He hisses as he strokes himself gently a few more times. I turn my head and press a kiss to his shoulder, and he leans into me.
“Thank you,” he murmurs. And it doesn’t really sound stupid at all.
Chapter 8
OVER THE next weeks, every few evenings after work, Rafe’ll come over, we’ll go running, eat dinner, and talk through movies I don’t care about. Rafe thinks about movies analytically, and he connects everything to politics and social justice. He’s explained a lot about the political organizing he’s involved with, but to be honest, I don’t get half of what he says. Fundraising and campaigns and direct actions and… well, really, a lot of it sounds like a shit-ton of meetings, and I’m not totally clear on what the end goals are. I try to listen but I kinda space out.
One night I guess I failed to hide my spacing out when Rafe was saying something about zoning exemptions, race, and charter schools, and he gave up and asked me to teach him the trick with the coin and the glass I showed the kids one Saturday.
I showed him over and over—coin in the center of the palm, tap the glass, slide the coin down, hit with the glass to pop the coin up and in—but he was hilariously hopeless, fumbling the coin and almost dropping the glass every time. He got frustrated at himself, and I teased him about taking everything so seriously. His very serious protests that he doesn’t take everything seriously cracked me up, and I finally got him to laugh too. Rafe doesn’t laugh much. Almost never. So when he does, it’s a total win. I celebrated by climbing on top of him and kissing him silly, narrowly avoiding shattering the glass.
He’s also told me a lot about his family. His two younger sisters are both crazy about him. Gabriela has two kids and is a nurse at Temple Hospital, and her husband, Alejandro, is some big-time contractor. She’s always inviting Rafe over for dinner so she can lecture him about settling down.
Luz calls Rafe to ask for advice about men, about problems with her apartment, and to talk about Camille, her fifteen-year-old daughter. Luz had Camille when she was sixteen and Rafe feels guilty about it because he thinks if he’d been home instead of in prison, she never would’ve gotten pregnant and dropped out of high school. Rafe has a major soft spot for Luz and Camille, though, so I doubt he’d actually want to change anything. Whenever Luz calls asking about a leaky faucet or a stuck window, Rafe goes over and fixes it for her right away, even though her landlord lives down the street.
Saturday workshops have been going well. It’s clearer and clearer that the kids are up for learning anything if they like the person who’s teaching it to them, but what they really want is a chance to hang out with each other in a place where they feel comfortable. Sometimes Rafe and I end up just standing around while they gossip or talk about movies and music and TV.
Watching them has made me think more about Daniel in the last few weeks than I ever have before. About what it might’ve been like if he’d had something like YA to go to. He was small for his age in high school—skinny and clumsy. His hair was always a mess and he had this expression when he was pissed off, which was most of the time, that I’m sure he thought was intimidating but really just looked like he was in pain. It was a beacon to anyone who picked on the kids who showed weakness. He was always coming home with black eyes and bruises and split lips. When Brian was still in school with him, we’d sometimes ask who he fought with so Brian could take care of it, but Daniel would never say.
“What’re you thinking about so hard?” Rafe asks, startling me. He strokes a hand up my neck and into my hair.
“Um, about Daniel, I guess.”
“You always think about him after we’re at YA.”
“Yeah, maybe. I watch them and the way they are with each other. I don’t think Daniel had… friends. Anyone to talk about stuff with.”
“None?”
“Well, he never brought friends home.” Of course, that could’ve been because he was embarrassed of us. “And Brian was in school with him when he was a senior and Daniel was a freshman, and he said he never saw Daniel talking to anyone. He got picked on a lot. He was scrawny.” I snort. “And mouthy.”
“Imagine that,” Rafe says and raises an eyebrow at me, which is as close as Rafe gets to teasing.
But he settles onto the couch with me, and it feels right having him here, even if I’m still not clear on exactly what’s going on between us.