Chapter 19 #2
I focus on Vale. On trying to leave everyone else outside of this little sphere of our own.
On how good he looks. On how he smiles at me as the song changes and the lights go from white and blue to red.
He takes off his wings and leaves them on a high table nearby before holding his hand out to me as he yells, “Needed to get rid of those. Dance with me.”
Have fun. Be here . I think about Pops telling me that maybe my whole problem is that I’ve never let myself truly live. And I want that. I want to live. I want to let myself have this moment for as long as I can get.
“I—yeah. Okay.”
Move, Gabi. Just dance. Take the risk. Just this once.
I let Vale pull me close to him as he says, “Let me know if you get uncomfortable or anything, okay?” and he spins around, backing up even closer and filling what space was left between us.
He guides my hands to his bare stomach, and my fingers clasp there, holding him.
His back fully presses against my front and fuuuuu —I know he’s feeling how immediately my body’s reacting.
How very the opposite of uncomfortable I am.
What happens when someone starts grinding against someone else with a dick that’s been lonelier than usual the past month and a week or two, if we’re not counting how busy my hand’s been keeping it ever since my mind wouldn’t stop thinking about Vale.
He doesn’t say anything about it. Or acknowledge it at all.
He keeps dancing. My hands loosen and let go, touching more of his lean stomach.
And it’s nice. It’s great. It’s perfect.
It feels like living. I tighten my grip on him again, my face falling to his neck for a quick second, inhaling the sweet cologne he’s wearing that smells like marshmallows and campfire and relaxes my body.
One song turns into another turns into a half hour and then an hour of singing and dancing.
Peso Pluma’s “TEKA” comes on and we scream the lyrics together with the better part of a thousand other people, our bodies moving.
Vale turns around and I don’t think twice about grabbing his ass and picking him up, holding on to those cheeks as one of his arms comes around my neck.
The DJ does this wild beat drop transition into Bad Bunny’s “Party” and we only scream louder.
I look into Vale’s eyes, watch how the lights catch them, watch him pump his free arm into the air.
And even with all the bodies, the sweaty and drunk people, the smell of weed in the air, it’s still just Vale and me.
Like we’re the only two people in the whole world.
Like, here, in this warehouse, music playing so loud it’s probably shaking the walls, we’ve created our own little universe.
And I want to keep it that way for as long as I can.
Vale looks down at me, showing me those brown eyes with gold around them. Those lips. I want those lips. I haven’t stopped wanting those lips since I first got a taste of them. He taps my shoulder, bringing me out of my haze, and I let him down.
“Didn’t want to tire you out making you carry me all night.”
“What? Nah.” I flex for him, enjoying how actually gluttonous his eyes get. How hungrily he looks at me. “We’re just getting started.”
And if my eyes are at all showing how I’m feeling inside, he knows he’s not the only one who’s getting closer and closer to feral. I let my hand go to those lips. Slowly, giving him second after second to stop me. Or maybe hoping in one of those seconds I’ll tell myself to know better and drop it.
I don’t. My thumb gently hovers over the bottom lip, feeling him smile. His tongue grazes the tip of my finger, and I let out a moan I’m so thankful the music covered.
I need those lips.
I don’t think I can make it one more night without them.
“Vale, I—”
I lean in slow, and actually feel him take a breath in and nod, waiting for it.
“Please,” he whines softly.
And I take them.
I kiss him.
And he kisses me back.
And, fuck, Vale is really the best kisser in the world.
When my hands drop back to his ass, his go from my arms to around my neck, intertwining his fingers and holding me.
And his kiss gets hungrier, as he lets my tongue into his mouth.
At the same time, if he didn’t feel how my body was reacting just dancing with him, he’s got to know now.
Making out with him is like the tides coming onto the beach.
Some do so forcefully. Like waves crashing onto rocks.
Others are soft, intentional. And I want it all.
I want to memorize how soft his lips are.
