Chapter Two
Elliot
Elliot woke face-down on top of the comforter, with the inside of his mouth feeling like a street dog’s roasted asshole.
With his eyes closed, he took stock of the situation. Head: not good. Stomach: not good. Left foot: still laced into the uncomfortable dress shoe he’d rented yesterday. Right foot: bare? Somehow?
He cracked open one eye to find the hotel’s blackout curtains doing God’s work.
The only light in the room came from the crack under the door and the green dot of the smoke detector.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand and lit up the room.
Closing his eyes again, Elliot swung his arm until he located it.
Five notifications. Three from Reef, one from his mother, one from Diego. He rolled onto his back with a groan – “Cono” – and opened Reef’s.
Brooooo. A video attachment. tell me you got home
Elliot remembered the hotel lobby, and before that, the inside of a taxi, and before that, nothing.
He tapped the video. It was Reef, arm-wrestling someone at the charity event.
The camera panned, and there was Elliot in the background, holding a glass of something blue, laughing his ass off.
The inside of his mouth was the same color as his drink.
He scrubbed his face with one hand and texted Reef back.
alive. barely
my boyyyy. what time u fly out
Elliot lifted his head to peer down his nose at the dark room. He’d meant to pack last night.
not sure
He locked the phone and sat up, which was a mistake.
Lurching off the bed, he made it to the bathroom with just enough time to slam the door closed with his foot before he was sick.
Afterward he sat with his cheek against the rim of the toilet and thought about the life choices that had brought him to this moment.
He was pretty sure Dustin Bennet was to blame.
He remembered a smug look and a glass of water.
His curls were stuck to his forehead when he stood and peered into the mirror.
There was a toothpick behind his ear he had no memory of putting there.
He removed it and dropped it in the trash and said, to his reflection, in Spanish, what his mother would say to him if she could see him right now, and then he got in the shower.
By the time he was downstairs in search of coffee, it was almost noon and he felt sixty percent human.
The barista at the coffee stand by the concierge was a white guy in his twenties with a mustache like a topiary.
He didn’t make eye contact as Elliot ordered from behind his sunglasses, which Elliot appreciated.
His flight didn’t leave until four, so with a couple hours to kill, he walked. Portland in July wasn’t what he’d expected. He’d expected rain, but the sky was a vivid blue and the breeze was warm and fresh. Back home the air in July hit you like a wet rag.
He peered through the dark window of a bookstore and stopped at a place selling soaps to get a gift for his mom.
A woman jogged by in head-to-toe lavender as two guys on electric unicycles glided past in the bike lane.
Everyone looked like they’d slept eight-plus hours and was on their way to yoga, or soul-healing, or yo-yo class or didgeridoo, or whatever else white people in Portland did on a Saturday.
It was nice. Weird, but nice.
Two blocks later he sat on a bench outside a bakery and set the coffee and the paper bag with the soap in it beside him. He tilted his face to the sun and closed his eyes as his phone buzzed in his pocket. Not opening his eyes, Elliot dug it out and put it to his ear.
“Dígame.”
“Where you at? How come you didn’t text me back?”
Diego. Elliot squeezed his forehead with his thumb and forefingers. “Ah shit. I forgot, sorry.”
“You still in Portland?”
“Flight leaves at four. What’s going on with you?”
“Nada, Papi. Just chillin.” Elliot heard him stretching and pictured him settling into the dumpy couch in his ground-floor apartment in Tampa. The door propped permanently open, the screen across it. “Taking my sister to see that space movie. Might hit up Julia after that.”
“Yeah? You making progress?”
Diego scoffed. “Nah. She don’t want shit to do with me. But, you know, give it time.” He stretched again, yawning, and Elliot heard the couch creak. “Hot as shit here, bro.”
Elliot opened his eyes. “Nice here. I figured it’d be all rain, but it’s like…summer.”
“I thought they didn’t have that there.”
Elliot watched a woman go by with a baby in a stroller and an ancient dog. Diego’s voice went distant as he took the phone away from his ear to yell at someone on his end.
“?Cómo?” A girl’s voice in the background. “I thought we were going to the movies?” The girl’s voice. Diego sounded annoyed as he said, “Fine. Yeah whatever, Mija. Do you. I’m not being angry! Okay. Okay. Byeeee, Renata.” He came back. “Sorry.”
