Chapter Two
Lulu
Lulu couldn’t believe how fucking awesome yesterday had turned out when it had started out so shitty.
He’d been on edge all morning, hardly closing an eye the night before, all because of that fucking creepy-ass note in his changing room.
When he’d returned from rehearsals, it had been lying there on the makeup table in all its lavender loveliness, disguised as a real love letter.
In a matter of seconds, Lulu’s mind had conjured up all sorts of impossible and wonderful scenarios, Xavi’s lovely handwriting finally asking him what he’d longed to hear for as long as he could remember.
Go out with me, Lulu. Or, even better yet, I’m in love with you.
Instead, Lulu’s stomach had nearly dropped out of his butthole with dread and disappointment when he’d read the words again and again.
He had a fucking stalker! He knew some guys were into the whole red-flag boyfriend thing, but if you’d grown up the way Lulu had, you were not looking for any more trouble.
Nope, he just wanted a quiet life as the hubby of one sexy, tattooed high school teacher with the softest belly this side of the Niagara River. That’s all Lulu had ever wanted.
He’d crushed on Xavi all through high school, but what had sealed his fate was when Xavi had gotten his first tattoo on his eighteenth birthday.
Lulu had been there to hold his hand, in theory at least, because he’d spent most of the visit at the tattoo shop with his head between his knees so as not to pass out.
When Xavi had told the tattoo artist what he was getting while showing him the small drawing of a black swan, Lulu had nearly died then and there, his poor little Cuban heart exploding into a million pieces with hope.
A black fucking swan! Could it be? As their eyes had met across the tattoo chair, Lulu had, for the first time ever, seen something in Xavi’s eyes that had confused him.
Because Lulu had always thought he didn’t stand a chance, because Xavi was fucking everything, and Lulu was just a mess.
But suddenly, he wasn’t so sure. That was, of course, right up until Xavi had burst his bubble and mumbled some bullshit about one of his favorite books having a black swan in it. Fucking fabulous.
That was more than ten years ago. Ten years of wanting and craving and trying to fuck Xavi out of his system, when the truth was that there wasn’t a cock magnificent enough to cure Lulu of his obsession with his best friend.
Not when he knew how fucking mouthwateringly delicioso Xavi looked without any clothes on from their numerous visits over the years to the Lincoln public pool.
From his broad, tanned shoulders and bulky upper arms to his grabbable love handles and hairy tree-trunk thighs.
From his big hands and broad neck to his beautiful manhood nestled in a thatch of dark hair when they changed into their swim trunks in the changing room.
It was ridiculous, really, how fucking beautiful Xavi was with his sepia skin adorned with the most intricate and colorful patterns, tattoos covering his torso, back, and arms. And it was equally pathetic how Lulu’s body yearned to lick along each and every one of them, commit the outline of each tattoo into his memory, ending at the little black swan etched into the skin on Xavi’s wrist.
And then there were the scars. Scars that spoke of unspeakable pain and loss and bravery.
The sight of Xavi’s scarred torso, back, and left arm had stolen all the air out of Lulu’s lungs that first summer after they’d become friends.
It had been their first visit to the Lincoln public pool, and Joe had been there too.
It still brought tears to Lulu’s eyes all these years later when he recalled how Xavi had hurried to change out of his T-shirt and into one of those long-sleeved UV shirts.
Lulu had seen them, though, and so had Joe.
They didn’t ask about them that day. Something in their friend’s eyes and the way Xavi had tugged at the hem of his blue UV shirt had told them not to ask.
Xavi had told them eventually, though. Of the numerous reconstructive surgeries that followed the devastating fire.
How the surgeons had created new scars when they took skin from Xavi’s thighs to repair his broken body.
How they hadn’t been able to save the ring finger and pinky on Xavi’s left hand, the damage to the bone too severe.
How they still hurt, though, the missing fingers.
It had only made Lulu admire Xavi even more.
Because pain was a language Lulu understood, and he knew, contrary to popular belief, that you never got used to it, however many times you experienced it.
The shock of the blow to your body was the same every time, the silent why ringing through every cell of your body.
Why? Why are you hurting me? So, Lulu had always understood Xavi’s pain.
Not just the physical left behind by the fire or the many skin drafts.
No, the emotional pain, too, every time your body remembered what had caused that pain in the first place and what you’d lost along with it. Your innocence.
They were thirteen when Xavi eventually told them about that night when his entire life changed.
Xavi was six and Abe eight. They didn’t live downtown back then but in a nice house in Riverside; a dad, a mom, and two carefree kids.
Xavi’s dad owned a large garage where they restored classic cars for clients from all over the country, and some in Canada, too.
It was a good life, from what Xavi had told them.
Right up until that night when he woke up to an inferno of smoke and blazing, suffocating heat.
Abe hadn’t been home; he was sleeping at a friend’s house.
Xavi and his mom had made it out, but his dad had died saving his family.
That was it. Life as Xavi knew it was gone.
He, Abe, and their mom moved in with his tias in an apartment downtown, and Xavi’s body was forever marred by scars reminding him of what he’d lived through and what he’d lost.
And that was also why, if you asked Lulu why he loved Xavi Bernal, he would tell you, why not?
Because the list was endless. He loved everything about Xavi, and it was just such a fucking travesty that Xavi didn’t love him back.
At least, not in the way Lulu wanted him to.
Hombre a hombre. Alma a alma. Cuerpo a cuerpo.
But now, thanks to that creepy-ass stalker, Lulu was moving into Xavi’s place.
Well, not exactly moving in-moving in, but at least he was crashing there until he and Xavi left for the wedding in five days.
It still blew Lulu’s mind that Xavi had agreed to it, but it had definitely helped that Joe and Noah had been at Gloria’s too.
He loved Xavi’s small one-bedroom apartment on the Lower West Side, close to the Waterfront Park.
With the Latin-American vibe going on in the neighborhood, it beat his own dingy dump in the less nice Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood—that he shared with two other actors—by a mile.
It wasn’t much more than a studio, really, but it was all Lulu could afford for now.
No, Xavi’s place was much nicer, with all his books that smelled of thrift stores and all his old Cuban jazz records, his favorite covers displayed on the walls.
And it wasn’t too far away from the Theatre of Youth, where Lulu worked twice a week as an instructor’s assistant, or the small theater, Da Lux, in the queer neighborhood Allentown, where Lulu was currently cast in a queer re-enactment of Victor/Victoria.
He needed to do something about the pull-out couch, of course.
That just wouldn’t do. Luckily, Lulu’s mom hadn’t raised no quitter.
In fact, she hadn’t raised Lulu at all but left just shortly before his seventh birthday.
Manu had only been two, but in the end, they’d been better off, now just living with one junkie parent instead of two.
At least most nights, when their dad was passed out on the bathroom floor, they could run over to Xavi’s place, which had become more of a home to them than their own ever was since that day in detention.
Xavi’s house was loud, but for entirely different reasons than their own.
It was vibrant and colorful, and no one yelled or threw slurs at each other.
It was loud from Xavi and Abe bickering or from Xavi’s mami and his tias singing along to old Cuban love songs on the kitchen radio.
No one punched you for being in the way.
Instead, you were fed besitos and pastelitos de carne to the point of bursting.
Lulu spun the wrench he’d borrowed from the theater storage room in his hands.
All it would take was a few missing screws, and he’d get an upgrade right into Xavi’s bedroom.
No way Lulu was gonna sleep on a fucking pullout when Xavi’s bed was where he really wanted to be, where he fucking belonged.
Where he’d always belonged. Cono, if only Xavi could get his head out of a fucking book long enough to see that too.
That they were perfect for each other, always had been.