Letty crept quietly from Jacob's room. The floorboards didn't creak once; her teenage years sneaking out of this house late at night had taught her well, and she knew every loose board to avoid.
"He's asleep?" Javier was waiting in the hallway. He spoke quietly, but she knew him well enough to tell when his clipped tone held tension.
She nodded, swallowing hard, unable to bring her eyes up from the floor. Holding it together while Jacob was awake and needed her to be strong had been do-able, barely. Now he was asleep, and she felt like she had already lost him. The cold emptiness was overwhelming. She mumbled something, swallowing hard, unable to bring her eyes up from the floor.
Javier's arms came around her then, careful, but strong, drawing her gently into his embrace. Her eyes slammed shut before tears could fall, her fingers curling desperately in his shirt. She pressed her face against his chest, just breathing him in.
They stayed like that for a minute, Letty holding herself very still. More than ever before she longed in that moment to be able to just let go, cry her eyes out, talk about everything she was feeling.
After a few minutes of just standing here in Javier's embrace, Letty let him lead her slowly to her bedroom. Her childhood bedroom. She stopped in the doorway and looked up at him, his eyes hooded in the shadows, remembering the last time she had seen him here, undone by his own father, confessing quietly that he needed her. She needed him now. She needed Jacob. She needed about 12 shots of vodka and a generous quarter of crystal meth too. She needed to be anywhere but here.
As if sensing her rising anxiety, Javier settled his hands on her shoulders. "I think we should take your mother up on her offer to let us stay here. At least tonight."
She shook her head.
"Letty."
She squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't do this. Couldn't stay here, under the same roof as the woman who nearly put the both of them in jail, had nearly separated her from the one person in the world who made it possible for her to be a mother to her son—her thoughts crashed to a halt. Because she couldn't, could she? Not Jacob's more natural parent if that bitch in family court had anything to say about it. Not a natural mother if her own mother and grandmother were to be believed, but with Javier at her side, anything was possible. Was. Not anymore.
"Letty…"
"I need to get out of here," she hissed, forcing herself to look at him.
"I know." His thumbs were smoothing over her shoulder blades. "I know you feel that way, but with everything Jacob has been through tonight, if he wakes up…if he has nightmares, he is going to want his mother."
She stopped breathing. Maybe it was even true, but she couldn't do this anymore, it was too dangerous to let herself believe she could be a mother to Jacob, to see herself as clearly a Javier did in that role. She was no good for Jacob. But neither could she bear to argue with Javier, not now, not about this. If he still believed she was any use to Jacob then that was too sacred to walk away from. Her shoulders slumped.
Javier took her hand. "Come with me. I liberated your mother's best vodka while you and her were fighting. It's under your pillow."
He knew her so well. She nodded curtly and spun on her heel, heading straight for the bed. Javier followed her into the bedroom, closing the door quietly behind him, but thankfully not turning on a light.
The room was dark, but Letty zeroed in on the pillow, revealing the bottle – he had even appropriated a jar of olives and a couple of shot glasses. She grabbed everything, the olive jar nearly sliding from her tense grip. It was wet with condensation – he must have brought them straight from the fridge – this registered in the back of her mind and suddenly it was too much, she couldn't think anymore, she needed it to stop, all of it.
She fumbled with the bottle but then long fingers covered her own and she surrendered the glasses and bottles to Javier.
He set them down on the bedside table. "Get on the bed."
His clipped tone brooked no argument, so she obeyed numbly.
He clicked the bedside lamp on, bathing everything in a warm light that belied the darkness inside her. When she was a child she had thought this nightlight to be so romantic, suffusing the room with a soft pink glow but leaving enough shadows that she could imagine herself far away from here, in a castle, in a fancy hotel, in any number of settings she had only seen on TV.
Javier methodically removing his shoes.
