Page 28 of Yours, For Good

The whole time, he held my eyes. Needing some distance, I faced him again and undid the bandana around my head. I begged for the cool night air to bring my body temp down.

He nodded. "I'm the only one of my siblings with a Hispanic name. It's five of us— maybe she thought she could get away with it after four proper Pendletons."

I wasn't sure how many songs had played since we'd begun. If people around us left to be replaced by new folk, I didn't notice. If one of them had sprouted a tail and three heads, it was unknown to me. Javier and I existed in a bubble for only him and me, and the music that guided us.

Still dancing; still mirroring his moves, I folded the bandana and put it in his breast pocket. "I think you're still a proper Pendleton, unless you don't want to be."

"I don't want to be what my family thinks makes a proper Pendleton."

I gazed at him for a long second. "What kind of Pendleton do you want to be?"

"One that is free. One that cares about people. One that has reclaimed pieces of his latinidad."

The line of his mouth held a determined angle, and he watched my response like a blue-eyed hawk.

"Those are all good things, Javier." And they confirmed my first impressions of his family. "They say something good about you."

"It's a tall order for someone like me." His voice lowered and he came close so I could hear him over the music. I held my breath. "But I want to do good with all that I have, and honor those before me who couldn't."

There was a story there. It took shelter in the silences between notes, between laughter and chatter around us, and between us.

Maybe the veil between worlds was truly thinner on Halloween, even if it was the one between two new truths. On one hand, enjoying Javier and wanting to be his friend. On the other, the way my body responded to him.

For a couple of minutes, we contemplated each other while our bodies enjoyed an extended game of foreplay. The kind that people watching may not recognize, unless they were studying us closely. We did a pretty good job of hiding in plain sight.

Except this would lead nowhere. We wouldn't venture into a horizontal exploration of how our bodies could meld to each other. This was simply two adults enjoying something they rarely got the chance to do, and getting a little closer in the process. It was the intimacy of it all that made it confusing.

I pushed all thoughts of quarterly and biannual encounters off the ledge of my mind. "Questions multiply around you, but I won't ask more tonight."

He didn't respond. His serious gaze continued to track me and my moves, just like I did with him.

"I'm glad you'd rather be yourself," I finally said. "I don't want to be friends with someone who doesn’t."

What a relief it would be, to have someone in my life that would be themselves around me. Someone like Javier, who turned out so easy to be around.

The smile that took over his lips was slow. Measured. "Is that what we are? Are we friends now that I caved and danced with you?"

"Unless you want to be enemies, of course."

He laughed, his crinkling eyes making an appearance. Alluring and leaving something warm in their wake.

How ironic. One of the few people I could see myself being friends with for a long time, was also someone to charm me with a silent spell calling for release.

But he couldn't learn of it, and he didn't see it lurking in my eyes.

His grin didn't falter. "Friends it is, then."

"Friends." I echoed his smile.

It was fine. We could be friends. He could be someone in my life to slowly open up to, and eventually rely on. Nevermind that I would never be able to share that, even now, a part of me rebelled against the agreement.

Not like I had anyone to talk about everything with, either. Sally and I weren't there yet and, Mr. B.? I couldn't tell him about Javier. What would an old man like him think of the tenderness of my confused feelings? Could he read my words and let them perch from his fingertips, like a butterfly he found in his garden?

Maybe it was okay to have different friends to talk to about different things.

If I looked at his lips one last time, it was in goodbye to the eager, puzzled little voice in me that would have let him steal a kiss from me.

Chapter 13