Southward - 9. IX.

November rolled around, and with it came some major fixtures in our 5th year high school social calendar.

The first stop: the graduate class party.

The closest American analogue I could think of would be senior prom, but like most other high school-related affairs, the leap from American to Argentine traditions was maddeningly steep.

For starters, there was no such thing as a ‘prom’, at least in the strict sense. There was a sort of celebration to mark the end of the long-winded journey through secondary education, but rather than a sterile dance of tux and high heel-clad teenagers under the watchful gaze of school staff and (occasionally) police, Argentine graduation parties were usually straight-up held at clubs that were not very obviously not legally allowed to admit minors but did it anyway, and the closest thing to law enforcement was a bouncer and perhaps some of the more adventurous of the class’s parents.

And they were exactly the kind of parties one would expect to take place at a club.

So on that warm night, after pregaming at Tomás’s (there were lots of drunken kisses this time around too, but by now that was part of the appeal) and surviving the copious amounts of alcohol that were definitely gonna be too expensive at the club (I had to swallow a spoonful of cooking oil to stop myself from throwing up), the boys and I headed to our designated club just outside city limits (because it was cheaper that way) and, at my 18 years of age, I went clubbing for the first time.

It was a little later in my life than I would’ve preferred, but God, was it worth the wait. It was worth it for every drop of teenage sweat that stuck on my skin from engaging in contact with faceless strangers, every deafeningly loud note of that irreverent cumbia villera, every sloppy kiss I shared with Valentín on the dancefloor as the whole world looked on – or maybe not, most likely not; it was the same either way. It was worth it for all of that and more, and I know I don’t remember a quarter of it, but to this day, the bits and pieces that remain (Damas Gratis, melon-flavored vodka mixed with Red Bull, Valentín’s lips), knowing it happened and the way that it happened…

That is something I’ll always remember.

Ω

Tomás had promised we’d have our graduation trip.

Tomás delivered.

To be fair, the credit wasn’t all his, as our destination ended up being Joaco’s grandmother’s country house in Merlo, just a few miles from the city. It was a far cry from the tourist-friendly, camera-ready Patagonian landscapes of Bariloche, but it was also just us boys for a whole week together, drinking and smoking and goofing around and it was perfect in a way that Bariloche could have never been.

And Florencia wasn’t there. In that regard, Tomás had also kept his promise.

I got to know the remaining members of the gang – Santi and Joaco, the former reserved and really into freestyle rap, the latter obnoxiously posh and charmingly gaffe-prone – and they got to know me. In some ways, the trip to Merlo was my graduation from plus one in the group to one of its fully realized members, which I greatly appreciated even if it was at the literal end of high school and it wasn’t supposed to matter anymore (it mattered).

I also got to (better) know Nahuel and Tomás, the social backbone of the group, the glue that held us all together in some form. I don’t think they realized they held that role, but they were exceptional at it – maybe that was precisely why they were. In Nahuel’s case, it was nice getting closer with my cousin, building upon the existing inherent solidarity that came with being the only Asian kids at school in a country where Asian representation is either nonexistent or so bad it makes you wish it were. In Tomás’s case, I simply shed away the last remaining bits of reservations left over from when I briefly crushed on him to fully enjoy his unabashed, larger-than-life personality as a whole.

And then, of course, there was Valentín. That week at the country house was less about getting to know each other – we’d already come a long way in that regard – and more about relishing in what we’d already built. After weeks of catching up to his pending assignments, making sure he wouldn’t have to sit for make-ups, and figuring out what on Earth we’d do once school was truly over, all while navigating the (admittedly bettering) intricacies of his home life, getting a whole week to convalesce felt like a well-deserved escape.

In short, Merlo was bliss.

Even what went wrong ended up being right.

Like how on the fifth night there, a huge electrical storm messed up the lines (or something like that) and the power went out for two whole days. We were suddenly left without WiFi, music or TV, and to our dismay we’d run out of provisions, too – alone in the fridge lay a sad bottle of bottom-of-the-barrel Americano, and on ashtrays roaches that were not worth burning our fingers over.

