Chapter 6 - Paja / Straw
Paja / Straw
Mindful of the eyes surrounding him on the crowded bus, Dylan's thumb skipped right over the ManyFanz app icon, no matter how much the urge to check his stats again gnawed away inside his gut.
Instead, he checked his email. Scrolling through spam and the occasional reminder from his professors about their classes; turning up the volume on his headphones to drown out the baby who’d been crying since at least the stop before Dylan had gotten on; searching to see if he'd gotten an update from his immigration lawyer about his asylum application yet.
Nope, nada.
Just more waiting on waiting, I guess.
Flipping through a few other apps, Dylan kept a tight hold on the overhead bar as the bus swaggered drunkenly through a turn.
He hadn't meant to open his texts, knowing he’d find nothing good waiting for him there.
Spam about selling a house he didn't own.
A political candidate he couldn't legally vote for. Some supposed long-lost girlfriend he was pretty sure he’d remember having.
Dick enhancement quackery. A restaurant he'd never eaten at running a special he still couldn't afford…
Blocking the lot of them, he stopped and, unable to help himself, tapped open an older convo.
Dylan grunted, glaring at the little 'A' icon on the left side of the screen still stubbornly refusing to drop below the unread text he'd sent Ashton under the pretext of meeting up for their class project.
Stupid. What'd you expect, candy and flowers? Just treat it like any other hookup and move on already.
It’s not as if Dylan sat around hoping to hear from any of his other dates, and that included the ones with guys who didn't have half of some straight strawberry's hangups.
If Dylan had ever been so delusional as to assume there could be anything more, Ashton's retreat the other night after their encounter on the roof should've shut that hope down hard.
Still, it's not as if our professor will accept a, 'Sorry we couldn't finish the project, we were too busy fucking' excuse. You'd think Ashton could get over himself long enough to keep us from failing the class.
He looked up as the bus heaved itself to Dylan’s stop, like some great leviathan beaching itself upon the shore. Pocketing his phone, he shouldered his way forward through the crowded aisle just as the brakes gave a petulant hiss.
Dylan smirked at the sour-faced old man glaring at him, throwing him a wink for good measure. Idly, he wondered which pissed him off more — the color of Dylan's skin, the rainbow and 'he/they' patches sewn into his jean jacket, or the bright pink of his mohawk.
Probably all three.
Fine by him. It wasn't Dylan's job to make the guy comfortable. He had his own problems; he didn't have time for someone's made-up ones.
Pushing his way to the front, he scooped up a battered stuffed toy he'd almost stepped on, returning it wordlessly to the young woman who'd been trying in vain to soothe her fussy baby.
She took it with a harried but polite smile, one that grew genuine when her attention landed on his face.
"I like your hair," blurted out the little boy sitting next to her, his wide eyes fixed just above Dylan's head.
"Thanks, muchacho," Dylan winked at him. "I like yours."
There was a bodega on the corner run by an elderly couple and their two sons.
The younger son was on shift as Dylan walked in, offering a distracted head nod and "Wassup?
" over the door's recorded chime. He never once looked up from the textbook he was highlighting; some thick tome that made Dylan doubly glad he wasn't going after a geology degree too.
Snagging a couple shrink-wrapped multipacks of instant ramen and a soda from the cooler, Dylan very carefully did not look at his phone's notification list, quickly opening the payment app to his debit card by muscle memory alone.
"More to life than just ramen, dude," the cashier said as he rang Dylan up. "Gonna get sick if you don't eat better."
Dylan huffed, passing up the brown bananas in the basket of fruit that rotted hopefully away beside the riot of lotto tickets and branded vape stickers plastered across the clear plexiglass barrier between them. Grabbing the least dodgy apple he saw, Dylan set it on the counter next to his soda.
"Happy?" he asked, raising his right eyebrow.
"Ecstatic," the cashier drawled as Dylan paid, returning to his studies while Dylan scooped up his bounty and headed out.
It was a nice day, at least. Chilly, especially for someone who'd grown up south of the Trópico de Cáncer.
But the sun was out and the moat of oily sludge eternally separating the street and the door to Dylan's apartment building was mostly dried up, both of which were a welcome change after a week of rainy mornings.
"Ladies." Dylan nodded in greeting to the pair of elderly women collecting their mail from the panel of little brushed metal doors taking up half the wall in what passed for the building's lobby.
