The speedometer didn’t stop at 120; it went all the way to 180, yet Caidin found himself braking, lowering the window, and saying, “What are you doing?”
“Looking for somebody,” said Juaco Luna, meeting Caidin’s eyes. He knows, Caidin thought.
“They moved to Montana, in the Rockies.”
“Yeah, I know where Montana is.”
“I mean, I don’t know the states of Honduras.”
“El Salvador. I grew up here.”
“Milo crashed his car and died.”
“Yep, that’s pretty much why they left town.”
Juaco’s lips seemed designed to look mired in a painful, constant memory, and Caidin longed to touch them.
“Why does everyone think you’re Honduran?”
“That was maybe just the guy who turned me in.”
Now his heart gulped blood the way his lungs gulped air. “Where’s the LeBaron?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t the car Milo had died in.
“Impounded.”
“I’ll drive you to pick it up.”
“I’ve heard how you drive,” Juaco said, but he got in.
Gripping the wheel to still his shaking arms, Caidin took them slowly forward. “Who told you about my driving?”
“Milo. He had a crush on you.”
“Give me a break,” Caidin said, but then he thought back on Milo’s gaze in the mirror. He remembered holding Milo underwater by the shoulders, pressing down with flat palms to maximize the amount of skin he touched. Maybe he’d have strangled the boy if it meant getting to touch him.
“Milo could be kind of a bitch,” Juaco said, putting a hand miraculously on Caidin’s leg. “I mean I get why you teased him.”
Caidin lifted his foot from the gas. On a leafy boulevard, the city skyline girding itself against roiling clouds ahead, they coasted to a halt. “Izzy Baxter says you’re coming back for her,” he said, trying to understand.
“Izzy’s cute, but she’s a total pothead.”
“Why were you living at Milo’s?”
“Yeah, his parents helped mine a long time ago,” said Juaco, leaning over the gear shift toward Caidin.
Juaco’s lips closed around Caidin’s lower lip. Their tongues touched. Already Caidin was dreading the end, wishing he could freeze time. He squeezed Juaco, pulling him closer. Juaco’s warm breath spread through him along every axon until he was trembling everywhere. Cars were passing; he didn’t care. He hoped they saw. It occurred to him that he was cheating on Astrid, and even that felt good.
A tractor trailer sped by, the wake shaking the two of them in tandem until Juaco sat upright and touched Caidin’s cheek. Only then did Caidin realize he was crying.
“You’re a good-looking guy,” Juaco said, drying his tear; “you’ll find someone.”
“I doubt I’ll live that long,” he said as he tried to get hold of himself.
“Don’t be dumb. Everyone hates high school.”
“You know there’s a big hurricane.”
Juaco nodded. “Yeah, I’ll find a ride out of town.”
“No, I’m taking you to your car,” Caidin said, moving forward again, but not for long; the impound lot turned out to be ten miles toward the coast, on a highway under contraflow.
Through a twisting labyrinth of oak-lined streets he found a back route home, where his dad was on a ladder nailing boards to the windows. In the kitchen his mom was throwing out food. “This is Juaco, and he’s spending the night,” Caidin told her.
She narrowed her eyes. “Is Juaco a common name?”
Caidin remembered the newsletter from back in the spring. “Geez, Mom, make your own friends, okay?”
“What zone are you in?” she asked their guest. The Maddoxes’ zone would depart in the morning.
“My parents already left,” Juaco said, as Caidin spoke over him: “He’s going tomorrow with his aunt.”
Leading Juaco upstairs, a finger hovering behind the small of Juaco’s back, Caidin rehearsed in his mind for the next kiss. In his bedroom, though, the mood seemed to have changed. Juaco sat down on the desk chair instead of the bed.
“How’d you get back?” Caidin said. “Did you pay a coyote?”
Juaco giggled. “This rich guy got me a visa.”
“Oh.” He wondered if Juaco could hear his ears’ thrumming. “If we could make it to the impound lot, I’ve got my mom’s credit card.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because I want to.”
“Do you think hot people are better than regular people?”
“I just, you can’t get by here without a car,” Caidin said, except of course the city was being destroyed anyway.
The phone rang. “Why haven’t you left, Snot?” said his brother Caleb, on the other side of the world.
“Tomorrow morning. Are you okay?”
“I’m the only guy from Houston whose folks haven’t left,” Caleb said, sounding more petulant than concerned.
Caidin listened to the whistling emptiness of the Iraqi steppe. “Are you the only one whose dad bribed him to go to war?” he heard himself say.
“Don’t talk about Dad that way,” Caleb said.
“I wrecked the Porsche,” he said, suddenly wanting to hurt his brother. “I was high. It’s probably totaled.”
“You’ve always been a shitty liar.”
“Seriously, who tries so hard to send his sons to war?”
“Who talks about his dad that way?”
Before Caidin could answer exactly who, the dial tone began to hum.
“Will your dad bribe you too?” Juaco asked.
“It was more of a threat than a bribe,” Caidin said. “But it only works if you care whether he’s ashamed.”
They played Xbox awhile, and then they watched the evacuation. When Juaco fell asleep on Caidin’s bed, Caidin muted the TV and watched him instead. Just barely, he let his finger brush against the tiny hairs on Juaco’s arm. Of course hot people are better, he was thinking when the knocks came, in the blast-beat pattern of the Poisoned Wasteland theme music.
The door swung open, the light came on. “I need my games,” said Jeff. “We’re leaving in an hour for. . Oh.”
Juaco opened his eyes. “Are you Jeff?”
“My folks are waiting,” said Jeff, ejecting a cartridge from the console.
“If you’re Jeff, Milo thanks you for being nice.”
Meticulously looking away from the bed, Jeff took another game from the shelf. Say something, Caidin thought. Say I saw you touching Juaco just now. Say dead people can’t give thanks. Say dude, the kid you’re lying next to killed your friend. But Jeff said only, “Hope you booked a hotel.”
“Mom’s friends with the whole Capitol,” Caidin said. “We’ll probably sleep in the governor’s spare rooms.”
Jeff turned out the light and closed the door behind him. Soon Juaco was snoring again, and Caidin lay awake wondering who else Milo had left messages for. Was there one for Caidin, too hatefully worded for Juaco to show him? Or had Juaco deemed the message too kind? He might never know. He fell asleep and awoke to a ringing phone. “Put Cleo in her carrier,” his mother said. “We’re almost home.”
Outside, wind was whipping the live oaks. To the east the sky was ash-gray, while an otherworldly green light shone in the west. “Juaco’s coming with us,” he said.
“Get dressed, Caidin. They’ve raised it to five.”
“You’d rescue a cat and not my friend?”
“You told me his aunt?”
“There’s no aunt. He came back alone to get the automatic scholarship.” Instantly Caidin knew his guess must be a correct one: their school was the best in Texas, and Juaco was at the top of their class. Juaco hadn’t returned for Milo, Izzy, Caidin, or anyone but himself.