After a few failed attempts at playing the dusty old board games available in dim candlelight (all of us thought we’d understood the rules correctly, none of us believed the others had), followed by a couple of hours just staring blankly at each other waiting for the power to come back (to no avail), Nahuel had a genius idea. The mad, evil genius kind.

“Truth or drink?!” Joaco scoffed at the suggestion. “What are you, fourteen?”

Nahuel sighed. “Listen, man, it’s just an idea. We’ve been staring at the wall in silence for like, half an hour now. And there’s no way I’m going to bed at 10 pm.”

“Fuck it,” Tomás threw his hand up. “I’m in.”

I turned to Valentín, still not entirely sure if they were joking or not. He simply shrugged.

“If we can kill that Gancia in the process, I’m game, too.”

Santi and I shared a look that conveyed powerlessness. This was going to happen whether we partook or not.

Valentín nudged me in the side.

“Humor me?”

He knew I couldn’t say no to him.

The set-up was as cliché as one would’ve expected: the six of us sitting at the plastic table in the poolside quincho, the ugly green-tinted bottle standing expectant in the middle, receding candlelight barely concealing the mortified facades of a group of young men who were painfully aware they were doing something completely ridiculous.

“Alright,” Tomás started, as usual. “This is weird enough as it is. Nahu, this was your idea, so I’m starting with you.”

Nahuel nodded solemnly.

And so it began: a delectably awkward tandem of hilarious secrets uncovered through gritted teeth and liqueur shot-induced groans.

That jam jar’s worth of buds Tomás had brought to Mar Chiquita had not, in fact, been stolen by someone in the bus (unless Nahuel counted as ‘someone in the bus’). Joaco had hooked up with Nahuel’s ex-girlfriend from first year that summer – and so had half the school, apparently. That pregame at Tomás’s for my birthday? It’d all been an elaborate ruse to get Florencia to hook up with him (it didn’t work). And for some reason, no matter how much the boys pressed him, Santi would not speak of what happened at our graduation party those two hours he was mysteriously gone (he downed a quarter of the Gancia all by himself in his mission to keep the secret).

Then, it was my turn. And boy, was I not ready for that.

“Lauti,” Nahuel’s mischievous smile was visible even in the dim light. It took me a second to realize I was being spoken to. “Truth or drink. When you first came to the school, were you or were you not into Tomi?”

I froze; the Kill Bill siren played in the background of my brain. My eyes travelled from Tomás’s spot across me and Valentín’s next to me.

Nahuel, you asshole. How did you even know about that?

I considered my options. I could always just take a shot, but I knew that would only make me look more suspicious. I could lie, but I knew it wouldn’t sound convincing – Nahuel’s question had blindsighted me and I was already too rattled to put on a good act.

I sighed in defeat.

Fuck it.

“I guess…” I said, testing the words tentatively, “When I first arrived I may have found you, Tomi, attractive?”

Nahuel, Joaco and Santi all found the confession sufficiently funny, while an odd sound that could best be described as ‘nervous cluck’ was all I got out of Tomás. I was, however, more concerned by Valentín’s reaction.

He threw his arm around me from his spot at the table, and gave me a gently reassuring shake.

To Tomás, he said: “Beat you to this one, Tomi!”

“That’d be the first time, Gómez!”

I breathed out in relief. There’d been no casualties today.

“Hey, you’re up, Lauti.”

There was only one of us who was yet to be interrogated.

I thought about it for a minute, trying to think of something I didn’t already know and that he wouldn’t find uncomfortable saying in front of the group.

“Valen,” I turned to face him, though in this light I could barely make out the look on his face. “When did you know you liked me?”

A collective oooh was heard through the room. I saw Valentín take his hand up to his chin in a dramatically contemplative gesture.

