Matthew drove Luci to her mother’s work. Considering she was half an hour late, it wouldn’t be hard to lie to her mother and avoid an argument.

“I’m sorry,” he said, breaking the silence.

“For what?” She sounded so sad, head leaning on the window, looking out.

“For how he spoke to you.”

Luci looked at him, then sighed, shrugging. “It’s whatever. Not like he said anything new.”

“I guess that’s true.” Switching lanes, he got close to her exit. “Your mom is probably freaking out.”

“Hmm, probably. I can probably use this as leverage to get a phone again.”

“Yeah.” He looked over at her again. “You know, it’s not just you Cyrus hates right now. After you walked out, I told him I got him kicked out.”

Luci sat up then, looking at him strangely. It made him want to squirm. “Okay. Thanks for that. It’s not the same, though. You don’t love him the way I do. And, well, he’s likely to forgive you over me.”

Maybe, he thought, thinking about his own feelings for Cyrus. “Maybe I don’t love him like you do, but I do love him. He’s my oldest and best friend. We’re god-brothers, basically. But, look, it will all work out, and Tiffany, she’ll mess up.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Matthew shrugged, switching lanes. “I’ll figure it out. Uh, which way, by the way?”

“Go down to Las Olas. I can direct you from there.” Matthew did so, letting the silence fill the car air again.

He listened to her directions, turning left and right until they reached the Sun-Sentinel office building where her mother worked. Pulling up to the sidewalk, he parked, reaching over to grab her hand before she got out. Lucita stared at it, at the way their fingers laced together. Matthew tried not to think about how it made him feel.

“Luci, look, I know we’re not exactly friends, but it will work out okay. And I—I don’t hate you, okay. Not anymore.” Too much had happened between them for him to hate her anymore, to be jealous of her.

Luci looked up from their hand and gave him a warm smile.

“Yeah, I don’t hate you either.” She pulled her hand away gently, got out of the car, bag over her shoulder, shoes and book in hand. He watched her through the window walk barefoot towards the door, black hair billowing around her before she slipped on her shoes at the entrance. Sometimes, there was something wild about her, something magical. He tried not to think about it.

Carefully, Matthew made his way back home, taking the expressway. He was still driving with a permit, but, like Cyrus, he had grown up driving on the racetrack. Matthew thought about his relationship with Luci, this tentative truce between them. Who was he kidding? They were friends at this point.

Friends. God, the thought made him want to laugh. He had hated her for so long, jealous of how Cyrus looked at her when he thought no one had been looking and of her writing. He worked so hard for it, but it was always her essays the teachers chose to highlight, her poetry, her writing, and never his.

Matthew hadn’t understood it back then, too blinded by jealousy, but he got it now. Luci saw the truth of things. She saw the rawness around her, the beauty and the pain. She loved and felt too much and wasn’t afraid to say it.

He had always considered her pathetic, expressing herself without remorse and regret. Still, it was brave to live that way, to love that way even when met with repeated heartbreak.

Maybe Matthew had known that even back then because Luci had done the one thing, Matthew never could: tell Cyrus how he felt.

Did he love Cyrus? He didn’t know. It was never a concept he thought about. He just thought about kissing him, wanting him, wanting Cyrus to look at him the way he looked at Luci. But Cyrus would never look at him that way; had no interest in him that way.

Pulling up to his house, he looked next door at Cyrus’s. He thought about going in to talk to him; he had his own key, but then he thought against it. Cyrus needed to cool off, and Matthew didn’t know what he would say to him.

He thought about the way he had shoved Luci, and it made him angry. No, right now was not the time to talk to him.

Matthew entered his house, waving hi to Fernando, Maria’s son, who was as much a brother to him as Cyrus was. Fernando had just graduated college and returned home to help his mother out. Maria, she was as much a mother to him as his own, practically raising him whenever his parents left to renovate and flip a house, god knows where.

Leaving his door open, he flopped onto his bed; picking up his moonball, he tossed it into the air, thinking.

“Oy, que paso?”

Matt sat up, letting the ball fall onto the bed. Fernando stood there, leaning against the door, dust rag in his hand. Matt sighed.

“Nothing.”

“Really? Okay, who was that girl who got into your car? Also, why was she crying?”

Matthew groaned. “You saw that?”

“Yeah, I was doing the windows. So, que paso?”

“That was nobody.”

“Nobody, huh? Then what was that kiss about? Why was she crying?”

Right, the kiss, Matthew had almost forgotten about it. He didn’t know why he had kissed her, holding her. It had just seemed like the thing to do.

“It was nothing. She was just sad.”

“Uh-huh. Okay, what’s going on? You’re being cryptic. Is she your girlfriend?”

“What, no. Look, she’s just a girl I know, a friend. Cyrus…he got a little pissed with us. So what happened was she was sad, she kissed me, and that’s that. She’s all kinds of messed up right now.”

“And you were just being a good friend?”

“Look, I kissed her back. It’s nothing. It was just a kiss that meant nothing.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

“Does it matter?”

“When it ends up with you kissing a girl you don’t have feelings for, yeah, it does.”

“Why? Why does it matter to you, Fer.”

“Because I’ve known you your whole life. We may not be blood brothers, but you are like a little brother to me. And I know that look.”

“What look?”

“The look you had on your face when that kiss broke apart. The way you looked at Cyrus’s house. This look on your face now. It’s the same look I saw in the mirror daily when I struggled to come out.”

“I’m not gay. I happen to like girls.” He thought about Luci, about what they did. Quickly, he shook the memory away.

“I’m not saying you’re gay,” said Fernando, throwing his hands up defensively. “But, again, I’ve known you your entire life. I’ve known Cyrus, too. I see the way you look at him. Do you want to talk about it?”

Matthew stared at Fernando, in his jeans and t-shirt, working today for his mom, cleaning his house. This guy who was like his brother.

“No,” he said, looking away, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Fernando let out a heavy sigh. “Fine. Just listen then; maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s just Cyrus. But the sooner you accept who you are and what you like, maybe you’re bi, who knows. But trust me, when you accept it, you’ll be happier.”

“I like girls.” He thought about Luci again, about her body beneath his, the curve of her waist, of her breasts, of the feel of her lips against his.

“Yeah, okay. But Cyrus isn’t a girl. Just think about it.”

Fernando turned to leave, but Matthew called him back, wanting his opinion on something else, on someone else. He stared at him, his perfectly plucked eyebrows arched like Spock.

“There’s a girl.”

“Okay?”

“Cyrus is dating this girl who is bad for him. Luci, the girl who was crying, she was trying to tell him, but he won’t listen to us. How do I get her to reveal her true colors?”

“If she’s as rotten as you say, how do you know she hasn’t already?” Fernando winked at him before turning to leave.