The way his tongue brushes against mine.
The sound of his moans that go from his mouth right into mine and his whine when I grind into him and how his breath hitches as my fingers slowly glide up to the elastic band where his loincloth starts and then down, careful not to tear anything.
Feeling how soft the skin of his ass is and—
“ Shit. Sorry,” some guy says from behind me after he fully runs into my back, nearly knocking Vale and me over, pulling me forcefully back into this warehouse and the reality of us still surrounded by this huge crowd of people.
I turn around to see what happened, who I might have to yell at for ruining the vibe, which drunk cabr ó n is doing way too much tonight, and—
Santa mierda.
I’ve never thought that Coolidge’s “Are we robots?” conversation had any truth behind it until now, when everything that happens feels automatic; like my soul’s left my body and the fear and survival programming inside my brain takes the wheel over my consciousness.
Without thinking, my hands leave Vale and nearly go up, like I need to prove I haven’t been touching him.
“Oh, damn! Pi n a!” Barrera yells before coming in for a high five (because, to someone as drunk as he is right now, that’s obviously what I’m doing) and a hug I barely reciprocate, worried that a specific part of my body hasn’t caught up yet to what’s happening now.
My heart’s beating erratically, so loud that I can barely hear him asking, “What’s up, little bro?
Didn’t realize you were here. Where’s everyone else? ”
I’m on the verge of a panic attack. This is definitely what a panic attack feels like.
“Glad I ran into you, though. We should get a shot, yeah?”
Because I was kissing Vale.
“Oh, and there’s this girl I want you to meet. She’s in a sorority, the little sister of a girl I’m hooking up with. Hot .”
And he was kissing me back.
“Knows about you, obviously, and seemed really into meeting you. And if she’s anything like her big sister, you’re in for some real fun tonight. Where is she? Shit, I was just dancing with her big sister too. Maybe they went to the bathroom.”
We were kissing in the middle of a party where tons of our classmates are.
Where my whole squad is. Somehow, I got lucky enough that Barrera didn’t see what I was doing, but that doesn’t mean that in the minutes I was making out with Vale someone else didn’t see.
Didn’t clock me. That I won’t be getting a call from Barrera tomorrow telling me that one of our teammates spotted me making out with the boy that he already can’t stand me being around.
I’m so fucking stupid. Jesus fucking Christ. I—
“Sorry,” I tell Barrera. “I—I’ve got to go.”
I ignore his “See you around, little bro,” and then also the “Gabi! Gabi, wait” coming from behind me.
“I have to go,” I say again. “I need to go home.”
“I’m going with you then,” Vale tells me.
I don’t stop until we’re outside in the cool October night, standing in a full parking lot. “What? Why?”
Vale’s quiet. His arms cross over his chest again, one of his hands holding on to his wings.
He looks like he’s trying to figure out how to say ten different things all at once.
His eyes go to the ground and then to me and then to the sky.
His mouth forms shapes and phantom words until he finally says, “I came with you. I mean, I can get my own Uber or something if you need the space. I can just go home and get my clothes back tomorrow. I won’t force you. But … but maybe we could talk?”
I let out a loud sigh, closing my eyes, considering the reality of what comes next.
Of what’s already happened. And, if I could take back tonight, if I could erase everything Vale and I did in there, I would— I wouldn’t .
I knew letting those thoughts, the feelings I have for Vale, out into the world would only get me in trouble.
But whatever happens next, I needed tonight. I needed Vale.
I need Vale.
“Gabi? Are you okay?”
“Yeah. No. I—I’m good. I just need a second.”
I might not feel so confident about how okay I actually am if I do end up getting found out tonight. But until then, I want to hold on to that acknowledgment of myself. I want to memorize how certain and perfect that moment felt. I want that little universe we created all for ourselves back.
History is repeating itself for me tonight, offering me the chance to maybe say what’s on my mind this time.
“Come home with me.”