There is a lot of Spanish in this chapter for which I created some notes at the bottom.

Thank you for reading, hope you like.

PART 1:

There was a knock on the door and we looked at each other with eyes wide open. Without a single word we jumped off of the bed and tip-toed around the room as quietly as possible, looking for our clothes and slipping them back on.

The door knob twisted, and I felt like I might faint, but the door didn't open. I let out a breath of air, glad that one of us had decided to lock it. I didn't remember it being me.

"Dante?" Mrs. Quintana voice came from outside, still pulling on the door knob without success.

"I'm coming mom, I just... I-" Dante gave me this 'we're fucked' look while jumping into his pants and quickly buttoning and messing with the zipper. "It's just that-"

"Is Ari with you?" She asked. "His truck is here." I put on my shirt, and so did he, and we gave each other a sigh of relief as he walked towards the door to open it. "Just open the door Dante. I want to see that you're okay."

He swang the door open as I sat on the bed, with no idea as to what else to do.

She looked from Dante to me, and then at the bed that was still made a mess, "You both okay?"

"Yes mom," Dante answered. "We were just," he took a breath between words but finished quickly. "We were getting dressed."

Mrs. Quintana's face froze, she looked like she wanted to say many things, but couldn't decide where to start. I knew Dante and his family were close, I knew that he told them everything, but I never imagined he could be so blunt even in that type of situation. I know I could never tell my parents anything like that.

She leaned into him, looking at him straight in the eyes with a concerned expression. Her voice a little lower, yet still loud enough for me to hear, "was it consensual?"

Dante rolled his eyes, "yes mom."

"Are you using protection?"

My face was as red as a brown tomato. Some things I just could not be okay with, and one of them was discussing my sexual life with Dante's mother.

"Mom, we'll talk about it later."

"Take care of yourself Dante, please."

"Mom, I'm okay." He raised his hands to the sides, "look at me. I am fine."

She looked at me instead. I looked up at her between shame and noticed her face of disproval.

"We'll go over in a while," Dante said, closing the door a bit, hoping she would walk away.

"Abuela is on the way," she told him, holding the door open with her hand. "And the next time you try to close the door on me like this, will be the last time you can have anybody over." Dante winced, her voice got louder. "Get ready, she'll be here in about thirty."

Dante's mother is a scary human being.

She walked away, and it took a few seconds for Dante to be comfortable enough to close the door, still scared of her words.

"Well that went unexpectedly well," he mumbled as he walked to his drawer and pulled out two shirts. "Let's shower so we can go to the living room." He threw one of them at me, it was white and so worn down it was almost transparent. "I'll get you some pants, I think they'll fit." He walked over to the closet and pulled two out together, throwing one at me again.

"Is it really okay to shower here?" I asked.

"They already know what we were doing. What's the worse that can happen?"

"What if she really gets upset?"

"Ari, if she didn't want you here, she would have already kicked you out."

He pulled me by the arm and locked us in the restroom. He pulled my shirt off smiling, and then unbuttoned and unzipped my pants. I felt pretty stupid just standing there, so I undressed him too.

"I take really hot showers," he told me. "Hope you're okay with some steam." I was struck with a sudden happiness and I smiled at his face, at just the naked sight of him. I noticed his skin was like a mold. His body was a collection of cells and water, and there really wasn't much anatomic difference between him and I, we were both humans after all, but this particular mold held the best philosophies I had ever heard, the most simple, yet completely necessary characteristics of life and thought that made Dante Dante, and through this body I could get to him, through this body I could reach him. I could make him happy, make him feel good. With my hands, I could draw into him by tracing his hips. I could dig inside of him with parts of me to reach as deep as possible, to try to get to his core, because now he was mine. Body and mind, Dante was now a part of me and I was a part of him.

He turned the water on and tested it with his hand before finally stepping in. He called me with a wave, the whole thing was bizarre, but we had just had sex, so I doubted it could have gotten much weirder.

I got in closing the curtain behind me, and suddenly it wasn't just a shower. The way he was looking at me, the way the warm water was hitting his back, the tiny space that was between us... fuck that space. I kissed him pressing him against the wall. I moved my mouth all around his, and realized that kissing under falling water can get very messy.

He gripped my shoulders with all the strength of a professional swimmer, and I let my hands move down his sides, to his waist, and tighten him against me.

He tried to detached his mouth from mine, but I kept pulling him back, until he used both of his hands to push my face away to stared into my eyes with a sturdy seriousness. I stopped and listened.

"I really missed you Ari," he said, pulling my hair away from my face, then moving his hands down to my neck. "It was so hard to be without you. I don't think you understand just how much you mean to me."

His eyes looked hurt and I felt like a fool.

I knew what I felt, but I had never stopped to think about his feelings. I thought about his face, and I thought about his voice, and I thought about how much I wanted him with me, but I had never thought much about him wanting these same things from me. About him feeling what I was feeling, the longing, the emptiness.

"I'm sorry." I held his face in my hands, with the running water splashing against our faces. "We are never splitting up again, never Dante."

He kissed me again. His lips were soft and wet, and his hands were around my shoulders, and his legs were rubbing against me. I didn't want that moment to ever end, but it did, and he grabbed a luffa from the side of the shower. He filled it with soap and started at my neck, slowly, carefully brushing at my skin. It wasn't the first time he had given me a shower, but it was the first time I gave one to him.

"So now that you're mine," I said. "Let's make some rules."

"What is it with you and rules Ari?"

"Rule number one, you are mine and mine alone."

"And you are mine and mine alone."

