Page 5 of Wingmen

It was nice. Weird, but nice.

Two blocks later he sat on a bench outside a bakery and set the coffee and the paper bag with the soap in it beside him. He tilted his face to the sun and closed his eyes as his phone buzzed in his pocket. Not opening his eyes, Elliot dug it out and put it to his ear.

“Dígame.”

“Where you at? How come you didn’t text me back?”

Diego. Elliot squeezed his forehead with his thumb and forefingers. “Ah shit. I forgot, sorry.”

“You still in Portland?”

“Flight leaves at four. What’s going on with you?”

“Nada, Papi. Just chillin.” Elliot heard him stretching and pictured him settling into the dumpy couch in his ground-floor apartment in Tampa. The door propped permanently open, the screen across it. “Taking my sister to see that space movie. Might hit up Julia after that.”

“Yeah? You making progress?”

Diego scoffed. “Nah. She don’t want shit to do with me. But, you know, give it time.” He stretched again, yawning, and Elliot heard the couch creak. “Hot as shit here, bro.”

Elliot opened his eyes. “Nice here. I figured it’d be all rain, but it’s like…summer.”

“I thought they didn’t have that there.”

Elliot watched a woman go by with a baby in a stroller and an ancient dog. Diego’s voice went distant as he took the phone away from his ear to yell at someone on his end.

“¿Cómo?” A girl’s voice in the background. “I thought we were going to the movies?” The girl’s voice. Diego sounded annoyed as he said, “Fine. Yeah whatever, Mija. Do you. I’m not being angry! Okay.Okay.Byeeee, Renata.” He came back. “Sorry.”

“That your sister?”

“She’s seeing the space movie without me? With some guy?”

“Like a date?”

“I guess? I don’t evenknowthis guy. He don’t even come to the door when he picks her up?” Diego tsked. “It’s disrespectful, bro.”

“I’m sure he’s fine. Renata’s not gonna date some asshole.”

“I don’t know, do I? She’s eighteen, what does she know?”

Elliot took a long pull from his coffee and said nothing. He’d known Renata as long as he’d known Diego – she’d been six when he met Diego in third grade. Elliot always thought she had her head on pretty straight.

After a minute Diego said, “How’s your mom?”

Elliot glanced at the paper bag on the bench beside him. “Fine.”

“You call her since you went to Portland?”

“Not yet.”

“She’s gonna be getting ready for you to be home for summer already. She’s gonna be batch-making sofrito and changing the sheets on your bed, homes.”

Elliot groaned. “I know.”

He didn’t want to go home for summer. He’d just ended one of the most impressive breakout seasons on record. People were comparing him to alegend.Now he was gonna go back to his mom’s house like a kid on summer vacation?

“I was thinking maybe I don’t live with her this year,” he said.

Diego scoffed. “Okay.”