The light is green. The car behind us is not patient.
I pull back, clear my throat, and drive her home with my entire body still buzzing.
CHAPTER 16
RAUL
…20 years old
I wake up to my phone dinging with a new text.
The light from the screen is blinding in the dark room, and when I squint at it, Olivia's name is already there waiting for me.
Olivia and I have been hanging out for a few months now. I've been her plus one to almost every gig she's had, and we haven't kissed since that night. It's never been brought up again, and somehow things have settled back into something easy and professional.
But today is different.
Today is my 20th birthday.
Olivia found out pretty quickly that my fake ID wasn't my real age, but she didn't seem to care much. She's a little older than me anyway, turning twenty-two in a few months. When she found out I wasn't actually twenty-one, she offered to bartend a party for me so my friends and I could drink without having to worry about getting carded.
It's sweet.
Too sweet.
The only problem is I can't bring myself to tell her I don't really have anybody else who would come. Outside of Diego and her, I don't have friends like that.
I groan and rub the sleep from my eyes before picking up my phone and opening the thread.
Good morning! Happy birthday!
Thank you :)
What do you have going on today?
Just going to see my cousin and aunt. Why?
I want to see you. Can I come over?
My heart kicks hard against my ribs.
I've kept her at a distance so far, always picking her up and hanging around her house instead of letting her see mine. I'm not ready for that.
It's not that I'm ashamed of where I live or how I grew up. Okay, maybe that's part of it. But letting her into my home means letting her into everything else too. The photos of my mom on the walls. The silence where a woman's voice should be. The questions she'd ask. The answers I'm not ready to give.
I'm not ready to talk about my mother. Or my father. Or the life we came from.
What if she judges me?
What if she looks at me and sees exactly what I'm afraid she'd see?
A broken man with almost nothing to his name. A little boy in a grown body, who would give anything to be held by his mother again.
I stare at the screen for a long second before typing something vague.
Oh?
I slap my palm to my forehead the second I hit send. Idiot.
