He doesn’t shake my hand like I expect. Instead, his hand grips mine tight and turns it over, leaning his face close for inspection.
“Can’t leave your nails like that, you need to bite them off.”
He glances up over my shoulder as he lets my hand drop back down to my side.
“Wait, right now?”
“I’m not going to do it for you,” he says. “But no boy has nails like that. Not even me.”
The last thing I’m going to do is argue, so I set upon my nails like a rabid creature while Rafael peers over the wall at the now-vacant courtyard leading up to the main doors.
“If I just had one afternoon with you … just one … ” he shakes his head as he steps back and away from the wall and makes a face at me with half my fingers in my mouth at the same time.
“What? I didn’t think we had a lot of time.”
“No, unfortunately, we don’t.”
Somewhere across the valley, a tower bell tolls. It sounds distant at first, growing and multiplying as it rolls across the bare faces of the mountains. The sound makes Rafael suck in his cheeks. As soon as the sound fades, he tosses his unfinished cigarette over to me and holds out a lighter.
“For the voice,” he says when I hesitate to lig
ht it.
I hold it out in front of me like a used diaper. “I’ve never smoked before.”
Rafael lets out a loud sigh. “At least pretend to have a little pride, Alex. That’s rule one about being a boy. Throw out everything the media tells you about toxic masculinity bullshit being over. Just throw it out. That might fly out there, in the real world. But you’re at a boy’s boarding school now. This is as toxic as it gets.”
I chuckle, a sound that dies when Rafael just keeps staring me down from beneath his thick, Mediterranean eyebrows. “You say that like we’re in purgatory or something.”
“No, not purgatory,” he says, lifting the lighter up and miming the correct way to inhale, “this is hell.”
With the sear of smoke and tobacco in my lungs, I have to agree. My stomach turns, my body wanting me to double over and cough until I’m forced to vomit. But I think of what Rafael said, and I suck it up and swallow down the pain until it slowly numbs. From the jabbing pain in my throat, I’ll be croaking like a frog in no time.
“This’ll have to do for now,” Rafael says. ”We’ve gotta get inside before we’re missed. Any later, and people are going to think you were out here giving me a blowjob.”
“Actually, is that such a bad idea?” I feel my pulse quicken a little. “What if … what if it was you giving me the blowjob? Then no one would doubt I’m a boy. You know, since you’ve seen my dick and all.”
The look Rafael gives me could send a grown man running for cover.
“Absolutely the fuck not. There’s a place where I draw the line. And really sorry, little Alex … you probably weren’t that bad looking as a girl, you know … before the whole hair thing … but as a boy … ” He shakes his head. “That would send all the wrong messages. I’ve got standards, you know.”
He takes two steps then pauses, sticking one finger up in the air as if he just had another thought. “Oh, and that boy you were staring at. You know, before you realized I was watching you?”
I feel my cheeks redden as I think of the boy from the car.
“Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Stay away from him. I know him. Him and his friends … they’re bad news.”
With that, he heads off towards the front of the school, and I feel my heart lurch inside me.
“Wait!” I call, jogging after him. Rafael cringes outwardly as my suitcase clatters noisily behind me. “So, what do I do next. How do I keep anyone else from figuring the whole girl thing out?”
Rafael purses his lips. “Look, I’m not one to half-ass a thing once I’ve started it. That’s what got me here in the first place.” After a second, a long, obviously pained second, he sighs again. “So, help me god, Alex … ” he gives me another one of those scathing looks. “Don’t make me regret this.”
“Regret what?”
“I’m going to help you, dimwit. Now come along quick, before I change my mind.”
Chapter Three