4. Beatriz Seventeen-Years-Old
Beatriz: Seventeen-Years-Old
It’s one of those sticky Miami nights, hot enough that the air clings to my skin even with the windows rolled down.
Alejandro’s car is idling by the chain-link fence near the airport.
The paint's a little dull, the AC pretends to work half the time, and the dashboard light glows a stubborn orange that’s been there since he bought the damn thing.
Planes lift and drop over our heads—loud, close—and every time a taillight blinks across the sky, he squeezes my knee.
“Where do you think that one’s going?” he asks, chin tipping up toward a silver belly gliding low.
“New York,” I say, stealing a fry from the greasy paper bag in his lap. “Someone on there is wearing a coat. Poor thing.”
“In June?” He laughs, low. “They deserve it.”
Another plane thunders past, wind rushing the fence so hard it rattles. I love it here. Who knows why. Maybe because it feels like new beginnings are always starting here.
He watches me instead of the sky. “We can go one day,” he says. “Anywhere.”
“You mean when you’re famous and can afford real AC?”
“Exacto.” He grins, that soft crooked one that melts me every time. “First stop, somewhere with better french fries.”
“You dare slander these fries? They’re soaked in oil and sprinkled with a snowing of salt. They’re perfect.”
He leans over the console, steals one out of my fingers with his teeth, and kisses the salt from my lips like it’s the most important thing he’ll do tonight.
My insides tilt. I still get shy sometimes, even after all these months.
He’s been mine since we were sixteen, but he still looks at me like he just found the sun.
A song I don’t like comes on the radio and I click the knob. Static. Then guitar. Then a beat that feels like something is about to happen. He taps the wheel, listening.
“I like this one,” he says.
“Me too,” I admit, even though I don’t know why yet. He turns it up and the speakers buzz a little, like the old car is excited, too.
We don’t talk for a minute. We just breathe and listen. I slide closer, my bare knee catching on his shorts, and he slides his hand under my thigh like he owns that spot. Maybe he does.
“You tired?” he asks, thumb drawing lazy circles. “You yawned when we were leaving your street.”
“Don’t lie about me in my presence,” I say, deadpan, then ruin it by yawning again. He laughs into my shoulder and it vibrates through me.
“Want to get out?” he asks. “Feel the breeze when the next one lands?”
“That’s not a breeze,” I say, already opening the door. “That’s a shove.”
We hop out and climb onto the low concrete lip by the fence. The air tastes like heat and jet fuel. He stands behind me, arms anchoring around my waist without asking, just sliding into place like they’ve always been meant to. He buries his nose in the curve of my neck and inhales.
“Te amo,” he says, simply. Like an indisputable fact.
My jaw goes tight, because the words hit the spot they always hit.
“I love you, too,” I tell him back, letting my head rest against his shoulder.
The fence hums while the ground shakes beneath my feet.
I close my eyes and let the wind from the plane wash over us, hot and loud, until it fades away and leaves us alone again.
He doesn’t move his mouth from my skin. “You smell like coconut.”
“You smell like my perfume,” I say. “Get your own.”
“Never,” he murmurs, mouth brushing that spot beneath my ear that melts me. “I want to smell like you.”
“Cheesy.”
“Completely.”
He presses a kiss there, then another, then trails back to my shoulder. I could stand like this all night.
“Tell me something,” he says after a while, voice quiet but with my full attention. “Not about school. Not about your dad. Something you want. Big or small.”
I think. The planes keep coming. The music still spills from the open car like it refuses to be left out. “I want a place of my own one day,” I say. “Windows that face the sun in the morning. A table that’s too big. Neighbors who bring mangos.”
“A big table,” he repeats, like he’s writing it down. “Okay. For what?”
“For people,” I say. “For homework nights, if I ever teach. For birthdays. For…” I hesitate, because suddenly I see it much too clearly. “For family.”
His arms tighten. Just a little. “With me?”
“Yes,” I say, because there’s no point pretending. “With you.”
The answer softens something in him I can feel through my back. His breath leaves, slow and contained. “Good.”
We watch another plane skate across the black. The song ends; another thread of music starts. He hums along, not caring that he’s off-key. I smile into the sound. I didn’t know I’d ever get to be this happy again after Mami died.
