Chapter 25
VALE AND I ARE a couple hours into studying in my room, him on my bed and me at my desk, wishing I was closer to him, touching him, but we already tried that earlier today and—especially because we had a solid half hour without any of my roommates in the house—ended up with our clothes on the floor and me finding out what frotting is (Big fan. Huge ).
Now I’m banished, only getting to shamelessly watch my boyfriend read and smile at the way his eyes squint when he hits a point he doesn’t agree with or how he’ll let out a loud sigh when he’s reread some paragraph three or four times and is still having trouble following.
And, when I’m not doing that, I’m putting my calculator to work and drawing graphs that Vale says give him a headache just looking at.
“Wild you can just do that ,” he tells me. I turn around and see him looking my way. “You make it look so easy.”
I give him a small smirk, looking back at my work.
“Once you figure out the formula, it’s pretty black and white.
This is easy stuff compared to finding the right words to say in an essay.
Metaphors and similes? That’s wild. So don’t think you’re going to stop being my tutor after this semester ends.
I’m going to take advantage of that English major next. ”
“Okay, but literature is easy compared to philosophy.”
“But harder than math.”
“That’s scientifically not true.”
“ And way less fun.”
“Wild er that you can say math is fun and I still think you’re hot.”
My smirk turns into a big smile and a quiet laugh. “It is though. It’s like a puzzle. There’s a ton of wrong answers with twice as many ways to get those wrong answers and one right answer.”
Vale chuckles through closed lips and goes back to his book.
A book that looks nowhere near as fun as my math homework.
Honestly, I think he could use a break today.
Someone— his boyfriend, maybe —should help him relax.
I’m nearly finished with this. What’s taking another thirty minutes, going over to that bed, turning him over and—
“Yo, Pi n a!” P é rez yells, crashing into my room, nearly slamming my door into the wall. Vale and I both jump and a “Chinga tu madre , ” comes out of my mouth purely from the fear.
“P é rez, damn,” I groan. “Knock, my guy.”
“I told him,” Kat says, catching up and walking in with a casualness and grace that my teammate could never have. “But he had an idea that he said he has to tell y’all about now.”
Ten bucks it’s going to be something so unserious and I’m going to regret giving him the next minute of my life, but, “Pues. Tell us your idea then, bro.”
He takes a seat at the edge of my bed, looking between Vale and me with this weird, toothy smile. And then finally, “Do y’all have anything important going on tomorrow?”
“Classes,” I tell him bluntly. “Tomorrow’s Friday.”
“Okay, but besides that. And then Saturday? Sunday?”
“We’re on a bye week for the weekend,” I say, giving P é rez a glare when he starts laughing about it.
“And we get it; it’s funny. Bi week . Coach let us off, yeah?
So the squad’s got nothing. I was probably just going to use the time for some extra training.
Barrera offered to do drills with me, prepare for the last couple of matches we’ve got left before conference playoffs.
” I look over to Vale, “What about you?”
“Work, but I could get out of that pretty easily.”
“Good. Good. This is promising. Then I have a proposition for y’all. Want to run away this weekend?”
My head backs up a little, and my eyes squint, trying to get a read on P é rez and what’s going on in that brain of his. “What’re you talking about?”
“It’s going to be sunny and mideighties the next few days, we’ve got nothing holding us here; I’m saying we should take a trip.
Go to the Frio River or Lake Travis. Oh , better, go get naked at Hippy Hollow?
Either way, we find a cheap place out there and forget about school and Corpus.
Look, you two deserve a weekend where you don’t have to be looking over your shoulders all the time.
Where you can just be yourselves. I mean, you should be getting more than just a weekend, but, for right now, that’s what I can provide you.
So, the four of us, middle of nowhere, on the water—fresh water—having a good time.
And I think skipping one day out of the whole semester is a small price to pay for that. ”
“What about Ahmed and Nguyen? Won’t they ask where we are?”
“They’re beating us to the punch. Texted them, and Nguyen’s leaving up to Austin to visit his girlfriend for the weekend and Ahmed’s got some family wedding. And our Nutrition class was cancelled tomorrow. Neither of them will ever know. You’ve got to admit, it’s perfect.”
