Page 12 of Laying Low

“So,” Reg asked, “what do they say?”

Anthony glanced up from his phone and found that, true to his word, Reg had taken some back roads and some frontage roads and one shortcut through somebody’s farm easement, and they were now approaching his parents’ property from a completely different direction.

“Your brothers?”Anthony snorted.“They have a plan.It involves us getting the kids into hiding and you helping Dean contact somebody on your unregistered electronic equipment in the den.”

Reg grunted.“Damn Bailey.I mean, I knew he was going to tell Dean about all of it, but I thought he’d give me more time.”Dean’s boyfriend had adopted the Royal family just like Anthony had—all in.But Bailey was busy finding a new job and an apartment and moving his possessions from Texas so he could be with Dean, which meant they tried to leave him out of the family chats unless it directly involved him.

Lucky Bailey.

“Well, at some point youaregoing to have to tell your family about why it’s there,” Anthony said.“You could always practice on me, right?”

Reg gave him a sideways glance and grunted.“It’s stupid.You know that, right?”

Anthony stared at him for a moment, taking in his calm, his strength, his quick thinking, all in the last hour.“You say ‘stupid’ whenever you’re talking about stuff you like or stuff you do,” he said after a moment, feeling the hurt keenly.“When are you going to learn that I’m not interested in stupid?”

“Wha—” Reg’s voice squeaked.“Whatareyou interested in?”

Anthony breathed out carefully, thinking if subtle hadn’t done it in the past three months, he was going to have to go with bold.“You, Reg.I’m interested inyou.”

A wonderful shade of crimson washed Reg’s pale throat and the tips of his ears, and he swallowed.“Oh,” he rasped.“Okay.I… erm, can we talk about this later?”

“Don’t mind us,” Reynaldo said from the back seat.“We’re going to need something to distract us from being chased by bad guys with guns.”

“Definitely,” Ilia said, sounding sad.“Man, I need to get word to my mom that Lem’s in town and he’s seen me with—are you really Gael Barrera’s son?”

“Yeah,” Reynaldo grunted.“Sorry.I wasreallyloving art club, too.All I ever learned back home was electronics and Mexican history and war strategy and math.I was so looking forward to gouache this year.”

“What’s gouache?”Anthony asked Reg.

“It’s an opaque watercolor with a binding agent,” Reg recited.“It makes somereallyawesome paintings, but it’s kind of pricey.It’s why we were doing the fundraiser tonight.”

“Ah,” Anthony said, very cognizant that they had moved into much more pressing life-or-death events, but also sad for this kid, who apparently hadn’t asked to be born into one of Mexico’s most dangerous cartels.“One thing at a time, Reynaldo.Today, we live.Tomorrow, we paint.”

“And sometime next year these guys are gonna kiss,” Ilia muttered.

Reynaldo snickered, and Anthony let out a slow breath.“I amcourtinghim,” he said, stung by this as he shouldn’t have been.

“That’s sweet,” Ilia responded.“But you never know when ICE is gonna show up and cockblock you, you know?”

“Oh God,” Reg muttered and turned even more purple.“Can we not talk about me and Anthony for a minute?Guys, I need to tell you about the secret passage under the house.”

“Told you this guy’s more interesting than he looks,” Reynaldo said, and Reg gaped like a fish.

Anthony took another liberty and touched Reg’s arm gently.“I think you lookveryinteresting,” he said, and Reg whimpered.

“This day isnotgoing like I planned,” he said.

“How did you plan for it to go?”Anthony asked, genuinely curious.

“I don’t know,” Reg said, slowing down for the corner that would take them to the long road that bisected what had used to be a farm but was now a series of properties with ranch houses, each one between four- and five-acres square.Anthony had heard Reg’s parents had bought their house for a song back in the early nineties, and while it wasn’t pretty, it was big enough to raise seven children and provide shelter for what had felt like half the county at one time or another.Not fancy land—Bakersfield was part of the big flat spot that was the California Central Valley.Far off in the distance were mountain ranges.Beyond them to the west was the ocean.To the north was the woods.To the east was Nevada.And to the south was the myriad confusion that was Los Angeles.

But in the center, there was lots of flat land, much of it threatening to sink even deeper into the earth’s crust if there was another prolonged drought.

But the people of the Central Valley were tougher than that, Anthony had always thought with pride, and as he glanced at Reg in exasperation, he wondered how much of Reg’s toughness came from growing up in this hard land.

“You don’t know?”he prodded.

“Dinner?”Reg said hopefully.“I wanted dinner.Some TV maybe?There’s a good documentary on Netflix about Frida Kahlo.”