Last Kiss Goodbye • Teenage Juice Ortiz

37 - Turbulence

Edited

THE PAST

If Juan thought that he had felt uncomfortable before he had taken Lorraine to his room, nothing compared to how he felt after. He tried to feign a smile as he stepped into the living room again, but it felt strained and left him feeling filthy.

"Well boys, you should all learn from this guy. What he can do with his tongue..." She wiggled her eyebrows as she trailed her hand along his shoulder making her way across the room.

Juan felt his cheeks glow. All he actually wanted was to brush his teeth, for all her boasting he hadn't really enjoyed it and the thought that a ton of other men also had gone down on her, hadn't exactly been a turn on.

"Yeah, we heard that," Emilio smirked.

Awkwardly, Juan sat down between his friend and brother.

Mateo leaned over to him, whispering in his ear: "You didn't do it, huh?"

Juan stared at his knees and shrugged his shoulders. For a moment he was afraid that his brother would be angry, then he slapped him on the shoulder. "Got another surprise for you."

Great, Juan sighed internally, wondering with what idiotic thing he had come up with this time. His first present had been the most awkward thing he had ever done, but it seemed that his friends had enjoyed the other stripper while he had been away. Now that he had the chance to look around, he noticed that Lorraine's friend was on Riley's lap, kissing her furiously. Most of his friends clearly found that more fascinating than anything else in the room, so he was left feeling thankful that he would be able to get away without talking about his first experience pretty easily.

Enthusiastically, Emilio was bouncing up and down the couch, seemingly torn between watching the women on the couch and wanting to go with them. "Yeah dude, I swear to you ‒if you ever die I want your brother." He jumped up and dragged him on his feet. "C'mon, this is gonna be so fucking awesome."

Mateo stood up as well, laying an arm around his shoulders. With confident steps he led Juan towards the front door. Between Emilio's excitement and Mateo's idea of a good gift, Juan had no idea what he was walking into, but when he opened the door, his jaw dropped.

He couldn't find a single word to say.

In front of him sat a brand new shining, black Harley, with semigloss chrome finish. For a brief moment he felt like he was getting his wildest dream; that he was getting a motorcycle, but a second later reality came crashing down on him and he understood that Mateo had probably rented the vehicle to take him for a ride.

Suddenly a key was dangled in front of his nose. "It's yours, bro."

Juan stared at him, dumbfounded. What... was he serious? What sixteen year old boy got a Harley for his birthday? He only knew a few guys who even owned a motorcycle license and they only had hunks of junk. Not a beauty like this...

"I don't know what to say," Juan stammered. Tears were stinging in his eyes. Sure, there were teenagers getting a car from their parents the moment they turned sixteen, but he had never expected to be one of those people. They didn't have a lot of money – it wasn't until Mateo had started working that things had started to change – and his mother hadn't even bothered to congratulate him, or show in any way that she cared about her son's birthday. He had only seen her in passing this morning, but she had only taken the time to snap at him, demanding that the house should be clean the next morning.

Mateo gave him a little nudge. Brought back to the present with his heart bouncing a wild beat in his chest he walked closer to the Harley; he couldn't believe that this was real. Very carefully he sat down, sliding his fingers around the handlebars. His glance wandered towards his brother, who was watching him, a wide grin spread across his face. Juan pressed his lips together as he realized how hard Mateo must have worked to buy this.