"Those are your hangover glasses."
I knew Matt was glaring at me even behind his sunglasses. His head was dropped against the steering wheel, he was wearing sweats and a polo he'd probably grabbed off the floor, and he looked like hell. "Yours are in the glovebox, asshole."
"You're the best," I added with a grin that kind of hurt my face.
"You're the worst," Matt shot back, and groaned as he pushed himself into a proper sitting position while I climbed into the passenger seat. I grabbed my own sunglasses before twisting around to dig in the Hangover Cure Box. It was a concoction Matt and I had made at the end of last year, an innocent looking lunch box filled with waters, advil, some healthy trail mix, a few gift cards to places that sold good breakfast, and something in pill form that promised a cure in an hour or less. Sometimes, I worried about our priorities.
"Whose party did we end up at anyway?" Matt asked.
"Dunno," I said. "It's all kind of a blur. Did you drive home last night?"
Matt shook his head. "Nah, Abbie Jones drove me. She's still doing that designated driver thing. I think she might have actually started a club, some girls I haven't met were following her around."
"Her Christian values really come in handy sometimes," I said as I turned the air on high. It was cold out, but Matt didn't complain. "I'm honestly surprised she hasn't narced yet. Wasn't she there when that one girl crashed her car?"
Matt nodded. "She tossed the alcohol and called the cops but didn't say a word about Hunter's party."
"Weird," I said. Abbie Jones was kind of a saint, really religious but never overbearing about it. I'd never seen her put anything in her body besides vegetables and water. I hadn't had a vegetable since I was six, and I only drank water when I felt like I was about to die. "You taking me home?"
Matt shot me a look. "When was the last time you actually went home?"
I shrugged and we didn't say anything else, but it was a relief when Matt pulled up to his own house instead of mine. "How does your mom not know you got fucked up last night?"
"Oh, she knows," Matt said. We both got out of the truck and headed towards the house while he continued with, "She knows everything. It's pointless to try and lie."
Matt's house was probably the most humble one in Bridgewood. It wasn't overdone or extraordinary like everyone else's. His mother wasn't trying to prove a point or make the neighbors fawn over her. She kept it tidy, had a small garden, and a big ass cross on her front door that read: todos son bienvenidos. Anywhere else it would have been pretentious, but not Matt's place.
It was also likely the only house in Bridgewood that felt like a home and not a shrine of 'look how perfect my family is.'
"Mom!" Matt called as we walked inside, and the pinched look on his face said he regretted the volume of his voice immediately. I smirked and he punched my shoulder and we followed the scent of tamales into the kitchen. "Hey, we're home."
There were always a lot of people at Matt's house, too many for me to keep track of, usually family or considered family. There were two of his aunts and a cousin I vaguely recognized sitting at the table that Matt greeted with a kiss on the cheek before going to drop his head on his mother's shoulder.
"Hola, mijo," she said, with only a touch of judgement in her tone. She didn't stop working on the tamales she was making, but she did press a kiss into his curls. Ms. Alvarez looked a lot like Matt, she wasn't exactly pretty, but attractive in a sharp kind of way. It was all confidence. She had a no-bullshit face with kind eyes. She looked at me, and thinned her lips. "Scott."
Matt pushed his sunglasses up so he could give me the look as he passed. I tried smiling in a way that said 'I'm making good decisions Ms. Alvarez, I swear' as I crossed the room to give her a hug.
She pulled me tightly into her and held me like I was a child in need of comfort until I allowed myself to relax. Sometimes, she knew exactly what I needed. Sometimes, I wished --
She smacked me, hard, right against the back of my head. I jerked away and rubbed at the spot, pouting. "Ow!"
Ms. Alvarez stuck a finger in my face. "I am very disappointed in you. Again."
One of Matt's aunts muttered something in Spanish, with her hands raised like she knew something I didn't. I heard the word 'chancla' and winced.
"Because he's not my child," Ms. Alvarez answered. She sounded annoyed about it.
"Because he's white and he'll call CPS," Matt corrected, and the women at the table laughed.
"If you're going to hide out in my house at least make yourself useful," Ms. Alvarez said. "The bathrooms need to be cleaned and I expect you both to take care of this kitchen after dinner."
Matt had been digging through the fridge and came back with leftover pizza and two Gatorade's. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it just as quickly when he saw his mother's face. No-bullshit, as usual.
I smiled and said a quick 'yes ma'am' before Matt and I headed upstairs. He tossed me a piece of cold pizza and snorted when I nearly dropped it.
"Take a shower," Matt said. "You smell like the inside of a keg."
"You look like the inside of a keg," I shot back.
Matt shook his head, never understanding why I gave a shit about what clothes he was wearing. I shoved the rest of the pizza in my mouth and went to his bathroom instead, stepping over piles of clothes and ignoring the overwhelming scent of Axe Body Spray. I made a silent promise to myself, his mother, and the entire school to throw that shit out if I saw it.
I tossed my sunglasses on the counter and pulled yesterday's long-sleeved shirt over my head before daring to look in the mirror. My hair was a good squint away from 'bedhead' to 'sex hair', I hadn't shaved in awhile and whatever poor excuse of a teenage mustache my body was trying to inflict on me was attempting to peek through, and I had hickies. A lot of them.
