"This isn't a good idea."
Carlos, who had been watching as Héctor led Ernesto away, turned at the sound of Lorenzo's grim voice and frowned. "Why not?" he asked.
Lorenzo scowled over the heads of his friends in Ernesto's direction as him and Héctor's figures disappeared in the distance. Once they were gone, he turned his gaze to the people around him, his disapproving expression looking almost grotesque in the light of the fire. "Ernesto does not need to be down here, causing problems for everyone and making Héctor suffer."
"What makes you think Ernesto's down here to cause problems?" Juan asked from Lorenzo's right in a confused tone, sitting so close to the fire that the sparks almost caught on the gray undershirt he wore and the strands of hair in front of his narrowed eyes.
Lorenzo rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he spoke. "Did you see the way he looked at all of us? How he stared at Héctor like he wanted to toss him into the water? Ernesto is here against his will, and he's going to make sure everyone knows it. One way or another, everyone, especially Héctor, will end up miserable."
Carlos nodded at this statement, silently agreeing with him. He'd already seen enough of Ernesto's attitude earlier to know that the man had a short temper and even shorter patience for his situation. The thought of Ernesto living here for another five months made him barely supress a shudder as the images took place in his mind.
The man sitting to Carlos' left, Marco, rolled his eyes at Lorenzo and scoffed, waving his hand dismissively and slightly stirring the fire's flames. "You've always judged people to harshly, Tío. Not everyone is out to get you. When Héctor first got here, you pinned him against the wall because you thought he was going to steal something from you, only to find out that he wanted nothing to do with you. Maybe Ernesto will be the same way."
Lorenzo widened his eyes, looking stunned at those words. Then he recovered and shook his head. "Honest mistake," he snapped, frowning. "And anyway, that's different."
"How?" Marco challenged.
"Héctor is actually nice to people," Lorenzo explained, crossing his legs at the ankles and leaning back in his chair. He narrowed his eyes. "Ernesto's just nice when the cameras and audience watching him. As soon as they're not, things turn ugly. Again, look at how he clearly wanted to tackle each of us down."
A silence formed in the air after that, the only noise coming from the sparks of the fire as they crackled and hissed. Carlos knew his amigo was right. He knew Ernesto was only generous and welcoming towards you if he was in front of an audience or if you did everything he asked without question. Here, out of the public's eye and where almost no one would bend to his will right away, he was in for a rude awakening.
As was everyone else.
This time Carlos did shiver at the thoughts in his head.
"I know he won't be staying here very long," he said after a while, folding his hands in his lap. "And I know he doesn't have another place to stay-- don't we all know what that's like." He allowed himself a half smile as people chuckled around him, then sighed as he continued, running a hand through his hair. "But I agree with Lorenzo. Héctor having Ernesto stay here is bound to be interesting, if anything."
"Interesting isn't a good enough word for it, Carlos," Juan remarked, crossing his arms tightly over his chest with his mouth twisted into a snarl. "It'll be terrible."
"Well, either way, we're not kicking him out," Marco said firmly as he leaned as close to Juan as he could over the flames. "If he needs to stay here, who are we to make him leave? Besides, maybe we can get some answers from him. Find out what that carbón had in his head when he decided to ignore Héctor's existence and make his familia hate him."
The tension in the air seemed to lift at this, and Carlos nodded at those words along with everyone else. "Alright, maybe this will work," he replied with a slight tone of hopefulness.
Five months was a long time off from now, Carlos reasoned. Maybe it wouldn't be as bad as he initially thought. Maybe he could actually hang out arounf Ernesto and find him not to be as bad as his preconceptions made him out to be. And in that time, just like Marco said, Ernesto could give answers about what he did to Héctor and finally be dealt with.
Carlos thought about the words that Héctor had said earlier.
The more you hang out with him, the more you'll see how nice he can be.
He knew that Héctor often exaggerated people's positive qualities if he really liked them, but there was a possibility that he wasn't lying this time.
Carlos grinned to himself as his friends changed the conversation topic. If he did things right and got what he wanted out of this, it might not be such a bad experience after all.