"Afternoon," the tall one in the blue blouse replied, smiling cheerfully at Dylan. Her companion gave a friendly wave, giggling.
He held his breath during the brief elevator ride. The super kept promising to do something about the drunks that treated it like their own personal bathroom. But since the most frequent perpetrator was her own son, everyone in the building knew it was a lost cause.
Alex and Vincent were laughing, mocking some show on the TV in disgust as Dylan walked in.
Ian took up the end third of the couch next to his boyfriend, wearing his usual expression of being perpetually adrift in the swift sea of the other two's rapid-fire Spanish.
Seeing Dylan, he perked up, but the sunshine was quickly eclipsed by a storm cloud that'd recently become all-too familiar.
"Hey, Dylan…" Ian began hesitantly, obviously uncomfortable broaching the well-worn subject.
"Hey," Dylan interrupted him, as casually and cheerfully as if he were merely replying to a greeting.
"Glad I caught you. I know I said I'd get you that $400 I owe for rent by tomorrow, but $200 just landed in my account this morning and my paycheck from the computer lab doesn't come in until Friday.
Do you mind if I pay you now before it gets whittled down, and the rest at the end of the week? "
Ian's pinched expression cleared, the relief replacing it only making Dylan feel that much guiltier. His roommates were stand up guys, and he felt like such a heel coming up short every month. If that meant the dozen packets of ramen —
And an apple. Thank you, bodega busybody.
– he’d just bought were the sum total of his food budget for the next few days to cover it, then so be it. Not as if Dylan hadn't been through worse.
“Yeah, that'll be fine,” Ian said. “Hey, we're all gonna go to The Bodyshop tonight. You in?”
Internally, Dylan grimaced, though his pasted-on smile didn't slip an inch. It'd be good to hang out, and maybe if the gay bar didn't charge a $20 cover to walk in the door he could swing it. The idea of finding some hottie to fuck the memory of Ashton out of his system was pretty appealing too.
But that $200 he'd promised Ian really was scraping the bottom of his account. Risk their pity and go back on it, just so he could catch some dick?
Naw, not worth it.
…Probably.
Besides, he had business to take care of if he wanted to make next month’s rent.
And preferably not late this time.
And if the guys are out clubbing it up, I won't have to be careful about keeping it quiet.
“Wish I could, but I've an Algebra assignment
– “
“Boo!” Vin interrupted, he and Alex’s show apparently forgotten as Dylan found himself the center of all three of his roommates’ attention. “You’re always studying. Come dance with us tonight!”
“Vin,” Alex said in a low voice, his expression uncomfortably knowing.
Ian glanced at his boyfriend, and Dylan did not flinch to see those eyes widen in realization, before darkening with something too uncomfortably close to pity. Yeah – this conversation was about to head in directions he didn't want it to go, and fast. That he was sure of.
“I’ll spot you,” Saint Ian offered. “Or you can pay rent on Friday when your paycheck comes in, like you said.”
Yep, time to be anywhere but here.
“Look, Papi – it's cute how bad you wanna see me shake my ass, really. But you gotta be cool or Alex’s gonna find out about us,” Dylan mock-whined, enjoying the painfully embarrassed expression spreading across Alex's face where he sat next to Ian.
“But – “
“Not failing my Algebra class for your amusement either, Vin,” Dylan interrupted him, already moving toward the safety of his room. “You kids have fun, and don't do anyone I wouldn't do.”
Dylan didn't slam his door, but only by dint of being very, very careful not to. He didn't want the guys thinking he was angry, just…
The three of them grew up here. It's not their fault they don't know what it's like.
There was a lot Dylan's roommates took for granted.
So what if Alex wasn't actually born on this side of the border?
His dad was American, and he'd been brought over as a baby.
Ian's background might've been unusual but there'd never been any question of his citizenship, and even Vin was from Puerto Rico.
None of them had rushed to join the small group darting out The Bodyshop's secret exit last month when the cops had raided the gay bar on some pretext or other, even if 'raid' wasn't what they were officially calling it these days.
Didn’t matter if he hadn't actually done anything wrong. Didn’t matter if the charge was bogus, or if they released him right after, either.
He couldn't afford an arrest on his record.
Not now. Even if he could prove his innocence beyond a doubt, Dylan would still have to disclose it, possibly causing issues with his visa.
Like I need to give them any more reasons to reject my application and ship me back…