She wanted to yell at him to hurry up, to pour her a fucking drink already, she sat up on her heels on the bed ready to snap at him, ready to make a run for the window, ready to climb out of her own skin. She stopped when he placed a gentle finger across her lips.
"Let me."
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip as Javier started in on her shoes next.
When they were barefoot Javier arranged himself cross-legged in front of her, and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it uncharacteristically rumpled.
"I want to ask you something, Letty." He started unbuttoning his shirt, revealing a white t shirt underneath.
He sounded different somehow. Unsure of himself all of a sudden. Letty didn't trust herself to speak. So she shrugged.
"Have you ever played Turn the Bottle?"
Her eyebrows shot up. Whatever she had expected him to say, it was not that. "Have I ever what?"
He cocked his head slightly to the side as he finished unbuttoning his shirt. He didn't take it off like she had expected, just left it open. Then he tucked his head down and began to pluck at her bedspread, as if suddenly shy. "I know we are just in high school, I know we will get in trouble if we get caught, but I snuck that from your mom's cupboard." He indicated the vodka with a nod of his head.
She blinked and sat up straighter. The air was charged between them now. "It's called Spin the Bottle." She tried to inject just a little of her teenage know-it-all haughtiness into her voice, but it came out sounding more like a question. Are we really doing this? Now?
"Ah. Forgive me, Letty. We don't have this game in Argentina."
He spoke her name so carefully, for all the world like a teenage boy with a crush. He ducked his head a little again, letting his hair flop into his eyes and for just a moment she could so easily imagine him as a shy kid, tall before his time maybe, and dropping his head down like this.
"S'alright. You guys probably just went straight to drinking the bottle," she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder.
He grinned then, pushing the hair out of his eyes to look at her carefully. She arranged her own body to mirror his, crossing her legs under her and facing him.
"It's not going to spin on a blanket though is it," she challenged, tilting her own head in imitation of him.
His lips quirked and he looked around her room, his eyes finally settling on a yearbook on the top shelf. He stood up to grab it and she let her eyes drift to his midriff, bared to her gaze momentarily while he reached up to the shelf. For a second she felt a rush like a teenage girl with a boy in her room for the first time.
He flopped back down in front of her, somehow all elbows and knees, gangly and a little awkward, darting a glance at her as he held up the yearbook.
She shrugged again. "That'll do. There's only two of us though."
"Oh," he deflated slightly. Letty couldn't suppress a smile at the picture he made, his hair mussed up and big brown eyes in the moonlight streaming in her window where neither of them had bothered to draw the curtains.
She leaned in, giving him her best flirtatious wink. "I have an idea—we'll make our own version. Spin it and if it doesn't point at me, then it's like a drinking game, you have to do a shot."
He smiled widely, looking just a little goofy. "And if it does point at you?"
"You'll just have to wait and see." She smiled coyly and twisted her fingers in her hair in the way she had always hoped made her look cute to boys when she was 13. And she didn't let her mind go down the path of what might have happened to her if she'd attracted someone like Javier instead of someone like Sean.
"Ok!" His smile widened impossibly further, making him look so young for a moment her heart hurt.
He busied himself balancing the bottle in the middle of the yearbook. "Ready?"
She nodded, but when he placed his hand on the bottle she said, "no wait."
He looked at her expectantly. Letty couldn't resist draping her hand over his for a moment, interlocking their fingers. "I think we should have a drink first. You know—for luck."
"I…uh, ok."
He righted the bottle, opening it just a little too deftly for an inexperienced teenager, but Letty could forgive him that, if she didn't get a drink soon it wasn't going to be pretty.
She lined up the shot glasses on the bedside table, taking the bottle from him and pouring it with just a little too much enthusiasm. Liquid almost sloshed onto the wood surface. She dropped the bottle back onto the table with an audible clunk and turned back to see Javier watching her steadily, his dark eyes boring into hers.
"Oops!" she smiled too brightly. Stay with me, keep it light.
