Santi decides to beat on his girl at a party.
Oscar's there, of course. Santos shit like usual. He's got his arm around Claudia's waist, is flirting with her like he doesn't already know she's going home with him. They're at Santi's place for once, celebratory for whatever reason. It's May already, the summer heating up steadily.
Next to him Adrian nurses a lukewarm Victoria, looks like a veteran of this life already. Figures, considering he got jumped in same time as Oscar, even if he's a year younger than him. The cross sinks into boys' skin sooner rather than later, around here.
Santi's been dating Leticia Mata a few months. Her brother goes by Chilango, doesn't matter that sometimes he talks to Claudia using vos. He's alright, maybe a couple years older than Oscar is. They call her Chilanga, even, since their moms is from D.F. Their accent's strung between the two countries in a way Claudia's isn't, even if Oscar can fake it pretty well.
Like usual, Santi's been using all afternoon. Oscar's kept Claudia close for mostly selfish reasons, but also because he doesn't want her anywhere near whatever explosion Santi will inevitably cause. Unfortunately, from the sound of yelling from the kitchen, his girl's caught in the crossfire.
Oscar says, "Hold up," distracted, and leaves Claudia standing with Adrian looking confused. Adrian's just shaking his head, muttering about this being nothing new, but Santi's a big dude and just because Chilanga's mouthy don't mean she can take him. He doesn't walk in fast enough to stop shit from escalating the way he knew it would, though, even if he wishes he could.
Santi's cussing at her, her wrist in one hand. He's shaking her, and her lip is busted, and there's a look of quiet fury on her face.
"Get your fucking hands off me," she says, and then cries out when he twists her wrist in his grip, "you're fucking hurting me!"
"Calláte la boca," he spits, "'fore I do it for you," and then they realize Oscar's in the room with them. Santi straightens up, but he doesn't let go of Chilanga. Her expression's flattened into something more neutral, but Oscar's met a lot of angry women in his life. The look in her eye could kill. He almost wishes it would. "Spooky."
"Y'all alright?" Oscar says, like it isn't clear what's going on. "Shit got kinda loud."
"We're good," Santi says. Shakes his girl a little, and Oscar tries not to flinch at the way it makes her face go ashen, like the pain's so bad she can't even make a sound. There's blood on her chin. "Right, baby?"
"Actually," she says, and Santi's face transforms, ugly, pissed, "you was just telling me I'm some bitch you don't even like—"
"Shut the fuck up," Santi says, pulling her close again, and she starts yelling again, telling him to get away from her, and Oscar's stepping in. He knows that expression well, the blown pupils, the snarling lip. For a second he's convinced they're all going to go crashing to the floor, and then he's yanking Santi away from Leticia and she's crying out, more pain than fury now.
"Muthafucker," she hisses, one hand cradling the other, "pinche malparido, you—"
"Get the fuck off me," Santi says, Oscar pushing him away from her, "bitch, a ver que te hago—"
"Relax," Oscar snaps, "ya, calm the fuck down," and almost doesn't notice when Claudia ducks into the kitchen. He watches her from the corner of her eye, how she moves towards Chilanga like she can fix what looks like a dislocated wrist. Thinks of how he's probably going to end up driving them all to Urgent Care, how folks are going to think he's the one who did that. Once he's sure Santi isn't about to try and throw down with all of them, he turns to Claudia, brief, and tells her to go back outside.
She takes it personal, clearly, but something about how Chilanga looks—bloody, bruised, tired beyond all else—must convince her. She slips back to the party like nothing, leaves Oscar with a bad taste on the back of his teeth. It's not too soon after that the police show up.
Fucking Estevez, Oscar thinks. He looks unsurprised to find Oscar there, but he's cheerful anyway. "Diaz! You live here now?"
"No," he says, tilting his head towards Santi, "'s a party tonight."
"Sure," Estevez says. His partner's a few feet behind him, hand on his holster. Like most of the dudes ain't strapped at this party. "Got a call about screaming. Everything good?"
"Yeah," Oscar says, lying through his teeth and knowing it's obvious, "you know how these get, huh?"
"Sure," Estevez says, more serious now. He's scanning the house behind them, even if he probably can't see much. "Miss?"
Oscar flinches. Both he and Santi turn their heads, Leticia with her swollen lip and her carefully cradled hand staring out towards them with a dead look in her eye.
"Miss," Estevez says, like he's talking to a spooked animal or something, and it makes Oscar bristle, "you wanna step outside?"
