Chapter Two #2
Throwing the wrench into his suitcase with the rest of his stuff, Lulu went for the small, thrifted vanity table in the bedroom.
It didn’t belong to him; nothing in this place really did.
The furniture had already been there, left behind by the previous tenants when Lulu moved in with the two other actors, Stefania and Theodore, whom he’d met at a casting downtown.
Sitting down on the small crate that acted as a stool, his gaze trailed along the table as he started to pick out the make-up and jewelry that belonged to him.
Lulu placed item after item into the purple make-up bag Xavi had gifted him for his twenty-first birthday, the word PROUD displayed in bright pink letters on one side.
When he’d placed the last tube of lip gloss into the bag, he zipped it up and regarded himself in the stained mirror, hoping it would be the last time.
Probably not. Staying with Xavi was only temporary, just like most other things in life, from a show to a hookup to the color of his nail polish.
The only things constant in his life were Manu, his friendship with Joe and Xavi, and the scars left behind on his face and body from his father’s fists.
The crooked pale silver one at the left corner of his mouth was barely visible now, but the memory of his father throwing the broken bottle in his face would be forever seared into Lulu’s soul.
So would the cigarette burn mark on the side of his neck that he could, most days, hide with a scarf or his longish hair, and the slightly raised line running from his right temple to the top of his head from when his father had banged his head against the bathroom sink.
Fourteen stitches, one for each of his birthdays, because Lulu had stolen twelve dollars from his father’s coat pocket to feed himself and Manu when they hadn’t eaten for two days.
‘One day, when I’m big enough, I’m gonna hurt him for every time he’s hurt you, mano,’ Xavi had sworn after he and Manu had run over to Xavi’s place, the white towel soaked with Lulu’s blood by then, and Xavi’s mami had taken them to the nearest emergency room.
‘I will. I’ll kill him,’ Xavi’s voice had shaken when they’d overheard Xavi’s mami lying to the emergency room doctor, telling him that Lulu had taken a fall from a tree in the park.
Lying for him, because if there was one thing worse than living with an abusive junkie father, it was being taken away and perhaps separated from Manu.
‘Please don’t do that, Xavi,’ Lulu had whispered while they’d waited for the doctor to stitch up the throbbing gash in his head.
‘If you hurt him, they’ll take you away from me.
And I don’t want to be without you. If they take you away from me, hermano, I’ll have no one.
I’ll have nothing.’ Xavi had squeezed his fingers to the point of pain, his teenage body vibrating with anger, but it was a good kind of pain, Lulu recalled thinking, because it meant that Xavi cared.
‘You have Joe,’ Xavi had whispered back, brushing his thumb along Lulu’s bloodied knuckles.
‘It’s not the same. You know it’s not the same.
No one gets me the way you do. You’re my best friend, Xavi.
So please don’t hurt him, promise me.’ Xavi’s eyes had been so dark that night, near black with fury, as they’d lingered on Lulu’s face.
‘You have to promise me that, Xavi.’ Eventually, when the doctor had returned and gotten ready to fix Lulu’s head, Xavi had slumped his shoulders and nodded.
‘Okay, Lulu. I promise, hermano.’ And of course, Xavi had kept his promise and every promise after that, because that was just the kind of guy Xavi was and why Lulu loved him so hard.
Lulu’s father was long gone by now. He’d died of a drug overdose when Lulu was twenty-one.
Manu had been sixteen and Lulu had, as the only other known relative, gotten custody of his younger brother.
Xavi had been there through everything, from the funeral in the soaking rain on a bleary March day to the custody hearing downtown to Manu’s high school graduation when Lulu had bawled like a baby with pride against Xavi’s solid shoulder.
The big bear of a guy with the scariest fucking tattoos Lulu had ever seen and a mind so brilliant it blew Lulu’s own, was as loyal and as reliable as they came.
And yet, Xavi broke Lulu’s heart every fucking time they were together because they weren’t really together.
At least not in the way that Lulu longed to be.
But now Lulu had a fucking plan to change that and set everything straight.
Finally, the stars would align, and the universe would grant him his biggest wish.
Five days sleeping in Xavi’s bed, followed by a cross-country road trip from Buffalo to Portland, Oregon, to be the best men at Joe and Noah’s wedding.
Because while everyone else was flying—from Joe and Noah’s families to Joe’s longtime police partner, Monroe, and his wife—Lulu and Xavi were driving.
Because, sweet baby Jesus at a shoe sale, Xavi was afraid of flying, and Lulu, as the good and loyal friend that he was, wasn’t going to let Xavi drive alone.
Not when he could be alone with Xavi for the 2,641 miles that lay between Buffalo and Portland.
Not when he could have the man he loved and desired all to himself for the five days they’d decided to cut the trip into.
Five whole days on the road with Xavi. Lulu was going to drive his friend fucking crazy.
Until Xavi caved. There was no way Lulu’s plan could fail.
No way. Once they reached Portland, they’d be what they were always meant to be. Together-together.