Chapter 9
“MORNING,” I SAY THROUGH a big yawn to Nguyen, who turns from the stove to look back at me and do one of those Sup?
head nods before going right back to the protein pancakes he’s making.
Basically, how every Sunday morning has started since mid-July, and, like usual, he’s the only one of us who had enough decency to put on shorts before coming downstairs.
I woke up, felt my body screaming for water, realized that I shouldn’t have chugged whatever Ahmed made me last night, crawled out of bed with all those final thoughts from last night gone (and rubbed out), grabbed my Stanley, and started walking.
He’s lucky I at least put my underwear back on before falling asleep.
I rest my head against the fridge door while filling up my cup, chugging the whole thing, and then doing it all over again.
This is really all I need to get me back to functional.
Not that I ever hit a point I’d call drunk last night, but even if I’d gotten there, I’m less of a “painfully hungover, regretting everything” sort of person and more of a “very dehydrated” kind of guy the morning after a party.
The perks of having a rowdy-ass group of friends in high school; I came to college ready to hang.
A good body shake and a couple hops right in the middle of the kitchen, asking Nguyen to give me random numbers to add in my head to get the brain going, and letting water into my system gets me right quick.
“Now stop waving your junk at me,” he says after I’ve answered what three hundred forty-seven plus eight hundred twenty-eight (“Eleven-seventy-five, easy.”) is as he drowns his breakfast in syrup. I let out a laugh and promise him that I’m done for now.
I open the fridge, pulling out everything I need for my usual breakfast: overnight oats in a mason jar sweetened with agave, pineapple cut in pieces, and shredded coconut. Mix it all together with a little honey and taj í n, and boom . Call me Chef Pi n a. Put me on The Bear .
“Duuuude,” P é rez says in this loud, froggy voice as he comes downstairs, hair a mess and underwear on backward. “Last night was wild. All I remember is chugging this green drink that tasted like lime Jell-O. Or maybe I put a bunch of Jell-O shots in a blender.”
Nguyen lets out a single laugh as he shakes his head, looking to me to fill our dumbass-est roommate in.
“Can’t verify what you did before y’all caught up with me, but after you and Kat lost beer pong—didn’t make one cup, by the way—you chugged all the leftover cups by yourself, and once those hit, y’all were up and recording yourselves doing some dances in the backyard, and then half an hour later we found you yelling ‘Kumbia Kings!’ and doing their weird birdcall on some frat guy’s bed.
After that Nguyen and I had to carry you out. ”
“Were you the one that got me naked too, Nguyen?” he asks like he’s flirting, falling onto the couch, lifting a leg and holding it straight up in the air with a hand wrapped around his ankle. Nguyen just gives him back a tired glare, mouth full of pancake.
“Nah, you did that all by yourself,” I tell him. “Said you can’t sleep ‘when the salchicha y huevos quedan atrapados.’ ”
P é rez just shrugs as he gets back up and starts getting his own breakfast, taking milk, a banana, Frosted Flakes, and a Tupperware bowl out, landing in the seat next to me at the kitchen island, filling the bowl with milk first (because of course he puts milk first) and then half the box of cereal.
“Oh, hey. Who was that guy you were hanging out with last night?” he asks, the words muffled from the banana. “You know him? Friend from high school or something?”
“Nah. I’d never met him before last night. Helped him out with a waterfalls thing.”
“Oh nice. He was checking you out the whole time, you know that? Wanted your salchicha for sure. The way he was all ‘Gabi,’ sounding like he was in heat.”
My head goes back like a silent no mames . “What? No he wasn’t.” And then, when I hear Nguyen clearing his throat, I turn to him, all, “It’s not—there’s a lot of context missing here. And it’s not like he’s the only person ever who’s called me Gabi. Lots of people call me Gabi.”
“I believe you,” he replies, swallowing his food and putting his hands up, like a plea to leave him out of this.
“Bro. Look,” P é rez tells me. He grabs his phone, going to his videos, and pulls up one he posted last night doing some kind of dance that probably would’ve looked impressive sober but is giving more “a three-year-old trying to cumbia for the first time.” His finger points to the side of the screen where I’m talking to Kat and Vale is standing beside me.
And I know this because I’ve been caught in 4K giving many girls the same look he’s giving me: he’s fully checking me out.
