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Oscar says, “Ow,” and Claudia shushes him.
“I told you it was gonna sting,” she says, and tries not to let her worry show on her face. She’d rather Oscar think she’s annoyed with him, otherwise he gets real serious, too calm when he tries to tell her this is just the life he’s living.
She was going to spend the night anyway; barely been in her new apartment in La Avenida a week, misses Oscar and Cesar so bad it almost hurts already. Today they went to some party Adrian was throwing—only then someone had something to say about guanacas showing up uninvited, and when Claudia told her to shut up or square up, homegirl’s boyfriend took it personal. Oscar definitely didn’t take it well when the guy got up in Claudia’s face, and while he, at least, isn’t missing any teeth, his face is a bit scraped up from when the other guy briefly had the upper hand.
She’s already rubbed Arnica onto the rest of him, is dabbing at his jaw with iodine, his hands loosely gripping her hips. Cesar’s at a sleepover at the Turners, the house unnaturally quiet without him. She says, Oscar pouting the slightest bit, “Okay, you’re good now,” and takes a step back, Oscar’s hands slipping away from her slowly.
She tosses the last of the used cotton balls from the sink before washing her hands, Oscar lingering in the doorway, slouched like he always is. She looks at the mirror, makes a face—eyeliner smudged, lipstick long gone. September still burns hot, and she can see where the little bit of face product she was wearing has sweat off. Oscar knows better to throw out any of the stuff she’s left over here, and she finds the makeup remover she forgot when she moved out behind the mirror, grabs for another cotton ball.
“You tired?” Oscar asks, and she looks at him in the mirror. He definitely looks it, shirtless, still wearing the shorts he was wearing to the party, grass-stained now and with a smear of dried blood that will need to be soaked before he can wash them.
“I’m okay,” she tells him, one eye free of makeup, and then, “take your pants off, yeah?”
She doesn’t have to look at him to know what face he’s making. “You in the mood, mamita?”
She rolls her eyes, getting the rest of her makeup wiped off, “You gotta soak them jeans, hombre, que tienen sangre.”
Oscar doesn’t have a good response to that; she can hear him kicking his shoes off and then the sound of more clothes hitting the floor while she washes her face. He disappears from the doorway for a moment, and she finishes her bedtime routine by the time he’s back, rests her hand against his lower back for a split second while they switch spots.
There’s a clean t-shirt on the bed for her when she walks in, folded neatly, the color faded to a gray-blue and fabric all the softer for it. The sheets are just as comfortable after she crawls into bed, for once not wrapped up like Oscar likes doing, trying to get one more laugh out of her before calling it a night. She can’t help but play the afternoon out again in her head, the flash of fear that she felt when the guy—definitely not a Santo, not if he didn’t know who Oscar was—got loud, asking why some prietita bitch thought she could talk to his girl like that.
Didn’t even have time to get mad about the word he used; Oscar tugged her back in the same movement that had him knocking the guy down, a well-aimed hit to the jaw all that was really needed. Adrian managed to separate them with the help of la Oveja, luckily—the other girl had spent most of it screaming, not half as tough as she had been when she first caught sight of Claudia.
Claudia may or may not have called her a punk-ass bitch; who needs their man to fight for them like that? Not her. She’s gotten into an actual fight only a handful of times, but she knows how to throw a punch. She definitely doesn’t need Oscar to settle the score, though she appreciates that he was there to knock the guy’s teeth out.
It would’ve been nicer if it hadn’t had to happen at all. Or at the very least not had him looking scraped up. When he walks back into the room, shirtless still and in basketball shorts, she opens her arms to him, feels like a child and very old all at once. He turns the lights off before he gets under the covers, and for once he’s the one tucking himself into her arms. He presses a kiss against her sternum, and it makes the air whoosh out of her, the way he settles with his ear over her heart.
She strokes her hand down over his back, follows his spine downwards before curling her fingers over his nape. Her voice feels traitorously loud in their—his darkened room when she asks, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, and his voice is rough. Her thumb rubs over his hairline, the prickle of his hair against her palms deceptively sharp. He’s been joking that he wants to keep it shorter, lately, stays laughing at the faces she makes at him. Swoops in with a kiss afterwards, usually, so she presses one against his temple, holds him even tighter when it makes him settle more securely in his arms.
She says, voice nearly a whisper, “You sure?” and he takes in a deep breath, chest expanding against her ribcage. She can feel every inch of skin he has pressed against her, legs bare, tangled with his. He kisses over her heart and her breath catches.
“Are you?” he says. “I know he ain’t touch you, but…”
“You got him,” she says, and rubs his back again. “I’m fine.”
“’S okay,” he says quietly, “if you ain’t, sabes.”
She swallows. “I know.”
“I shoulda let you kick his teeth in.”
“You did a good job.”
He laughs a little. “I know you wanted to fight his girl.”
“What a bitch,” Claudia says, and it makes him laugh harder, “no, listen, how you gonna start something and then have your boyfriend have to settle it for you?”
“He ain’t settle shit, nena, that was all me. Wasn’t about to let some dude from the Eastside try and grab my girl.”
“I know I’m your girl, you don’t gotta remind me,” she starts, and Oscar lifts his head, kisses her to cut her off. She curls one hand over his jaw, sighs when he presses his tongue to her lower lip. “I love you,” she says, after, and he ducks his head, mouth against her jaw.
“I love you too,” he says, voice still quiet. “I don’t like when they call you that shit.”
“I know. Me neither.”
She feels him shake his head. “It’s fucking stupid.”
“Hombre,” she says, because she has an idea of where this conversation is going, and she doesn’t want to get mad about shit she can’t change right now, not when she just wants to fall asleep with Oscar as close to her as possible, “ya sé. ‘S nothing I ain’t heard before. You don’t gotta punch out every dude you hear say some dumb shit.”
“But I can.”
She laughs a little. Keeps running her hand up and down his back, can feel his muscles relax the more she does it. She says, soft, “Thank you.”
“I didn’t do nothing.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Don’t make me say it again.”
“Say what?”
“Que te quiero.”
They don’t say it that often. Enough that they both know it’s true, but not every day. Not even close. It gives her a thrill, though, to hear him say it aloud. Two years together, now. Claudia knows they’re young, Oscar not nineteen for another little while, but she’s so, so sure this is it. That the two of them are going to make it—together. That they’ll get out of Freeridge, that Cesar will grow up in a nice house, that they’ll get to be happy like a family.
No more dudes telling her she’s too dark. No one calling her some cachuca bitch. Just her and Oscar and Cesar, safe and sound. She doesn’t want to see him hurt anymore, not for her, not for anyone else. Just wants him in her arms like this, night after night.
She says, “You can say it as much as you want,” and tilts her face up when he moves to kiss her again. Hopes this is the last time she has to patch him up, even if she knows, deep down, that it won’t be.