He said: “Before the pregame at Tomi’s, during English. You were talking to Incaminato in that perfect little accent of yours, and she was smiling at you with that face she makes whenever you opened your mouth in class because you’re the only student in the whole year who’s actually able to hold a fluent conversation in English with her, and I thought to myself – ‘God, I want to punch him so bad’. But then I thought about it some more, and I realized, well, that wasn’t the only thing I wanted to do to you…”

Nahuel snorted. “Jesus, Valen, you’re a sociopath.”

My brain was working at full speed to do the math and put the chronology of events together.

“Wait, so you knew you liked me and you still pushed me down the stairs at the school entrance?!”

His ubiquitous shrug was visible through the dark.

“I still felt like punching you. I was figuring it out.”

That made me laugh. It was funny, and strangely sweet. And very much like him. I reached my hand out to him, and he held out his. They found each other on the table.

Nahuel cleared his throat: “Right. You guys love each other. We get it. Moving on…”

“Wait,” Valentín interrupted. “When did you realize you liked me?”

Joaco protested: “Hey, that’s not how the game works!”

I answered anyway.

“I guess… When you came over for the first time, after we bumped into each other on that A line train.”

Valentín gasped in pretend outrage.

“It took you that long to realize you liked me?!”

I squeezed his hand playfully. “Hey! The memory of you pushing me down some stairs was still pretty fresh, you know?”

“You’re such an asshole!”

“So you still feel like punching me?”

He leaned forward, and though I couldn’t really see him, I could still feel the smile in his kiss.

“I take it back,” I heard Nahuel say, and I could practically see him rolling his eyes just from the tone of his voice. “You’re both sociopaths.”

Ω

We still ended up turning in pretty early. There were only so many secrets to spill, and Santi was starting to fall asleep from all the Gancia. Plus, the ingenuous hope we’d initially harbored that the power would be restored soon was by then effectively quashed.

Though the house was big enough for all of us to be evenly spread and have some privacy, only Joaco, Valentín and I actually slept in our designated rooms – Joaco had his own bed, to which he’d had a claim since childhood, while an aggressive lobbying campaign on Valentín’s part had landed us the previously unused master bedroom.

It must’ve been sometime after midnight.

I let my head rest on Valen’s chest, feeling it rise and fall with each breath he took. The soothing motions of his hand on my hair and the metallic buzz of the fan facing the wall were beginning to slowly reel me into slumber.

Not yet.

There was something on my mind.

“Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you sure you’re not mad about that thing with Tomi?”

His fingers didn’t stop twirling my hair, nor did the pace of his breathing change.

“C’mon, have a little more faith in me. Of course I’m not mad about that.”

End of story. I closed my eyes again, mentally releasing the concern into the void.

“Plus…”

I looked up. He had a strange, almost apologetic smile on his face.

“Yeah?”

“Well,” he shrugged. “I kinda get it, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

Suddenly we were shifting to sit across from one another.

“You know how I told you that one time… You’re the first guy I’ve ever been into?”

“Yeah…?”

He took his hand to the back of his neck, that telltale sign.

“That… might’ve not been entirely true.”

“Not entirel–”

Then it clicked. Against all odds, my brain was actually being quick on its feet that day.

“Oh… oh! Valen! Tomás?!”

He recoiled, embarrassment and humor crashing in the curvature of his lips.

“It was only for a little, back in the third year…”

I sat upright, not bothering to dissimulate my enthusiasm. Was it weird that I was finding this as entertaining as I did?

“Okay, and? What happened?”

He rolled his eyes dramatically enough that I could catch the gesture in the dark.

“Nothing happened. I was confused as fuck for a couple of months and then I got over it. Then you came along.”

“Aw, Valen, how sweet!” I reached out to pat his hair, absolutely certain this was torture for him, and enjoying every last second of it. “I’m your second boy crush!”

He swatted my hand away.

“You’re my second crush, period.”

I regarded him for a second.

“But… you’ve been with girls before?”

His gaze shied away from me.

“I thought…”

“Not really, no.”

“Oh. Sorry…”

Now we were both facing opposite ways.

He cleared his throat.

“Anyway… You should’ve seen your face when Nahu asked you about that. You looked like you were about to piss your pants.”