“Your turn,” I say. “Tell me something you want.”
“To play,” he says, immediately. “To make a team that doesn’t laugh when I say I can run all ninety.” Then he slides his chin on my shoulder and nudges. “And to keep this,” he says, voice lower. “You. Always you.”
I pretend to sigh. “Fine.”
He laughs as he lets me go, moving in front of me and walking me backward until the backs of my knees meet the warm car grate, then he kisses me like he’s sealing a promise on my lips. My hands find his jaw, then his shirt, and then we give up on thinking for a while.
“Bee,” he says against my lips.
“Hmm?”
“Will you be mine forever?"
My heart skips a beat. I open my eyes to make sure he’s teasing. He’s not. He looks… sure. Not cocky. Not begging. Just sure.
“Yes,” I say, which is ridiculous, because we are seventeen and the future is a word we toss around like confetti. But I say it anyway. “Yes.”
He exhales like I gave him air. “Okay,” he says, smiling, and then kisses me like his future depends on it.
We climb back into the car when sweat finally defeats romance.
The seats burn a little on my thighs. I toss my sandals to the floor and tuck my feet under me.
He starts the engine and the fan coughs warm air at our faces.
The song from earlier drifts back in on a radio replay, like the DJ is reading our night.
“What is this?” I ask. “I want it.”
He squints at the tiny screen like it owes him money. “Algo Mágico,” he says, testing the words. “Rauw Alejandro.”
“It’s really good.”
“Yeah,” he says softly, his eyes on me. “It is.”
We listen again, better this time. He taps the wheel in rhythm. I tap his knee with my fingers on the off-beats to annoy him. He grins and overplays the rhythm on purpose, which makes me laugh, which makes him do it more. It’s a whole thing.
“This could be our song,” he says when it ends.
“That’s so cheesy.”
“Say yes.”
“Fine.”
“Our song,” he says, satisfied.
“Okay, Ale,” I say, loving the way it sounds. “Our song.”
A small plane rises in the distance, nothing like the giants we’ve been watching, and I imagine it’s carrying just us, right across the bay, circling once to wave at everyone who ever thought we wouldn’t last. I don’t say that.
It’s too dramatic, even for me. I just reach for his hand and tangle our fingers.
“Stay up a little longer?” he asks.
My curfew tugs at the edge of the moment. I should care. I don’t. “Ten minutes.”
“Fifteen,” he says, shamelessly.
“Twelve,” I counter.
“Twelve and a half.”
I groan. “Deal.”
He laughs and kisses my knuckles like I just saved him from something. Then, without warning, he slides out of his seat and opens my door. “Come here,” he says.
“What are you doing?”
“Dancing.”
“There’s no room.”
“There’s enough.” He offers his hand. “Bee.”
I go, because I always go when he says my name like that.
He draws me into the narrow space between the open door and his chest, one of his hands finding the small of my back, the other settling warm around my fingers.
The radio obeys us and gives the song one more loop, as if even it has decided it belongs to us.
We sway. That’s it. Nothing fancy. My cheek finds his shoulder.
He tucks his chin into my hair. The night stays hot and loud.
A breeze tries but fails to help. I don’t care.
This is perfect. He spins me once, badly, because there actually isn’t enough room, and I try to keep a straight face, unsuccessfully. He laughs into my hair.
“We’re going to be so good at this when we’re old,” he says. “People will be mad.”
“My knees will be mad,” I say. “But okay.”
He stops moving and holds me still, like he heard something only he can hear. “Beatriz,” he says, softer now.
I look up. “Yeah?”
“I really do love you,” he says. “Not just the movie kind. The… wake up and think of you, go to practice and think of you, drive home and think of you kind. The ‘I’m better because you’re here’ kind.”
I blink hard because the already-wet summer air is not helping me hold it together. “Okay,” I say, voice uneven. “Now I’m crying. Are you happy?”
“Sí,” he says, grinning through it. “A little.”
“Jerk.”
“Yours,” he says.
I lean up and kiss him. He answers like he always does—one hand at my jaw, one hand steady at my back, careful even when he’s not.
