26 #2
One of them hollers, "To the club! The night’s not gonna dance itself!"
Chairs scraping, bills tossed, half-full glasses almost taking off. The kids yank their caps low, chains flashing, the sting of human funk. The blonde hooks herself onto Alaska’s arm, glued there, staking her claim, smiling too hard.
Alaska, swaying a little, is in faster than fast. "C-l-u-u-u-b!" she sings at me, stretching every syllable, with that shine in her eyes that wrecks my chest.
I plant myself in front of her, blocking her path, firm. "No. Not a fucking chance."
The noise stalls. They all look at me, waiting for drama.
"What do you mean, no?" one of them blurts, stunned. "We’re all here! C’mon, this is begging for grinding!"
"Not happening," I repeat, arms crossed, rooted. "I’m not taking them to a club. Too many people, too much stupid, too high a chance you’ll make a mess of it."
Alaska gives me a crooked little smile that pisses me off and turns me on at the same time.
She looks stupidly good, a little sweaty.
But the blonde is still glued to her arm.
Heat climbs my face. Jealousy itches, fear itches, the itch to smack the drink out of her hand and drag her into a bathroom itches. I bite my tongue. Breathe. Again.
They’re all about to launch when Luna steps forward and cuts it off fast. "Hey." She lifts a hand, calm. "Pause a second. You’re in stampede mode. Let’s get our heads on straight, okay? First we pick a spot, because getting a group this big in isn’t that easy.
My friend Berta works at a really cool place in Chueca. Let’s go there."
The kids listen, nodding without a peep. Two sentences and she cools them off. She drops a quick plan and they’re all, "Yeah, yeah, okay."
Luna slides up and brushes my shoulder, voice low. "Relax, Nat. If you squeeze Alaska any harder, she’ll climb on a table and dance for you. And you’ll die."
"You don’t get it, Luna. With her… things happened. And that’s why she’s like this, because I don’t know how to handle this. I don’t."
"Seriously?" Luna blinks, a big laugh slipping out.
"Yeah." I look at her, dead serious. "But shut up. Not a word. To anyone."
She throws her hands up, dramatic. "Dyke’s honor. Sealed. Girl, now it all clicks. I thought it was just tension, but you already hooked up with her, you bitch."
I rub my face. I’m tired and hot inside. I tell her the essentials, no kink, just enough so she understands the wreck I’m carrying in my chest. Luna listens, eyes wide, that little smile won’t come off with acid. When I’m done she bumps my elbow.
"You’re the shit, Nat." She laughs. "You—the hardass, the pro, the knot-untyer—and you go and get hung up on the baddest girl in the neighborhood. The boss’s little sister. You like extreme sports, huh?"
"Gata…" I growl, half flushed, half happy she gets it.
"For real." She lowers her voice, teasing but soft. "This isn’t your usual pattern. Popovita’s not a puppy or a toy. You can tell the girl’s got a spine. She’s gonna challenge you and make you show up. This one’s got more brains than she lets on."
I’m about to answer, but everything kicks into gear. We pour out toward the subway. The subway; my neck tightens just thinking about it.
Me, who drives even to grab a loaf of bread, now heading down grimy stairs with a pack of half-drunk kids shouting reggaeton chants. It smells bad. The lights flicker. My bones go on alert.
They move easy, they know the map, hop turnstiles without messing up their hair, push doors to the rhythm of their laughs, drop neighborhood jokes that pull a smile out of me even when I don’t want to.
I trail behind, watching bags, faces, hands that get too close.
The back of my neck burns. I want eyes in my back.
Alaska walks two steps ahead, the blonde at her side, turns her head and looks at me over her shoulder, slow, shameless.
She eats me alive with her eyes and bites her lip.
My stomach cinches. She knows exactly what she’s doing.
She knows I want her close. She knows I can’t touch her, shouldn’t, that she’s off-limits by contract and by pride, and still, she lights me up.
"Breathe." Luna brushes my knuckles, discreet, and whispers, "You live for the chaos, but tonight we play it clean. You and me, Nat. We get them there without losing them or ourselves."
I nod. One heartbeat, another. The train screeches in. The doors open. The kids pour in like an avalanche.
I stick to Alaska. She catches my scent, laughs low, and brushes my arm. A touch. A second. Enough to bring the heat roaring back and to remind me of her mouth on mine, her hands gripping my neck, all of it.
To top it off, she’s drunk. She laughs louder than everyone, stumbles.
The urge to protect her boils me. My whole body hums. I bite my lip.
But it’s not me who catches her when she trips.
It’s the bottle-blonde, gluing herself back on and whispering in her ear.
I want to peel her off with a gentle shove.
We transfer lines and the twins’ friends launch into war stories as soon as the doors slide shut. I try to play the pro: eyes front, clock the car, hands still in my bag. Yeah, right. A minute in and my ear’s on radar, because what they’re spilling hooks me.
"They were the queens of the group home," says a guy in a cap, hanging off the pole with both hands. "Alaska always had her books—she was like the teacher. Taught all of us, that chick."