"Always."

He smiled.

"Rule number two," I pulled him against me, and leaned against his ear to whisper, "we have to do this bedroom stuff more often." He pushed me off laughing, and I almost slipped.

He grabbed me with both hands quickly to stop me from falling and apologized at least five times for it. I told him that if he really was sorry, he should repent with a kiss.

He kept kissing me the whole time we were in there.

PART 2

After showering we went over to the living room. Dante's grandma had just arrived with a few of his cousins, and as soon as she saw him, she attacked him with one of those hugs you can't get loose from even if you tried. She kissed his face all around, and then came to me.

"This is my friend Ari," Dante told her.

The fact that she knew about the car thing was evident in her face, she gave me a very loving expression wrapped with another one of those hugs.

"Tu eres Ari," she told me, holding on tight.

I smiled, and Dante was smiling, and even Mrs. Quintana was smiling.

"You are all so big now," she said with a strong accent. Some of my uncles had that same accent too, it was familiar.

I stayed over for a little while. I knew that I had to go home too, it was already going to be three in the afternoon and my parents would want me to be home for Christmas Day, but I didn't want to separate from him yet.

There was talk, and laugher, and they were preparing food, but then I saw something that really pissed me off.

"Say ferrocarril, Dante." One of his cousins told him, shoving at his shoulder in a mocking way.

"Si andale Dante, di ferrocarril," the other one went along with it.

They didn't look like him. If he wouldn't have told me they were his cousins, I wouldn't had even imagined it. Their skin was dark, almost the same as mine. Their facial features were strong, nothing like Dante's.

"No guys," Dante answered, lowering his head and trying to walk away, but one of them held him back by the arm.

"Andale guero!" He teased him.

Dante looked at me, and I noticed he was really bothered by it, but that was his family. I thought he could just walk away from them if he really wanted to. I didn't see any immediate threat and to top it off, it was his family. I couldn't just get in their face and tell them to fuck off just like that.

"Say it gringo!" they pulled him back into the couch and messed with is hair. "Ya cortate el pelo, que es eso?!"

"Dilo Dante, como es? Felocalil?" They laughed, and I knew that they had to be stopped, because Dante looked as if he was about to start crying.

"Hey!" I said walking over to the couch and pulling Dante up. "Leave him alone, what is your problem?"

"That's how he says it Ari. Real funny. He can't pronounce the 'RRs.' He thinks he's white."

My mouth dropped open.

In the Spanish language there isn't just the 'r' but there is an 'rr,' which makes an 'rrrrrrrrrr' sound, kind of like a motor boat, so I can understand how someone like Dante, who didn't really speak that much Spanish on a daily basis, could have trouble with it. It isn't a sound that exists at all in the English language.

"So what?" I told them. "You can't pronounce a lot of the english words perfectly. I've been listening."

"Yes, but we're Mexican fool, we don't have to. Este can't even speak his own language."

"Nombre, Dante ain't even Mexican," the other one laughed. "He's adopted."

"Este vato," he started laughing too. "He's adopted, la cagas."

"Porque los dos no se callan el osico," I told them with a very firm voice. I was about ready to punch one of them in the face. It didn't matter who.

"No Ari," Dante held me back by the arm.

They both stopped talking and gave me very dirty looks.

"What's going on here," Mr Quintana asked, stepping into the living room from the kitchen. Mrs Quintana and abuela followed.

"Nada, nada Tio. Aqui jugando," one of them said, leaning back against the couch.

Mr. Quintana looked at me and at Dante's watery eyes. He told us to go to Dante's room to wait for the food, and so we did.

"That's the way they always are, don't get mad," he told me while locking the door.

I was still pretty pissed, and if I heard another word from either of them at all, I really wouldn't have thought about it twice to pop them on the mouth. "But it isn't right, who the hell do they think-"

"Shhh... Calm down." He hugged me kindly, pressing himself against my neck and my chest. I could feel his heart under his shirt, his fingers lightly against my waist, and the shakiness in my muscles and the tension in my jaw started going away way too easy. His cheek was against my cheek, an his hair was massaging my temple. His smell was inside my lungs. "Just ignore them," he whispered very low into my ear, and that was it, everything else went away. The only think in my mind was him again.

I hugged him back, so happy that hugging him was so easy then, when just the night before all I could do was hold him in my dreams.

"It just pissed me off! I'm sorry. I know they are your cousins, but they are assholes."

"I know, I've never gotten along with them." He looked at me and the redness around his eyes was gone, replaced by the pinks in his cheeks, "but at least we got an excuse to come to the room."

He kissed me, and we moved slowly towards the bed. Before I knew it he was on top of me again.

Outside Christmas Day could wait. All that I wanted was Dante Quintana.

TBC...

Notes: (Translations)

Abuela. Grandma.

Tu eres Ari. You are Ari.

ferrocarril. Train.

Si, andale Dante. Di ferrocarril. C'mon Dante, say train.

Andale guero. C'mon light-skinned.

gringo. Anglo.

Yo cortate el pelo. Que es eso? Cut your hair already, what is that?

Dilo Dante, como es? Felocalil. Say it Dante, how is it? Felocalil.

Este. This one.

Nombre. I would translate this one as the equivalent of saying 'not even'

Este vato. This guy.

La cagas. The literal translation would be something like 'you shit on it.' It could be used when someone is taking something too far.

Porque los dos no se callan el osico? Why don't you two shut your trap?

Nada, nada Tio. Aqui jugando. Nothing, nothing, Uncle. Where just playing.