“Oh my God, really? We can go?” Lulu squeaked, and if it hadn’t been for the seatbelt, Xavi was sure Lulu would’ve jumped into his lap.
“Yes.” Xavi laughed, his heart soaring at the sound of unadulterated happiness in Lulu’s voice.
“Thank you,oso. I’ll find us the best little hotel in all of Winterset,” he panted, as he tapped eagerly on his phone. “Coño, I can’t believe we’re going to Madison County. I never thought this was gonna happen. It’s on my bucket list, you know?” Lulu continued rambling, and it was just the cutest thing ever. If only Xavi could bottle up Lulu’s happiness this very moment and keep it for a rainy day sometime in the future when this would all just be a faded memory. “What’s onyourbucket list?” Lulu looked at him, his face glowing.
“I don’t have one.”
“What?!” Lulu gasped. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“But… but why not?” Lulu’s voice dripped with disbelief.
“I never really saw the point in having one. Either you do stuff, or you don’t.” Xavi shrugged, feigning indifference, when really he knew exactly why he didn’t have a bucket list and why he never wished for much in general. Because you only ended up setting yourself up for disappointment. Xavi’s list would just end up becoming a constant reminder of how little he’d accomplished in life, a list of eternal regrets, staring him right in the face, mocking him.
“That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it,mano. Everyone oughta have dreams. If you don’t have dreams, then what’s the whole point?”
For once, Xavi didn’t know what to say. Lulu’s logic hit something deep inside him, poking at something he thought he’d buried good and hard in a place he couldn’t reach.Dreams. Not just of the things he wanted to accomplish or of places he wanted to go. But also dreams of the kind of life he secretly wanted. A life with someone. Love. Romantic love. Passion. A family. Children. Because if he allowed himself to access those dreams, they would automatically materialize and become real. And they would eventually all end up in the same place.Lulu. Because Xavi wanted all those things with Lulu and no one else, and if he couldn’t have them with his best friend, he’d rather go without, and how fucking sad was that? There was no way he could admit that, especially not to Lulu.
“Well, fuck that. We’re making you one.” Lulu placed his phone in his lap, crossing his arms in front of his chest.
“Lul—”
“We are. And visiting Lorca’s memorial in Madrid goes right to the top three.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Xavi hummed, but his heart soared. Madrid with Lulu.
“Kissing under the stars goes on it too,” Lulu rambled on. “Because that’s an easy one. It’ll get you started. We’ll do that one tonight on one of the bridges.”
“Sorry, what?”
“Yeah, we gotta practice. You still owe me a ‘real kiss.’” Lulu used his fingers to make quotation marks. “That’s what you said, right? That it wasn’t a real kiss unless you had to scoop me up off the floor afterward.”
“I didn’t exactly—”
“Well, you can kiss me under the stars tonight,oso, and then scoop me up off the bridge like a half-melted ice cream scoop.”
“Right.”
Lulu did, in fact, deliver and had found them a small and quaint bed-and-breakfast in Winterset. After chucking on layers of warm clothes, Lulu had beamed at him expectantly, his gray hat framing his lovely face. Xavi had just swallowed a dopey smile, and off they’d gone.
It had cleared up by the time they reached the Cedar Bridge, which was located almost three miles north of Winterset. As they’d learned at the Welcome Center in Winterset that the bridge had been built in 1883 by someone named Harvey P. Jones. And… and well, yes, the bridge was a bridge as far as Xavi could see. Crossing a small river or perhaps more of a creek, it was indeed covered in what Xavi assumed was red-painted cedar planks. It looked more like a huge red box than a bridge, and why an author would’ve ever thought these bridges would make for a romantic setting blew Xavi’s mind. Then again, you could hide inside them, keeping your forbidden love a secret to the outside world.
“Isn’t it weird that they spent time covering the bridges with sideboards and roofs? I mean, the bridges are tiny. How much time do you actually spend on it to need shelter? Unless the bridges were commissioned by the American Adulterer Society?” Xavi scratched the back of his neck as he took in the rather unremarkable construction. Lulu stared at him, his mouth slightly agape, before he took a careful step inside the Cedar Bridge like the floorboards were going to jump up and bite him. Then, crouching down, Lulu brushed his fingertips along the old flooring, which looked remarkably well-kept, considering the bridge was as old as it was.
“It’s the original planks, you know?” Lulu looked up, his cheeks painted a pale pink from the bite in the evening air. “That’s why the bridges are covered. Not to shelter the people who crossed them from the weather, but to protect the timber.”Xavi swallowed, his eyes now transfixed by Lulu’s fingers as they slowly swept along the timber planks, caressing them carefully. “They had to shelter them from the weather, you see, because replacing the timber was much more expensive than replacing the lumber used to cover the sides and roof.”
Something stirred inside Xavi. Something he didn’t quite have a name for. But something shifted inside him, right there under the Iowan night sky, while thousands of stars exploded above their heads like a myriad of distant lights. Lulu was a fucking revelation as he sat there crouching, his fancy city clothes such a contrast to this historic backdrop, and yet he looked… perfect. Before he realized it, Xavi asked, “Who are you?”
Lulu looked at him, stunned, his dark eyes wide, drinking up his face. Then he chuckled lowly. “What do you mean, ‘who am I?’ I’m Lulu. You okay over there,mano?” Lulu dug his front teeth into his bottom lip, squashing a smile. “It’s notthatcold tonight. You didn’t get frostbite of the brain or something, did ya?”
Frostbite of the brain. Such a Lulu thing to say, and still, this version of Lulu, crouching before him, was so different from the Lulu he usually saw. Or perhaps not. Perhaps Xavi had just been blind for a long time, putting Lulu into a box, just like Xavi put everything else in his life into neat boxes, too. Just like he’d apparently been blind to the fact that Lulu was attracted to him.
Xavi took a step inside the bridge as Lulu got up from the ground, tilting his chin, gazing up at him.
“You’re…different.” Xavi narrowed his eyes, while his throat suddenly felt raw with emotion.
“I am?” Lulu reached for him, placing his hand on Xavi’s shoulder in a barely there touch. “How?”
