light glint off holy water, rippling with every tap from a welcomed fingertip, and there they were, the faithful who’d come to worship, searching for a lost God in a once abandoned place.

Tomorrow, Diego would guide a group of travelers through the underground tunnel beneath the church. He’d arrange overnight stays for most and send coordinates for reunions with family or friends for the lucky few with rendezvous plans. He’d serve mole de panza with thickly sliced sourdough. Provide safe labor for people who were ready to work and direct families to housing organizations who could help them get settled. He’d pray with them too. Reach for an angel, he’d say with conviction, with power. Someone is listening, someone will hear you, someone will find you.

The double doors clicked shut, and Diego snuck into the very last pew, watching colored light stream across the floor where he’d knelt, and lain, and prayed.

The pastor took his place behind the pulpit and flicked open a well-loved leatherbound Bible. “Buenos días,” he said. “Que Dios esté con nosotros.”

The pew creaked beside him, adjusting to the weight of another body. “Amen,” Ariel said and rested his hand on Diego’s thigh.

Diego traced Ariel’s thumb and turned toward the window, half listening as the sermon began. Decorating the glass, the Blessed Mother stood with her palms pressed together in prayer, and in the thin reflection, a glimmering wing extended from Ariel’s back and stretched protectively over Diego’s shoulder.

You listened, Diego thought, and smiled as Ariel kissed his knuckles. You found me.