We settle against each other, my spine to his chest, the feel of him warm through my shirt. His arms are around me, forearms resting over my ribs, fingers laced. He sets his mouth at my hairline and stays there, breathing me in like he’s memorizing something.
“Tell me another thing you want,” I say into the night.
He thinks, then hums. “A little place,” he says finally. “Not far from the beach. A stupid couch. A plant I can’t kill. You laughing in the kitchen because I’m trying to cook and failing.”
“You’re terrible at cooking.”
“I’m improving.”
“You burned eggs.”
“I toasted them,” he argues, scandalized. “On accident.”
I snort into my wrist. “Fine.”
“And Saturdays that feel like today,” he adds. “Even when we’re old.”
“Deal.”
“And Sunday naps that I say I hate but then I wake up drooling on your shoulder.”
“You drool so much.”
“Mentira.”
“Nope. Not a lie. I have evidence.” I point to my phone. “Picture evidence.”
He bites my shoulder gently in retaliation. I squeak. He laughs into my skin. I lean back harder because it feels good to be held by someone who knows all my pressure points.
Ten minutes turn into twelve-and-a-half and then into more because the night refuses to let me go. We finally slide back into our seats when my phone buzzes with a gentle reminder from Andrea that reads:
Andrea:
Time. I can only cover for you for so long, B.
I groan. “Fun police.”
“Tell her you got stuck in traffic.” He gestures at the runway. “A lot of traffic.”
“She knows you too well,” I say. “She’ll call you and make sure.”
He winces. “She would.”
We start the drive back with the windows still down.
The neighborhood flies by—bright laundromats, corner stores with hand-painted signs, a mom pushing a stroller even though it’s late.
He takes the long route because he always does.
I stick my hand out the window, fingers cutting the warm air.
He threads his pinky with mine where my elbow rests.
“Play it one more time,” he says.
“It’ll be stuck in our heads forever.”
“I want it to be.”
I search my phone for the song and click the button, and there it is again: Algo Mágico. He taps the steering wheel. I sing the chorus. We’re dumb. We love it.
At a red light, he turns to me fully. “When you hear this,” he says, “remember tonight.”
“I will.”
“And if we’re ever fighting,” he says, “play it.”
“Like a cease-fire?”
“Exactly.”
“Deal.”
He brings my hand to his mouth, kisses my palm, and I think, this is why. This is why I let him in so fast, fell for him so hard. Because he has always been this boy. Because I have always been this girl for him.
We get to my street and everything slows. He pulls up two houses away, like always. We sit with the engine off and the radio low. I don’t move yet. The porch light at my house is on. Andrea is probably watching from the window like the unpaid security guard she is.
“Text me when you’re inside?” he asks.
“I always do.”
“I know.” He smiles at his own stupid question. “I just need to hear my phone buzz.”
“Obsessed,” I say.
“Completamente,” he replies, unabashed.
I lean in and kiss him one more time, long enough to feel his shoulders loosen, short enough to get me up the walk without a lecture. I pull back an inch. "Good night."
"Buenas noches," he echoes.
“Good night,” I repeat. I slide out of the car and the heat hits me again, thick and close. I lean down and look at him through the open door. “I love you.”
He grips the wheel like he forgot how to inhale. “I love you.”
I shut the door, heading down the street to my house, and look back once. He’s still watching, making sure I make it home safely. His elbow is hanging out the window, music wrapping around him. I lift my hand. He taps two fingers against his heart. It’s dumb and I melt anyway.
Inside, Andrea is waiting with a bowl of cut fruit. “Home by the skin of your teeth,” she says.
“Shh,” I say, grabbing a piece. "Papi will hear you."
She rolls her eyes and points at my phone. “Oh, just text him already, lover girl.”
“I am,” I say, already typing
Beatriz
Inside. Goodnight. Playlist saved.
And then, because it’s true.
Beatriz
I’ve never been happier.
The three dots pop up. His reply comes fast.
Alejandro
Me neither. Algo Mágico. Sleep.
I climb into bed with sticky hair and a heart that won’t settle.
I put my earbuds in and hit play one more time.
I picture his hands at my waist, the fence humming, the planes lifting, his voice in my neck saying te amo like it’s the most obvious sentence in the universe.
I let the sound fill the room, and then I let it carry me under.