“Thank you.” Lulu held up the paper bag. “For everything,” he added, and then he started pulling a still somewhat dazed Xavi after him.
They walked around in comfortable silence for the next twenty minutes, but it was clear Xavi was miles away. Lulu had a feeling that the easy display of affection between the cheese vendors and their obvious and unabashed love for each other had left the same impression on Xavi as it had on him. Perhaps it had even stirred the same kind of longing inside Xavi as it had in Lulu. A longing for something more, something deeper, where every decision in life wasn’t just aboutme, but instead aboutus.
Eventually, Lulu’s stomach started growling repeatedly, and they stopped at a small Mexican joint where they ordered steaming hotpozole.
“They were really nice, huh,oso?” Lulu said around a spoonful of tender pork and sweet tomatoes that nearly melted off his tongue. Fuck, he loved traditional Mexican food.
“They were.” Xavi nodded, taking a sip of his pink grapefruit lemonade.
“Disgustingly in love, though.” Lulu stabbed his spoon into the stew, trying to get as many flavors onto it at once. Again, envy moved through his chest at the recollection of the cheese vendors’ open display of their love for each other.
“You had cheese.” Xavi smiled, looking up from his plate of food.
“Only because you fed me,guapo.” Lulu winked, then blew Xavi a kiss. Xavi shook his head in return, unable to hide the softness in his eyes, though.
“You’re ridiculous, you know that, right?”
“I know, and yet you still continue to stalk me around the country.” Lulu stuck out his tongue teasingly.
“Do not.”
“Do so.”
Xavi grinned crookedly, then went back to eating, his lips glistening from the stew.
Their conversation drifted in different directions as it usually did, and when Lulu was full, he leaned back in his chair and pulled out his phone, snapping pictures of Xavi, who growled at him in return. He wanted to remember this day forever, like he wanted to remember every second spent with Xavi like this, contentment sweeping through his body at Xavi’s easy smiles. It was funny how Lulu had gone for so many years without realizing his longtime crush had developed into something more. Something deeper. He loved Xavi with everything he was. He loved every little thing about him, and he longed for the day when Xavi would notice and realize that he, too, could not go on another day, another hour, another second, without calling Lulu his. Because he was Xavi’s. There was no way around it. And today had only confirmed that. Meeting that couple so in love with each other and with life had struck a chord inside Lulu. He wanted what they had. What Joe had with Noah. He wanted it all, every day, for the rest of his life, and his body could barely contain the need to tell Xavi. To confess to his best friend,‘Take me and keep me, always. I’m yours, oso. Para siempre. Always.’
Chapter Eleven
Xavi
Xavi had been sporting a semi sinceCheese Gate, a constant, pulsing need just lingering below the surface of his skin. For a second, as Xavi licked the cheese off his thumb, he could’ve sworn something passed between Lulu and him, something heady and potent, like an electric current. Not a spark entirely, but more of a low buzz that could’ve easily flared into something much more explosive if he’d allowed it to. It was probably just in his imagination or a result of that mind-blowingly delicious cheese, yet Xavi could neither shake the feeling nor his hard-on. Shit, it was a hard-on, wasn’t it? Not a fucking semi.
Luckily, Lulu was driving, his eyes too busy focusing on the other drivers, cursing at them in Spanish every two minutes, when they got too close to him or didn’t use their blinker when leaving the I-90 W. With his hands resting in his lap to conceal the proof of his less than friendly thoughts about his best friend, Xavi took in the scenery blasting by, accompanied by the beautifully drowsy voice of Billy Sharp singingRose Tintdrifting from the speakers.Rose Tint.The first time he’d heard the song, Xavi had nearly lost all the air in his lungs.Rose tint.The subtle blush that always colored Lulu’s cheeks when he smiled at Xavi. How many times had Xavi wondered how pink the rose turned when Lulu was in the throes of passion? And when he came? Xavi bet Lulu would be burning, bright crimson flames licking along his skin, when he reached that pinnacle of ecstasy.
“You mind if we just take a break at the next exit?” Lulu eventually said a little after Toledo. “There’s something I wanna check out,” he added, an indecipherable expression on his face.
Xavi shrugged. If Lulu felt the need to stop, sure. He probably needed to pee again. The second he’d ordered the iced tea at the Mexican food vendor, then another to-go, Xavi knew Lulu’spee-a-thonwas commencing.
Grinning shadily, Lulu left the I-90, and after a few minutes, he turned onto what appeared to be the main street of some generic small town.
“Where are we?” Xavi yawned, ready to get out of the sardine tin.
“Gálvez,” Lulu grinned wider, as though he’d just said Nashville or San Diego, acting as if Xavi ought to know what the hell Gálvez was.
“Gálvez? What the fuck is in Gálvez?” This was so typically Lulu. For all he knew, there was some obscure tourist attraction that exactly 1.2 people visited a year. Like some giant mushroom that resembled Roosevelt when you looked at it from a certain angle.
“You’ll see.” Lulu looked all smug, then pulled up in front of a house which resembled every other house in small-town USA. White-picked fence, wrap-around porch, and… Xavi swallowed, his stomach doing a somersault, then another. Sucking in a breath, Xavi turned slowly toward Lulu, who just sat there beaming at him, bouncing up and down in his seat from pent-up excitement.
“Why are we here,hermano?” Xavi rasped.
“Why do you think we’re here,oso?” Lulu wouldn’t stop smiling, his nose scrunched up into a cute frown, that fucking rose tint pulsing on his cheeks.
“But…” Xavi licked his lips, his mouth dry like the desert. Then he read the small sign next to the gate again.My Little Lorca Museum.What the hell? It couldn’t be, could it? Surely not. Who would place a Lorca museum in the middle of nowhere in small-town Ohio? It had to be something other than a museum fortheLorca. As in Federico García Lorca, the greatest poet to ever live, if you asked Xavi.
“Wanna get out and take a look, or are you just gonna sit there and gape?” Lulu knocked his shoulder against Xavi’s before he reached for the door and opened it.
“Lulu, wha—?”