“That your sister?”
“She’s seeing the space movie without me? With some guy?”
“Like a date?”
“I guess? I don’t even know this guy. He don’t even come to the door when he picks her up?” Diego tsked. “It’s disrespectful, bro.”
“I’m sure he’s fine. Renata’s not gonna date some asshole.”
“I don’t know, do I? She’s eighteen, what does she know?”
Elliot took a long pull from his coffee and said nothing. He’d known Renata as long as he’d known Diego – she’d been six when he met Diego in third grade. Elliot always thought she had her head on pretty straight.
After a minute Diego said, “How’s your mom?”
Elliot glanced at the paper bag on the bench beside him. “Fine.”
“You call her since you went to Portland?”
“Not yet.”
“She’s gonna be getting ready for you to be home for summer already. She’s gonna be batch-making sofrito and changing the sheets on your bed, homes.”
Elliot groaned. “I know.”
He didn’t want to go home for summer. He’d just ended one of the most impressive breakout seasons on record. People were comparing him to a legend. Now he was gonna go back to his mom’s house like a kid on summer vacation?
“I was thinking maybe I don’t live with her this year,” he said.
Diego scoffed. “Okay.”
“Why not? I got money. I can stay where I want.”
“Bro, she’s your moms. She’s gonna kill you. Like, wherever you stay, instead of with her – she’s gonna find you. She’s gonna find your ass, and she’s gonna murder it, and then she’s gonna bring it back to life so she can force-feed it mofongo.”
Elliot closed his eyes. The sun was warm on his eyelids. “Yeah. I know.”
He walked back to the hotel a different way and got turned around twice, and by the time he keyed into his room, he was exhausted.
His suitcase was open on the floor with clothes strewn out, and he remembered with a groan that he needed to pack.
The time on his phone said one PM. He set it on the nightstand as he sat on the bed, and lay back to close his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them, it was dark.
“Shit!” Elliot rolled off the bed, blinking and staggering. He snatched the phone off the nightstand and squinted as it lit up the room. “Shit, shit.”
The plane was long gone. Five hours gone, according to the time on the screen.
There was a stack of notifications from the American Airlines app, and a missed call from his mom.
Sighing, he sat on the edge of the bed and texted her back, then scrolled through upcoming flights.
He sat with his thumb hovering over one tomorrow at noon for a long time before swiping the app closed without booking it, and heading out to find something to eat.
Portland at nine PM was as nice as it was at noon. The street was busy with freshly-showered people walking hand in hand, and the air was still warm and smelled like perfume. He crossed the street and wandered down the block.
The first place he stopped at had a chalkboard menu and a few picnic tables on the sidewalk.
At the top of the chalkboard was a pineapple, drawn in pink, yellow, and green.
Elliot couldn’t have said why he picked it except that the word pineapple rang a bell.
He was looking for food and didn’t see any on the menu, but a pint of whatever they were serving would fortify him for the search.
Inside was brightly lit stonework, mason jars, more picnic benches, and a bar that looked like cement.
It was loud and crowded with hipsters. He found a stool and a QR code that revealed a food menu.
The bartender was green-haired and covered in tattoos, and Elliot asked her to bring him whatever the best local beer was, ordered a burger, and scrolled his phone while he waited. His mother had texted again.
Hey baby. Todo bien? Are you coming tomorrow then? Bed’s made. And a smiley face.
He put the phone face-down on the bar.
The bartender set down his beer and he took a long pull. It was so good Elliot frowned in surprise and looked at the name on the side of the glass. Deschutes. When he looked up, Dustin Bennet was standing beside him.
Elliot blinked. He frowned and shook his head and blinked again, and Bennet was still there, wearing a beat up leather jacket, a gray t-shirt, and the same slight squint he’d been wearing last night.
His ruddy-brown hair was damp and the beard he was apparently growing for off-season was immaculately groomed.
He smelled like deodorant and something woodsy – and he looked as surprised to see Elliot as Elliot was to see him.
“Thought you had a flight.”
Elliot set the glass down. “I missed it.”
The bartender set a beer in front of Bennet, and Elliot saw the flicker of a smile as Bennet picked it up. “Ah.”
“What are you doing here?”