The sound of our light-hearted chuckles was manna from the sky, washing away whatever awkwardness had just built up moments prior. He laid back down again, and my head took back its rightful spot on his chest.

“That was so fucked up of him. And to think he’s family! He could’ve at least given me a warning.”

“Well, the game wouldn’t be fun that way.”

“Fun for you, maybe?”

“Well, yeah,” he pulled lightly on my hair. “You should try being a little more attentive to my needs, you know?”

I flicked the tip of his nose. “And why is that?”

“Because you love me?”

“Nah.”

“Because I love you?”

“Mm-mm.”

“Because you’re my boyfriend?”

My jaw fell.

“I’m your what, now?”

He leaned in.

“My boyfriend,” he purred through a sly smile. “And I’m your boyfriend. We’re both boyfriends because we’re both boys–”

My lips crashed into his with a little more force than I’d anticipated, landing closer to his cheek than the original target, but it delivered the desired result just as well.

“Okay, boyfriend.”

In time, smile-ridden pecks turned to hungry kisses, wide and breathy and full of tongue, and before soon I’d migrated to sit on his lap, my hands firmly planted on the back of his neck and his on my ass.

He stopped to take a deep breath, and then he said: “You reek of Gancia.”

“Mmhm?”

I traced the crease of his neck with small, luscious kisses, determined to maintain contact with his skin as much as I possibly could.

“Yeah…” He ran a wanton hand through my thigh. “I think I like Gancia now.”

Then our lips were one other again.

We remained linked like that for a good while, the frantic waltz of our tongues interrupted only to allow for the passage of both our shirts as we shed them away, one after the other. The warmth of his bare chest against mine was, somehow, greater still than it would’ve been with any clothing in the way.

I finally broke off when he took his hands to my chest, encasing the length of my torso and pressing his thumbs into my nipples. I frowned, confused, to which he only responded with a sly smile.

“Oh.”

He began to move his thumbs up and down, caressing my now hardening nipples and lightly grazing the soft hairs that surrounded them in the process. My body tensed, an electric thrill travelling through every last nervous ending from the crown of my head to the tip of my toes, every passing second feeling like a tortuously delightful eternity.

Of course I’d known nipples are an erogenous zone, but the way they’d turned turgent in equal parts pleasure and pain, the sheer impact he was having on me – it took me aback in the best possible way.

His breath was hot against my ear: “Guess we found your spot.”

I barely managed to mumble out a ‘shut up’ before he decided to up the ante, making me lean back as he went down and replaced thumb for tongue.

My legs buckled under me, and I found myself wordlessly thanking him for pulling this trick while I was still sitting down.

“Jesus, fuck.”

As Valentín continued to toy with my tits, alternating mouth and hand between left and right, I became increasingly aware of the hardness of his dick against my ass – and of my own, growing more and more constricted inside my briefs.

I slowly began to grind down on him, his length tracing my crack as a suggestion, an invitation, an end on its own – all yet unclear. The line between reason and instinct blurred further with each pump of blood that rushed into my cock.

I heard him moan low, his mouth still busy on my chest.

Then I reached back.

Wide eyes looked up at me as I took hold of him through the fabric of his boxers.

“You’re leaking.”

An abashed smile drew across his face.

Instinct or reason?

I got off him in a flash, and before he could react, I’d already positioned myself between his legs.

“Stop me if I’m awful at it.”

He let out a nervous chuckle, his voice distorted by the position he’d taken on the bed.

“Never.”

I felt Valentín tremble as I wrapped my fingers around his cock, warm and hard and pulsing, a trail of precum already flowing down its side. I could only hope my instincts and the hours worth of porn I’d watched in my eighteen years of life would suffice to do a half-decent job.

I took a deep breath.

“Ah…”

Saline, musky, completely foreign and very much welcome. Timidly, at first, and then with some more confidence, I began to work on his cock, letting the soft, hushed moans coming from his mouth and the pressure he applied on the back of my head guide me. Then, as I got the hang of it and grew more ambitious, I began to take in more than I could handle, and suddenly my gag reflex was making an unannounced appearance.