It is a solid plan. Besides my roommates, I don’t have any classes with anyone else on the squad.
There’s just— “I’d have to come up with something to get out of training with Barrera.
Guy’s already going harder than he has all season about me being ready for the championship tournament.
He’s going to make me pay for this on Monday. ”
“He’ll get over it. Come on, papi. Tell him something family related came up.”
I look over at Vale, staring at me. I can see him trying to contain his excitement about this idea.
How he’s trying to keep calm in case I have to stay.
Eyes looking like he’s finding out he’s got his own X-Man powers and is trying to telepathically communicate to me that he won’t be disappointed, as much as he wants this.
I want this too. And I want to give this to him.
“Okay. Yeah. Let’s go.”
Seeing Vale let that excitement out is everything to me. How big his smile gets. I barely even hear P é rez continue talking, something about finding us a place and leaving right after we wake up. All my mind’s on is jumping onto my bed and kissing that smile as soon as we’re alone.
Vale beats me to it, scooting off my bed and walking over to me, sitting in my lap, focusing on my eyes before asking, “You sure about this?”
“Completely,” I say before kissing him. “Just you and me, baby. Well, you and me and P é rez and Kat. But still.”
“Just you and me, coraz ó n.”
This is exactly what I needed. Corpus Christi in the distance behind us.
Vale barely half awake, cuddled into my side, my arm draped over him.
I catch Kat catching me kissing the top of his head every few minutes, smiling back at them and then letting out a silent laugh at P é rez knocked out in the passenger seat.
A solid playlist fills the car, giving us a soundtrack for the trip.
One that, if I can help it, will be even better than any Netflix coming-of-age series Vale could ever think of.
This is what happiness actually feels like.
No doubt, I’ve been happy lately. I’d say I’m usually a pretty happy guy.
A low-drama, seek-out-my-pleasures kind of person.
But what’s become obvious since the semester started is that there have been all these asterisks attached to that happiness.
I get to be really happy being Vale’s. But I also can’t call him my boyfriend out loud.
I get to be happy playing the sport I love.
But I get constantly reminded of how I’m only welcome as straight Gabriel Pi n a.
I have great friends and love the fact that I didn’t go out of the city or state for college because I get to see my parents regularly, but they don’t get to see all of me.
I get to see myself changing and growing and proving first-day-of-school me wrong, but I can’t talk about those changes and that growth with the people around me.
But, for this weekend, I get to be happy without the asterisks.
I get to be myself. I get to acknowledge and celebrate the parts of myself I’m discovering that make me feel so much more …
me . I get to breathe and leave all my worries back at the bay.
I get to hold on to Vale and lay those soft kisses on him as much as I want.
And I’m going to take every single minute of the next few days and make the best of them.
After a few hours, we finally leave coastal flatland and hit hills.
We turn onto a long country road that, after about fifteen minutes, becomes dirt and gravel.
P é rez, now awake and being an attentive copilot, goes from his phone to looking around us, directing Kat, telling them, “Keep going,” and “Have we passed a tree with a red tire swing?” until, eventually, and almost at the very end of the road, in between a handful of other small two-story cabins, he tells them to stop with a “ There! We’re here! ”
“Cozy,” Vale says as he steps out of the car, looking at the wooden cabin, a porch lining the front of the house, a balcony above it with a small hot tub, and a pit a couple yards away from Kat’s car.
We’re only a minute from the shallow part of the river on the opposite side of the road and a short walk to where everyone goes floating.
“It’s perfect,” I add, my arms wrapping around his waist.
And I only let him go because we have to carry our luggage in, along with the couple of ice chests full of food and drinks to last us the weekend (including some bottles Vale’s cousins bought for him).
The inside of the cabin, unsurprisingly, smells heavily of wood.
Like I just walked into a Home Depot, but comfier and less dusty.
On the bottom floor is a pretty large kitchen, big enough for all four of us to be standing in comfortably, a dining table with enough seats for six, and a living room with a couple couches and chairs.
Upstairs are the bedrooms, one for P é rez and Kat and the other for Vale and me.
A bathroom in each, and a door that connects to the balcony.
And everywhere we look, cowboy decorations, including a huge cow head above the TV.