She raises an eyebrow. Says, to Oscar's surprise, "No."
Estevez blinks. Clearly wasn't expecting that. He opens his mouth, closes it. Says, after a solid ten seconds of shocked silence, "Are you hurt?"
She tilts her head, says, "I fell."
Oscar sees Santi smirk. Feels fury where there was just distaste, curls his hands into fists and hopes neither Estevez or his partner notice.
"That so?" Estevez asks. He sounds sad, looks it when Oscar glances at him.
Leticia shrugs. Says, "Yeah. Sorry."
"'S all good, Officer," Santi says. He's grinning, wide and happy to have gotten away with his shit again. Oscar tries to take a calming breath and only marginally relaxes.
"Sure," Estevez says. Tilts his head at them. "Try to keep it down, yeah? Have a good night."
"You, too," Oscar says, and the three of them watch as both officers climb into their car. They say nothing until it's clear the cops are gone from the block entirely. "Jesus," Oscar says, like an exhale, and then turns to Chilanga, says, "I can drive you to Urgent Care."
"She's fine," Santi says, flat. When he looks at her all Oscar sees is distaste. "No es nada."
"Mutha—"
"Hey," Oscar interrupts her, "c'mon. Lemme drive you."
"The fuck I need your help for," she says, but pushes past the both of them to walk out the door anyway. Oscar trails after her, means to just unlock the door so she can sit tight while he grabs Claudia. Santi decides to follow them out, though, and he's still cussing at Leticia even if she's giving it back just as bad.
"Don't know why the fuck you complaining—"
"Look at my hand," she snaps, "I need a fucking hospital, pendejo."
"You shouldn'ta made me mad," Santi says, and she spins around, eyes wide, mouth sneering. Oscar catches her around the waist, tries to keep himself between them. He knows how this shit tends to end, grew up learning when to let his folks keep at it and when to try and get Cesar out of there.
"Ya," he says to her, "ignore him, I gotchu—"
"You after my girl now, compa?" Santi starts, "one cachuca bitch not enough for you, huh—"
Oscar doesn't let him continue. Acts almost on instinct as soon as the words leave Santi's mouth, turning around and throwing hands like he's been wanting the last twenty minutes, not that he knocks Santi down. He's hopped up, more aggressive than usual, and he can fight as well as Oscar can. Comes up swinging, gets Oscar in the face and he's tasting blood.
Oscar swings again, spitting, and Santi's talking shit now, loud like he was in the kitchen. He hears Chilanga shout for someone, maybe even at them, but nobody pulls them apart until after he and Santi both get a piece of one another, shouting like they don't already have the whole block watching them. Oscar hisses when he doesn't manage to avoid one last blow from Santi, knows he's going to end up with a black eye the next day.
Something painful settles in his chest when he catches sight of Claudia and she flinches. He almost expects her to turn on her heel and leave, let him lick his wounds by himself, but she moves quick, steps close to him with her hands hovering like she doesn't know where to put them.
"You okay?" she says, and she sounds scared. He takes both of her hands, holds them close to his chest. A couple guys, Chucho and la Oveja, it looks like, are still trying to calm down Santi, and he sees Adrian offer his phone to Chilanga, probably so she can call her brother.
He says, "I'm fine."
"You're bleeding," she says, and he must look confused, because she tells him, "Your lip."
"Kiss it better," he says, but it doesn't make her laugh. "Hey. I'm fine."
"Hombre," she says, shaking her head, but lets him slip his arm over her shoulder, both of them walking back towards his car without bothering with goodbyes. Her fingers dig into his side, their bodies tense together even if they'll never reach the kind of explosive anger Oscar's grown used to, Santos related or not.
Exhaustion settles over him. He hates to think of how good he felt not an hour earlier, kissing Claudia's neck and singing some song she liked in her ear when no one was looking. Tonight was going to be a good one, Cesar with his tía until the morning, music and drinks and food, besides.
"I can drive," he says, but Claudia just shakes her head at him, and he lets her take his keys.
Once inside the car she curls her fingers over his, careful to avoid where his knuckles sting, tender from catching Santi's jaw. "You wanna grab Cesar?" she says, concerned, "I know your tía said she could watch him, but..."
Oscar nods. His mom's...well. She dipped the day before, said she'd be back soon. Not the first time she's done it this year, unfortunately. Fell off the wagon a little after he got arrested. He's old enough to know her problems aren't his, but that doesn't mean he's not thinking this, too, is his fault. He knows it's not. Sometimes, though, he lets himself forget.