“You okay?” Valentín breathed out, clearly amused. “I’m not that big.”

I wiped tears off my eyes and spit off the sides of my lips – God, no one tells you how sucking dick is an open invitation to all the orifices in your face to ooze their own fluids of choice.

“Trust me, you’re big enough for me.”

Now counting with minimal (yet meaningful) experience, I took him into my mouth again, finding the right rhythm that seemed to work for the both of us. Drawing back from theory, I used my right hand to gently cup Valentín’s balls (which elicited a noticeable verbal reaction from him), while my left descended into my own dick, sensitive with palpable need.

A sharp cry and a tug of my hair drew me to an abrupt stop.

“Wait!” Valentín said, breathless. His sweat-soaked skin glistened with each dramatic rise and fall of his chest. “I don’t wanna end so soon.”

I planted a sloppy kiss on his mouth as I plopped down beside him.

“What else do you want to do?”

He looked away, a boyish fluster taking over his expression.

“Can I… do you?”

I smiled through beady eyes.

“Yes.”

Valentín was more delicate than I’d been, taking his sweet time to slide off my briefs. My cock slapped my stomach unceremoniously when it finally broke free.

He raised an eyebrow at me from the ground.

“I’m big?”

I felt my cheeks redden, and fell back on the bed with my arm covering my eyes.

“Shut up.”

The palms of his hands felt strangely cold as they took hold of my shaft, though that was probably more telling of my own body temperature than his. Then, without warning, wet heat engulfed the length of my cock, making my toes curl against the bedframe and sending shivers down my spine.

I knew right away I wouldn’t last much. Just these tentative, exploratory strides of Valentín’s mouth on me – sloppy and awkward as they were – were making me feel things I’d never even imagined were possible to feel before.

And it wasn’t just the impetus of my first-ever blowjob that was conspiring to send me into overdrive: that image of Valentín knelt before me, his arms outstretched and holding my thighs in accidental symmetry, my hard cock disappearing into his mouth as his head bobbed up and down with excruciating lethargy, fallen strands of messy jet-black hair carelessly framing his face – just a second, a snapshot of it was hotter than any porn I’d ever watched and a tenfold more stimulant.

Regardless of what exactly did it – most likely, it was an unholy combination of everything above – it wasn’t long before my body began sounding alarms.

I tried to speak, but from my mouth came forth only a weak murmur.

“Valen–”

He did not stop or slow down, and I couldn’t catch myself in time. One moment, stars shone in the back of my eyelids; the next, a gush of cum was hitting the back of Valentín’s throat.

I took a moment to recover, spent and fulfilled, the sound of my panting drowning all else.

“So,” Valentín lay down beside me, “was I good?”

I propped myself up on my elbows. A satisfied expression adorned his face. Mere inches away as he was, I could now catch a whiff of myself in his breath.

“You were pretty good.”

We curled up together on wet, messy sheets, our bodies emanating empyreal heat.

“Valen.”

“Yeah?”

“What do I taste like?”

He hummed pensively.

“Like Gancia.”

Ω

It was the fifth pot of coffee that day.

At this point, I couldn’t even say what I was making them for. The bitterness and acidity of the last cup from just an hour earlier was still too present in the back of my palate.

Then again, I knew myself well enough to recognize this sort of behavior – pacing around in the kitchen looking for stuff to do – as a manifestation of, well, nerves.

“Want another cup?”

Mom looked up from her laptop.

“You know you’re gonna have to run down to the store and get another bag if you drink it all yourself, right?”

I waved my hand dismissively.

She sighed deeply, and in a tired motion put her glasses down on the desk.

“Will you stop worrying about tonight? It’ll be fine.”

“I know, I know. It’s just…”

She smiled pitifully.

“At least you won’t be alone?”

I returned the smile, only mine was likely sadder. The sentiment was what counted.

The buzz of the intercom startled me a little more than it should’ve, no doubt all that caffeine in me making me jumpier than usual.

