Page 6 of Under The Twilight Rainfall
“Yeah, promises mean jack-squat to me, Val.”
He sighs, but it’s not out of frustration or exasperation, and a little smile plays on his lips when our eyes meet.
“Spencer is a friend of mine from back in high school. Was a senior when I was a freshman. Cool guy. He has an anxiety disorder that makes it hard for him to leave the house. Someone has to fill in for what delivery drivers don’t cover, and in turn he—well that’s not important. I asked very nicely to handle your itinerary while you’re here, and that’s all there is to it.”
He says it with such finality that it’s no wonder Spencer let him do whatever he wanted. Valen could talk his way out of a maximum-security prison.
“And you knew Spencer was my travel agent how…?”
He purses his lips and crosses his arms. “I can’t be giving out all my secrets, SpecDex, or the mystery goes away. You’ve got two weeks with me. Try again later.”
The fucker winks again, and I wish I could smack that overconfident look right off his face. Who does he think he is? Messing with my plans? With my job? He may have looked out for me once upon a time, but I’m a big boy now; I’m twenty-five years old, and I can take care of myself.
“Do you ever stop and think ‘hey, maybe what I want isn’t always best for the people I’m shoving my shit on?’ because I can’t shoot a—” I lower my voice and lean in. “—sex video with your entire family listening in.”
He takes that as an invitation to knock his forehead to mine, and this time I really do fall ass-first out of my seat. Valen laughs with his eyes, lips pressed tightly together as one of the nearby passengers offers me their hand to help me back in my seat.
I glare at Valen and smack his shin with my foot. “Fuck you, dude.”
“We can worry about that later,” he says with a dismissive hand wave. “I thought of everything. Relax. I’ll prove you can trust me.”
Sure he will. I’ve trusted a lot of people once upon a time, and every single instance ended with me getting burned, being the small fry on the food chain and taken advantage of.
I can trust myself and my judgment, and my judgment says getting close to Valen again is asking for a wrecking ball to my painfully constructed walls.
Walls that aren’t coming down for anyone.
I’mnotproudtoadmit I watched Dex in that airport terminal for almost twenty minutes, just admiring the way his muscles strain his tee and how he kept pushing back his dyed blond hair only for it to fall back in front of his eyes.
I could have watched him for hours, mesmerized by the larger than life man I’ve cared for since we were teenagers. Now that he’s here, I need to make the most of my time with him.
I wasn’t lying when I said we lived pretty close to the airport in Cebu, and after about twenty minutes of silence once Dex decided talking to me was a waste of breath, we end up standing outside my Lola’s house with Dex’s travel bags wedged between us.
The house isn’t impressive, surely not by Dex’s fancy travel standards, and it isn’t built to accommodate the crowd we’ve got going inside it, but it’s like a second home to me. A home we never got to bring Dex to before.
There were plans, not long after he turned eighteen and aged out of the system, but he was long gone before those plans could be finalized and there was no bringing him back. It would have been sooner if Dex had agreed to the adoption, but my parents had no intentions of forcing him, and Dex had no intentions to stick around.
So this is like a do-over.
Ever since I was little, my parents’ made it a priority to bring me here for a few weeks every summer. The times all three of us could come, when Ma and Pa could both save up the vacation time like they did for this trip, were always the best. Sometimes it was just one of them. Seeing my culture–seeing my family–it’s always been important to them that I have this.
If only I could have shared this part of myself with Dex before now. Before bombarding him at an airport.
My grandparents’ house is surrounded by meticulously trimmed grass and pots of flowers that both sit and hang, and off to the side is a set of cushioned chairs under an overhang. The way Dex looks at it though, you would think he’d never seen a yard before.
“This is where you live?”
I slip the travel bag off his shoulder where it’s started to sag, and surprisingly he doesn’t stop me.
“Just about every summer, sure. Now, c’mon before Ma realizes we’re outside and brings the welcome train.”
“Wait!” Dex grabs my arm, eliciting little tingles that make me shudder. “Do they know I’m here?”
“Of course.” Because Dex’s biggest fear is being unwanted. Is being rejected. I wish he believed I’d never put him in that position.
He slides his hand down my arm, like he intended to pull away but hasn’t quite made up his mind, and I catch his fingers with mine before he can overthink it.
The living room is there immediately when we step inside, and the smell of Lola’s chicken adobo wafts over us. I hope bringing Dex right at dinnertime was the best idea; there will be no time for him to stew and work himself into a knot. Everyone will make him feel welcome, and maybe that will help him relax into his stay.