"Alaska the teacher and Vega the one who ran everything," adds the one with the eyebrow piercing and electric-blue nails. "If she wanted something, she’d make you think you needed it. Total soft touch."
"Vega wasn’t a nerd, she was the one who split up the work… and we’d end up doing exactly what she’d already gamed out."
"And me," jumps in another with a gym bag, "I’m alive thanks to Alaska. Girl could command. She’d go, ‘Read this,’ and I’d shut up and read. She saved my year."
"She told us Don Quixote herself," the cap guy finishes. "Better than the teacher. Like she had it memorized. Boss level."
I glance sideways. Vega smiles and drops her head, adorable, caught between shy and proud. Alaska, meanwhile, bristles, folds her arms, shrinks into the seat, tucks her feet up.
"Drop it already," she mutters. "It wasn’t all that."
They keep at it. They love reliving it. And every line lands like a pin. She doesn’t want it here. Not with me listening. That smart Alaska, the one who reads, who teaches, who pulls the group along, leaves her exposed. I feel it. She does too.
"Not a lecture," the bottle-blonde complains. "You even made the news for getting the highest score in Madrid on the college entrance exams. My grandma’s called you ‘the TV girls’ ever since."
A stupid flush crawls up my neck. I already knew Alaska wasn’t just some girl in the crowd.
You hear it in every quick answer, every look that cuts clean, every fact she drops without breaking a sweat.
Hearing it from her friends finishes me off.
I picture her with her notes, shushing the hallway, breaking down verbs, laying down the law with that mouth I want to bite.
I don’t care about the blonde. I don’t care about any of them.
"All right, all right," the cap guy butts back in, playing the clown. "What about Mr. J, huh? Come on, tell that one. Mr. J, the principal. He was really up in your business, right?"
Alaska lifts her face and locks on him. She doesn’t say a word, but her jaw sets.
"What are you saying?" Vega snaps, flat.
"Nothing bad, dude," the cap guy keeps stretching the joke like gum. "You were Mr. J’s girls. Permission slips on the first ask, his office always open. The Spirit Day poster with your faces on it, huge. Principal was a fan. I cracked up."
"We were not his girls," Alaska cuts in, lower. "Don’t you remember the punishments?"
"Yeah," adds the one with the piercing, a weak laugh that won’t come. "And in advisory it was always, ‘Let’s see what the sisters think.’"
"Because we spoke up," Vega finishes, unmoving. "Period."
Silence. The car lurches. A baby cries down the car. Alaska’s fingers dig into her bag. Vega presses her lips together. Something bristles in me I don’t show. I want to put a force field between them and the group. I stay still. I’m good at staying still.
"Lay off that topic, Jona. You have no idea." The blonde barks out an ugly laugh. No one joins.
The moment goes stiff. I feel it in the air, a sort of damp that won’t air out. Alaska peels herself off the seat, clears her throat, and flips to deflection mode.
"Want a scary story?" she says. "The security guard at our high school wore two patches and he wasn’t a pirate. One covered a zit. The end. Gold star."
She laughs alone. Two stray courtesy chuckles. Her timing’s off. She wants noise. She wants a diversion. She wants me to look. I look. I track every move. Her foot trembles a little and she hides it under the seat. She touches her hair, then thinks better of it and drops her hand.
"My grandma says the subway steals inches," the piercing girl pipes up. "That’s why I’m shorter. Blame Line Six."
"Your grandma’s been the same height since the eighties," Vega shoots back, a half smile slipping out and dimming her anger for a second.
"Anyone have water?" Alaska asks.
I pass her my bottle without making a thing of it. She takes it without touching me. Drinks. Hands it back. We don’t look at each other. I want her. I hold back.
Our friends laugh and show off, pleased with the sound of their own voices. Luna shoots me a "Relax. It’s under control" look, and I nod without saying a word.
And Alaska… Alaska presses closer to the blonde, laughs too loud, turns her face toward me so I don’t miss it. Knowing she’s doing it to get a rise out of me doesn’t help. The shameless performance is right there in her eyes and, even so, she still turns me on.
I want to take her hand, pull her aside, and tell her that’s it. I’m in. I don’t need any more proof. I want her so badly my fingers ache from not touching her. But I don’t. I stay put, back straight, mouth dry, heart hammering at a pace that won’t let up.
She turns for a second and looks away from me.
There it is. I’ve got it. She’s playing and she’s running.
Both at once. Under that tough-girl swagger there’s another layer she doesn’t show just anyone.
I want all of her. Smart, bitchy, sensitive, bossy, drunk, stubborn.
I want her here, beside me, no gloss, no pose.
The blonde whispers something in her ear.
Alaska laughs and squeezes her arm. I count to five.
I touch my wrist so I don’t go straight for her.
I know that if I take one step, my inhibitions are gone.
If I touch her once, I won’t stop. If I tell her "come here," she’ll come.
So I hold still. And I keep my mouth shut.