I took a deep breath.

“That’s Valen. I should get going.”

We shared a last hug goodbye.

“Say hi to your dad for me.”

With everything that had been going on those last weeks of the year – the parties, finals, Merlo – I’d properly forgotten about my father’s long-foretold Christmas plans until that fateful call from the airport at Ezeiza letting me know he was in town.

Never before had I dreaded Christmas Eve this much.

It wasn’t just my dad – he was, arguably, the least bad part of it all. It was the fact that he was dead-set on having our Christmas dinner at my grandparents’ – whom I hadn’t seen or talked to in years with good reason – and the fact that there were a number of pending conversations that would no doubt make the night an excruciating affair for everyone involved.

Luckily, someone had willingly enlisted to be on my team.

“How do I look?”

Valentín had changed oil-stained T-shirts and soccer shorts for a pristine white dressing shirt and a pair of indigo slacks that had most definitely not been designed with that day’s weather in mind.

“Did you cut your hair?!”

He looked up, as if just remembering there was something different about him.

“Oh, yeah, I figured… It was getting too long, anyway.”

He looked killer.

Granted, he could’ve shaved every hair on his head (and his eyebrows) and I probably would’ve thought the same.

“And what’s up with those shoes?”

He chuckled. “They’re my dad’s. Hasn’t worn them in years. He won’t miss them.”

With a kiss and the joining sweaty palm against sweaty palm, we began what felt less like a short walk to the avenue to catch a cab and more like a death row convict’s last moments of glory before the injection.

I tried to tame my nerves into submission, just for an instant, and without much success.

“Are you sure your dad’s cool with this?”

“Tch. I told you. My dad’s Christmas Eve plans never stray too far from ordering pizza and watching old game reruns. He’s cool. Plus –” he purposefully leaned his step sideways to bump into me. “I made a point of telling him how important this was for you.”

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what that conversation had been like, but then again, things had never stopped being awkward with Sergio after I tearfully shouted at him in front of his son in his own house, no matter how much Valentín insisted he was fine with it all and that he was actually glad I’d gone out of my way to help Valentín with uni entrance exams season and everything else – but, after all, Valentín seemed happy, and in the end that was all that mattered to both Sergio and I.

So, I just said: “Thanks.”

I spent most of the ride to Pilar mentally rehearsing answers to the inevitable questions that would come over dinner, readying myself to spend a night with my dad’s side of the family, and holding onto Valentín’s hand like my ground wire.

It wasn’t until we’d nearly made it to the gates of my grandparents’ gated community that it occurred to me I hadn’t properly warned Valentín of what to expect on the other side.

“So, you know how I told you my grandparents were a bit… posh?”

He eyed the tall fenced walls and security post at the gates in sheer horror.

“Lauti, you’re posh. This is ultra-super-fucking-posh.”

I sighed. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Is that a golf cart over there? God, they’re gonna hate me, aren’t they?”

I gave him the same pitiful smile my mother and I had exchanged just a while prior.

“Hey, I’ve got plenty to offer in the disappointment department myself. They probably won’t even notice you.”

My grandparents’ house was just as I remembered it, despite the good nine or eight years that had passed since the last time I’d been. Red brick walls and a large American-style porch were the main features of its facade, and on the front yard a big weeping willow with long, swaying branches covered well over half the house.

That image was, in essence, the beginning and end of my good memories in this place.

My dad was the one to welcome and lead us in.

“Hey.”

“Hi, son.”

He pulled me in for a hug, and I didn’t resit, but I can’t say I leaned into it either. To be honest, I didn’t even hold anything against him by now. He and mom had long ended their ice treatment phase, and by now I knew better than to unilaterally blame the divorce on him.

I suppose it was just weird seeing him again.

“You must be, eh… Valentín.”

Valentín took a second to remove his hand from the back of his neck and extend it to shake my dad’s. I knew he was hating every moment we spent here, but he did a damn good job of not showing it on his face.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you…” he paused, before settling on: “Mr. Saez.”