"Can you grab him?" Oscar says after they pull up, hates how he sounds when he says it. "My tía, she'll..."
"Yeah," she says, and leans over and kisses him carefully, his lower lip busted and throbbing. "You need ice."
"When we get home," he says, and she hustles to get Cesar. He watches her talk to his aunt, briefly, sees her put her hand on her arm when Alejandra tries to walk out towards the car. Claudia shakes her head, says something, and then Alejandra's nodding, her face serious and sad-looking. Cesar gets into the back seat, no problem, even if he does start asking more questions than Oscar knows how to answer.
"You eat?" Oscar interrupts. It's nearly ten already, and the kid should probably be in bed even if it is a Friday.
"Yeah," Cesar says, "who hit you?"
"Cesar," Claudia says, like the kid doesn't know what their lifestyle entails. Oscar reaches out, squeezes her wrist. Thinks, briefly, about how small and fragile it is in his grip. Can't imagine what was going through Santi's head when he grabbed at Leticia like that, doesn't want to ever understand it.
"Don't worry," Oscar says, and he directs it at both of them, "won't happen again."
When they get home, Oscar heads to the bathroom to start cleaning up. He tries to argue with Claudia, tell her that Cesar's not her responsibility and he can get the kid to bed by himself. She reaches out and presses, gently, against the lid of his eye, and he hisses like she's backhanded him.
"Fine," he says, and then, "ow," when he forgets about his lip and tries to kiss her.
"You're so dumb," she mutters, kisses his face instead and reminds him he needs ice.
The skin around his eye is tender, swelling already. He washes his face, flinches when he's not careful enough with the cut at his lower lip. He's barely coming back from the kitchen, frozen peas in hand, when he pauses outside of Cesar's room. He's got it decorated real cool for him, he thinks. A turquoise blue, his toys scattered around but not dirty by any means. There's even a picture frame or two in there, Cesar when he was just a baby and a little older than that, a couple of his drawings taped to the walls.
"You ready for bed?" he hears Claudia say, and watches his escuincle nod his head. "You sure?"
"Yeah," Cesar says. "Is Oscar okay?"
"He's fine, baby," she says, and Oscar feels—warm. Good. Knowing that Claudia loves this kid almost as much as he does. "Don't worry 'bout none'a that, alright?"
"Okay," Cesar says, even if it's clear he probably will, no matter how sleepy he sounds. Oscar feels for him. Wishes it didn't have to be this way, but he's standing in the hallway with peas pressed to his eye, not sure how to change the course of their lives and not convinced he could do it even if he did know.
"You want me to turn the lights off?"
"Yeah."
She does, and Oscar watches, her figure barely illuminated by the bathroom light across the hall, as she bends to kiss Cesar goodnight. "Buenas noches, querido," she says.
Cesar puts his little hand on her face. Says, "Night, mami," sounding so, so sleepy, and Oscar feels his stomach drop. Watches Claudia flinch when Cesar's hand moves, try to rush out of the room like there's something she needs to run from.
"Jesus," she says when she practically runs into him, "por Dios, Oscar, I didn't even—what?"
She looks frazzled. He says, careful, "You okay?"
"Yeah, why wouldn't I—" She cuts herself off. Narrows her eyes at him. "You heard that."
"Yeah," he says. "He's called me papi, you know."
She winces. "That's—" she starts, and then shakes her head. Crosses her arms for a split second before reaching out and wrapping them around him instead. "You should ice your mouth too."
"I will," he says, and curls the hand that isn't aching over the nape of her neck, buries his fingers in her hair. "You scared?"
"Yeah," she says, sounding sad. "He shouldn't...you shouldn't be..." She can't finish the sentence.
Oscar says, "I'm the closest thing he's got, you know. To a mom or a dad."
Claudia stays quiet. Takes a deep breath. "I know," she says. She's frowning. Oscar doesn't like the look on her, doesn't matter that he can't really fix it this time around. "It's just fucked up, sabés."
"That's our lives, nena."
She shrugs, presses herself even closer to him. "Lemme see your hands, querido," she says, and he lets her lead him to the bathroom again. Lets her pretend that taping up his knuckles after he gets into a fight isn't another reminder of the things they have to deal with. Lets her imagine that if things were a little different, they'd have the whole world at their feet.