I couldn't remember the guy from the party, not a face or a name, but my skin could. The rush of panting breath against my ear, clumsy fingers working at my pants, my head resting against the back of a couch while I watched with heavy eyes, pretending not to be interested.
The bottom drawer had my shit in it and I popped it open, first finding a mini bottle of Jack Daniels that I tossed down my throat, then an extra pair of clothes that landed on the floor. I stuck my toothbrush in my mouth while I started the shower and stripped out of my pants.
I stepped into the hot spray of water while I finished brushing my teeth then focused on getting clean. If I tried hard enough, maybe I'd wash last night away. Maybe then, I could pretend to be okay again.
***
"So, what did you boys get into last night?" Matt's cousin, I couldn't for the life of me remember her name, asked.
"Oh, you know, we went to a church group, talked about Jesus," I answered, and swiftly dodged Ms. Alvarez's hand as she went to smack the back of my head again. She recovered with another heavy finger pointed in my direction.
"Keep talking like that and I'll keep you here until Sunday morning," she threatened. "I'm pretty sure Jesus has been wondering where you are."
I grinned guiltily at her and Matt moved the subject away by saying, "Dang mom, did you cook for an army or what?" He was already piling tamales on his plate, so I was quick to follow. It smelled amazing.
"Yes," Ms. Alvarez answered. "You and Scott. Army of two."
"Teenage boys," one of Matt's aunts tsked. "They eat like the world is ending."
"It is ending. To them," Ms. Alvarez said, and glared at Matt when he went to try and fill his second plate. "You can come back for seconds, Matthew."
Matt frowned at her, but didn't argue. Ms. Alvarez shook a hand at him. "Go eat in the living room. Take Elena with you."
Elena. She followed us without argument once we had our food, and we settled on the floor in the living room. Ms. Alvarez never let us eat on the furniture, she said we were too messy.
"Seriously." Elena leaned towards us, her eyes glowing. "What did you two get up to last night?"
"She goes to Catholic school," Matt said. "She's bored."
I snorted. "I should really stop making jokes about Jesus around your family, huh?"
"Yeah, probably," Matt said, but he grinned in a way that said he wasn't about to stop me himself.
Elena gave us a minute and then huffed in annoyance. "Come on, guys, let me live through you!"
I thought about the hickies covering my chest and wondered if that would be enough to state her need to be scandalized. It wasn't something I would say out loud though, so all it really did was give me that itch to drink.
"I don't know what to tell ya," Matt said.
Elena sighed dramatically, like she thought he was being purposefully vague. Which he was. Matt said his mother knew all, but didn't trust anyone in his family not to tell his 'secrets'. "Did you drink?"
"Yeah."
"How much?"
"A lot," Matt and I answered together.
"Did you kiss anyone?" Elena asked, growing more interested by the second.
"Yes," Matt said, right as I said, "Probably."
Matt glanced at me, but didn't push, and Elena sat up with excitement. "Was she hot?"
"Yes," Matt said again, and I said, "Don't remember."
She waited for more details and frowned when they didn't happen. "You guys are the worst at this."
Matt laughed. "I really don't know what you want out of us. It was just a teenage party, lots of drunk idiots, lots of random groping, shit alcohol. Mom will make me go to Confession about it later. That's it."
Elena sighed and sat back. She looked about our age, and she was pretty, really pretty. Lots of long dark hair, dark brown eyes, a really nice skin tone and plump lips. I wondered why that wasn't enough for me.
"What have you been up to?" Matt asked, taking the subject off of us. He was always really good at that.
Elena shrugged. "Not much. School and study groups. Oh, I scared a couple of white girls with La Llorona the other day."
Matt grinned as I jumped and I could already anticipate the teasing even as I pointed at Elena and said, "Not funny!"
They both cracked up laughing, and somewhere inside of me, I felt warm.
***
There was a lot that Matt didn't ask about and a lot that I didn't talk about. Kind of like how after three days crashing on his floor, he took me home without asking if it was okay. I didn't have to say that it wasn't. I didn't have to ask if it was because his mother had finally evicted me. His knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel, that was all the answers I needed.
"Mom sent tamales," he said. That meant Ms. Alvarez wasn't particularly happy about sending me home either, but there was only so long she could keep me. I didn't bother to say anything back.
My house wasn't humble. It wasn't a home. It looked like two stories but it was only one, the ceilings were just ostentatiously high for no apparent reason. My football number was on a sign in the front yard, which was perfectly upkept by someone my mother paid, so that she could say "Oh look, I'm proud of my lawn and my son" in one go.
Matt and I lived too close together to really justify the amount of times I slept over. Just a decent bike ride, didn't even really warrant taking the truck, but no one ever said anything about it. Some kind of code, I guessed, between people who saw too much between the lines but pretended that they didn't.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" Matt asked, after we'd been parked for a good ten or so minutes.
I thought about taking up smoking. It'd give me an excuse to loiter all the time. I wondered what Matt's mother would say about that.
I stayed there and Matt didn't push me out. I stared at the front door, wondering how long it would take before it swung open. It was always hard to go home after a slip.
"Yeah," I said and grabbed my backpack before hopping out. Matt reached in the back for the tray of tamales to hand over and I gave him a two finger salute before giving in, shutting the door, and heading inside.