‘Please, call me Federico’ would’ve been the customary, or even just decent, response. My dad simply pursed his lips and nodded curtly.

Well.

I’d already prepared myself for this scenario, but it was still one of the least desirable ones. I nudged Valentín’s shoulder, a reminder that – hey, we were in this together.

Still. It was going to be a long evening.

The inside of the house was just as stuck in time as the outside, the interior design an homage to eye-searing 70’s home décor trends, the passé of it all somehow not taking away from the effortless grandeur it was meant to convey.

I noticed Valentín looking around, despair now visibly slipping into his gaze. I took hold of his hand again.

Introductions with my grandparents were as awkward as I’d feared.

My grandfather kept referring to Valentín as my ‘friend’ throughout the night (I was pretty sure he forgot Valentín’s name the second he was done introducing himself), while my grandmother quite literally asked him where he was from first thing, then reacting with barely concealed chagrin when the answer was a mere self-conscious ‘eh, Lugano, ma’am.’

It did not get any better over dinner.

I was yet to finish chewing my first bite of vitel toné when two of the top five most dreaded questions popped up.

“Tell us, Lautaro,” my grandfather said over a sip of wine. “What’s next for you now that you’re done with high school? Are you still playing violin?”

“Cello, dad,” my father corrected.

“Oh, cello!” interjected my grandmother. “I love classical music, you should play for us sometime!”

I went over my mental index cards, trying not to focus too much on how all the Saezes were now staring expectantly my way.

“Well,” I began, verbally addressing my grandfather to the right but looking left to Valentín’s spot. “I’ve actually been thinking of taking a gap year… to figure things out.”

Grandpa’s face had gone sour, but, as expected, it was my dad who really seemed bamboozled. I could practically hear his incoming piece of mind, all the talk about my future, how time was too precious to waste like that, how he’d always taught me to make use of the opportunities he’d given me – Hell, I could’ve recited it all myself.

Luckily, as usual, my grandmother didn’t really seem to care much either way.

“Isn’t that lovely? Time to find oneself, and all that… So millennial! And… Valentino, was it? What is it that you do?”

Valentín looked startled, as if he hadn’t been expecting to even be addressed. He swallowed whatever it was he still had in his mouth.

“I, uh, work at my next-door neighbor’s motorcycle workshop.”

It was truly baffling how the adverse reactions in my family’s faces kept reaching new heights of overt. In the least, I had to admit it was pretty funny watching them struggle to come up with an adequate response (or at least stop themselves from blurting out an inadequate one).

After that point, I found myself a lot more at ease. And yes, my family’s questions became less incisive, too, but at least every bite I ate no longer felt like potential ammo for an eventual anxiety-induced puke.

Valentín seemed to lower his guard as well, and miraculously, he and my dad found some common ground talking about soccer.

Such was the power of the Xeneize.

We made it through dinner alive, and it all ended sooner than expected. My grandparents and I bid our goodbyes, the three of us tacitly embracing the conviction that we would probably not interact again in a long time – and that was fine by all of us. Some paths are better left untrodden.

My dad drove us home. It was a mostly silent ride, but the warmth of Valentín’s hand on mine in the backseat reminded me of that first ride home with my mom all those months ago; this time we didn’t bother to hide from my father’s eyes and the uncertainty over the future was not such a fearsome thing in my mind.

The car pulled up just a block away from my apartment.

“I’ll be staying a few more weeks. There’s some, eh, stuff your mother and I need to go over, so… You know. We should spend some time together. Before I leave again.”

“Yeah, dad, of course.”

Then, awkward silence again.

Must’ve been a family thing.

Valentín was the one to save us from the pit of despair.

“Uh, it was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Saez.”

My dad flashed a tired smile. No doubt, it’d been an emotionally draining day for him just as it’d been for us.

“Just call me Federico. And it was a pleasure to meet you, too.”

Valentín got out to wait for me by the door.

“He seems like a nice kid.”

“You know, mom said the exact same thing.”

He laughed dryly. “Well, you’re the one thing we seem to agree on these days.”