"Be careful, Letty. Don't let your mom hear us." The way he said her name, his tongue curling around the L like he wanted to taste her, made her stomach flip.
She handed him the shot glass. "Don't spill it, don't want the place to stink like a bar, I'll be grounded til next Christmas!"
He took the glass, his fingers brushing hers. Their eyes met and Letty couldn't resist lifting her eyebrows in challenge.
"Same time? One, two, three!" She downed it in one go, gamely sputtering a little even as she closed her eyes and welcomed the burn in the back of her throat.
"Wow," he mumbled when she looked at him again. He was staring at her, his eyes almost glazed like the alcohol was already affecting him. If Letty hadn't known from the first date they had had (and she supposed, only date) that he could match her drink for drink she might have thought he was as lightweight as the teenager he was pretending to be.
"You gonna get drunk fast!" she smirked.
"Will you have your way with me?" His words flirted with her but his expression remained sheepish and shy.
"Maybe I'll get lucky and you'll have your way with me!" she rejoined, matching his demeanor, looking down and pressing her lips together, grabbing for a pillow and half hiding her face behind it.
She peeked at him through her hair to see him licking his lips.
"I'm a gentleman, Letty Raines. You're safe with me." His eyes locked on hers, making promises that belied his honorable declarations.
"I don't want to be safe. Maybe I want tonight to be the night I go all the way." She jutted her chin at him in challenge.
His eyebrows disappeared into his bangs. "Um…"
"I think you need another drink, Javi," she added coyly, her hand reaching across for the bottle.
His hand closed over her arm. "Drinking game. Remember? You spin first."
She rolled her eyes. "It's going to take all night to get drunk then!"
He didn't say anything, he didn't have to. Letty had already figured out that slowing her down and keeping her mentally present with him was at least part of his goal.
She huffed out a long-suffering breath and accepted the bottle once he had tightened the cap back on it. Balancing it on the yearbook, she twirled it carelessly, but with being so full it didn't make it even a half turn.
"It's too full," she began.
"Uh huh. So drink, it's not quite pointing at me."
She pretended to glare at him as he took the bottle and poured her a measure that came nowhere near to overflowing the shot glass this time.
Letty accepted it from him and downed it, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at him. Pretending to be someone else right then was exactly what she needed, but the second shot of vodka hitting her empty stomach and soothing the harsher edges of everything felt pretty damn good too.
"Your turn."
She watched Javier's long fingers give the bottle a deft twist, sending it in a full circle. They looked at each other.
"So does that count as pointing at you?" he asked hopefully.
"It's pointing at you, not me! So I guess that means you take a drink, buddy!"
Footsteps clattered on the stairs and she froze.
"Is that your mom?" Javier whispered urgently and she sent him a silent thank you for staying in character. He turned wide eyes to hers as she nodded.
"It's ok, it's just my mom and whatever number husband she's on right now. They won't come in here."
It's just my mother and Rob, it's not Jacob.
He reached out to grasp her hand tightly. They stayed still, fingers locked together, listening as Estelle and Rob made their way to bed.
"Need a drink," she muttered as the house fell silent again. There was no objection from Javier this time.
Her hands shook slightly and this time some vodka did spill onto her bedside table. She looked at it, droplets shining in the moonlight, her body frozen, waiting again for some sound from Jacob's room.
Javier slid off the bed, peeling off his outer shirt and using it to mop up the drops.
"Don't want you grounded, you know, like you said, if it smells like a brewery."
"My hero." She took a deep breath, seeking for the role again, letting her anxiety fade for now. She fluttered her eyelashes at him, seeing something in his face relax a little. "I have an idea for when the bottle points at the same person who spun it."
"Yeah?"
She let her gaze drift over the interplay of muscles in his now bare arms. "You have to take off a piece of clothing."
"Like strip poker?" His eyes were dancing. "And you'll do it too?"
"Uh huh."
"I like that idea, Letty."
"I thought you might."