His eyes go from my face to my arms, leaning on the beer pong table, to every part of me he can cover in the thirteen seconds of that video.
Also, I wish I could say I was fully innocent there, did not have a clue, was too busy talking to my friend, but—and I won’t say this out loud—I knew.
I might’ve purposefully pushed my sleeves up to my shoulders and started flexing while throwing ping-pong balls for attention.
And maybe I also might’ve caught myself staring at Vale’s ass a couple times when it was his turn to throw a ball. I’m still single and a guy. I wasn’t just going to not appreciate a nice butt. As glad as I am my boy here didn’t catch that on camera.
Again, those White Claws.
“He was into you into you. Even Kat said so. They thought you might’ve ended up coming home with him, so kind of surprised to not see him here.”
“Why are you surprised? I—”
“I know, I know. You’re straight, and I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just saying, he didn’t even offer some bussy?”
“Shut up,” I say, knocking him with my elbow, trying to seem in control of what’s happening here and also pushing back all the things I, even if only for a few seconds, imagined about Vale while jerking off last night.
A rare one-off that no one in this house needs to know about. Ever. “We were just hanging out.”
“What’s bussy?”
“Not right now, Nguyen. And finish eating your damn cereal, P é rez.” I give him a mostly unserious glare before grabbing my water bottle and chugging more. “Thinking of going to a thrift store; see if I can find some cheap shirts. Y’all want to come with?”
“Got homework,” Nguyen answers as P é rez, way more enthusiastically, asks, “Can Kat come too?”
“Yeah, whatever. Text them and tell them we’re leaving in twenty.”
I’d seen this spot on my Instagram a few times lately, on my feed nonstop basically right after I mentioned wanting to hit up a resale shop.
Mark Zuckerberg spying on me through my phone thinking he’s slick about it, but, got to hand it to him, he and his algorithms know how to give a guy a solid recommendation.
Over and over again. Eventually I was bound to wake up and think, Today seems like a good day to add a couple things to my wardrobe that’s ninety-nine percent tees, tanks that used to be tees, and nylon shorts with a five-inch inseam at longest. And by things , I absolutely mean more tees, tees I can turn into tanks, and nylon shorts with a five-inch inseam at longest.
And today has finally arrived.
P é rez and Kat hop out the passenger side, all of us taking a look around the small strip of stores with a good view of Harbor Bridge behind it.
The section of building I’m here for is painted light blue with this white line pattern that looks like connected waves.
Above the doors are big navy-blue letters spelling out H IGH T IDE .
“If Texas wasn’t a fucking narc about it, that’d be the best name for a dispensary,” Kat says. “Whenever I move to the West Coast, I’m stealing that.”
We step inside, taking in the AC and the sierre n os coming from the speakers.
We got here at a good time; no one around yet, so we don’t have to worry about throwing fists with some guy for a shirt he’s just going to resell himself.
I head straight for the tees, all hung up by color, from white to cream to brown, then from red all the way down to purple and black.
In my head, I’m already planning the best way to scope the store out: starting here, then moving to the pants and shorts against the wall, maybe checking out the hoodies and the small collection of jerseys and kits I’m seeing, and then, if I’m not able to fight it, looking at the Adidas backpack I for sure don’t need but is calling for me hard.
“Hey there, Pineapple.”
That’s not the backpack.
I turn around without any kind of grace—the sole of a Croc squeaking on the floor—catching a nice navy couch and some chairs next to the register counter.
And Leana, giving me that finger wave from the couch, making it look a lot nicer.
Her ponytail’s back up and high and she’s wearing this button-up shirt that’s doubling as a dress and boots.
And, after a second of getting distracted and fully staring at how much leg she’s showing me sitting the way she is, I realize who’s sitting next to her.
Vale.
Wait. Are they friends? They obviously know each other with how comfortable they look, but he wasn’t with her when she was moving in.
Or, at least, I didn’t catch him in the quick glance I got inside.
And they weren’t at the same party last night.
But neither of those really mean much. He might’ve been moving in too.
And he could’ve met up with her last night after I told him bye.
It’s not as if we spent the whole night together.
He had plenty of time to make an appearance at another party or post-party Whataburger or IHOP.
“Hey,” I finally manage to force out after staring for who knows how long. “I, uh—you following me or what?” I ask with a smile at the corner of my mouth, which gets bigger when Leana laughs.