Some things never changed.

“Bye, dad.”

“Goodbye, Lauti.”

I did get to see my dad a few more times that summer, and, to my surprise, I found myself enjoying the time we spent together quite a lot. Valentín’s presence was intermittent during those encounters (and of course, him being there made it all a hundredfold better), but it quickly stopped being about needing that emotional support and instead it was just about hanging out with my dad and my boyfriend.

Something I would’ve never even imagined happening just a year prior was now becoming part of a new normality.

Valentín greeted me with a kiss when I joined him at the door.

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “It’s past midnight already.”

I wrapped my arms around him.

“Thank you for coming along today. I know my grandparents are…”

“Yeah… Don’t sweat it. Your dad seems cool enough, though?”

I patted his shoulder. “He likes you. That’s both my parents you’ve managed to charm now. Full house, not bad, Gómez.”

“That’s Boca for you.”

Jumping into my bed we both felt the weight of a tiresome day fall into the mattress with us. Side by side, we stared at the ceiling, letting our even breaths act as the soundtrack to life for just a minute or two.

This time, it was me breaking the standstill: “We deserve a vacation.”

He turned to me.

“Just for the two of us?”

“Mmhm.”

Something twinkled in his eyes. Then: a toothy smile.

“Where to?”

I didn’t even think about it, I was just voicing thoughts out loud, aware by now that I could trust Valentín with the unedited bits.

“Somewhere we’ve never been.”

Ω

Clear skies like a palette of light blue hues, dotted with white streaks of scattered clouds. In the distance, on the edge of the horizon, nothing but the steely grey of the open sea. The screech of a passing gull briefly added color to the otherwise invariable lull of waves crashing on the shore.

Valentín emerged from the water, and in just a few broad strides he was by my side.

“Are you sure you don’t want to get in? The water’s not too cold.”

I lowered my shades to get a better look at him. The sun shone diamond-like off his skin; in the few days we’d been here he’d acquired a lovely tone (I’d mostly just burned). The beach suited him well.

“Maybe later?”

He plopped down beside me in a small mess of humid sand.

“Then I’ll stay here for a while.”

When deciding on the destination for our small escapade, it hadn’t taken much discussion to realize neither of us had ever really been to the beach. It was odd, as both of us had grown up by the coast, but neither of our nearby shores were particularly vacation-friendly. We’d been lucky enough to get a good rec from my aunt for a place to stay just off Mar del Tuyú. Despite the busy season, this little nook was seemingly all ours.

I let out a heavy sigh.

“I can’t believe we’re going back home tomorrow.”

Valentín blew a raspberry at me.

“Yeah, we’re going back and you’ve barely touched the water. You’re the worst.”

That made me chuckle, but I still threw a fistful of sand his way, which, in turn, made him chuckle.

The sound of waves filled the blank space that followed after that. We found ourselves looking somewhere in the distance, beyond the point where the sea and the sky became one.

I said: “You know, I feel as though I’ve lived more in the past six months than in the eighteen years that came before.”

“You’re so extra.”

“I’m serious! Don’t you feel like life the past few months has just been so… eventful? So much has changed. We have changed.”

He pondered on it for a second, his dark eyes still fixed on the horizon. I could’ve written sonnets about the way he looked right then: the curvature of his nose, the fullness of his lips, the way his hair swayed just a bit with the passing wind. Yes, Valentín was definitely made for the beach.

“I feel like… Before I met you, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t think I was capable of much, so I didn’t even try even thinking of wanting anything for the future. It wasn’t worth it. But now – now I want to do things. I think it’s because I kind of want to be the person you think I am.”

I scooted closer to him and planted a small kiss on his cheek. No words would convey what I felt for him in that moment, anyway.

“That’s funny,” I said. “I think I’m a better person because of you.”

He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear.

“Maybe love is about making each other better.”

“You’re so extra.”

He kissed me, and this time, I recognized the taste of salt on his lips.

He said: “I love you.”

And I said: “I love you, too.”