Chapter Text
You wobble forward on a pair of heels that pinch a bit too tight. Your favorite pair was lent out to a friend, they matched her outfit better anyway. The runner in the hallway slips under the balls of your feet.
The bathroom, that’s your excuse. His room just happens to be right next to the bathroom. You’ll just peek in to see if he’s hiding from the pounding music and drunk college students trying to talk over it.
The fruity drinks Peter keeps making you are starting to tingle in your cheeks. Miguel calls you a lightweight, but you’ve hardly seen him at all tonight. He’s not a very good host, you think, leaving his party guests to mill about without his company.
Most everyone seems plenty boozed enough to not notice, but you would miss Miguel even if you were sedated. You’re certain you could miss him the same, even if you’d never met him. You curse your own hyperbole, God, drunk you is annoying.
“Mmph,”
A muffled groan spills out of the creak in his bedroom door. Sober you probably wouldn’t creep any closer, but she’s long gone. Plus, you have to walk past it anyway, you remind yourself, to get to the bathroom.
Your eyes wander from their strained focus at the end of the hallway and catch on a familiar complexion. Strong arms hold Miguel’s meal against his bed as it whimpers and squeals, muscles flexing underneath the remainder of his summer tan. The space between the door and its fame is just enough for your face- too much, by far, but the blood under your skin seems to pull you as close as possible without it squeaking open any further.
“Calm down, Mami,” He shushes against her, you can hear how wet his lips are, “we’re not going to get anywhere with you squirming.” Miguel’s voice knocks the air from your lungs, it escapes past your lips in a clumsy gasp.
His stare, deep and unblinking, pins you to the doorframe. You’ve gotten Miguel plenty mad, riled him up more times than you could count- but this is different. It’s red-hot, soldering you to the ground below. It’s not anger, not surprise, not the mixture of both it probably should be.
“P- please, I can’t,” her voice is familiar, even broken around a cry, “I can’t cum again, Miggy.” He kisses up her leg, licking at her ankle as it’s pinned to his chest. Pink strappy heels sit limply against the dip in Miguel’s collarbone- the pair you leant her a few hours prior. They matched her dress better, but that doesn’t seem to be a concern anymore.
Miguel doesn't stop, doesn't flinch. You can hear his mouth as it purrs into her again, see his cheeks sitting high on his face- even behind the thighs that obscure your view. Instead of yelling at you to close the door, Miguel smiles wildly. Evil, in the sweet, tooth-rotting kind of way.
“Aw, Pobrecito,” he coos against her, but the words are shot towards his voyeur, “you can give me one more.”
It feels like a bullet in your chest, friendly fire.
“You’re my good girl, aren’t ya?”
“Hey,” A finger and thumb snap in your blank eyeline to rip you from your thoughts, you jump in your seat at the sound, “Are you listening to me whatsoever?”
“Claro,” Your accent lacks any semblance of confidence. Miguel scoffs, at least some of his work is getting through.
You clear your throat and focus back to the textbook in front of you to read off the next prompt, “Write out a response to the following question, ‘¿Qué haces este fin de semana?’
Miguel snorts in response, and your eyes narrow across the kitchen table. He swallows back the snicker he holds in his mouth, hands up in feigned innocence.
“Vale, but this one’s easy, ‘No tengo planes, porque soy pinche abborito-” You clip his last word, throwing the first thing in reach, your textbook, towards his head- hoping to land a papercut.
Your tudor’s braced for impact, catching it with one hand and laughing at your outburst. You huff, arms crossed and posture falling. Miguel and Peter have your parents old dining room set, your chair wobbles as you sink back in it. Just like it always has.
“I got that, asshole.”
“Well, you could have fooled me,” Miguel slides your book back across the wood between you, “You tested out of Spanish 101 and now you're going to flunk out of 205. What was it, hermanita, clerical error?”
God that nickname digs past your skin and into the nerve endings, eating its way outwards. It wasn’t always like this, was it? You can’t seem to remember a time where his voice didn’t ignite every cell of blood.
He must have a talent for house fires, you think, or maybe you’re just more flammable in the days following your little run-in. You retreat ever further into the wobbly dining chair to create some distance, digging your shoulders into the spoked back.
It feels the same as when you were kids. Slinking into your chair and puffing your chest when you and Miguel would pass insults over the table. Your cheeks feel just as hot, your blood just as cold. You’re 13 again and Miguel just told you that boys aren’t going to want to kiss you and get stuck on your braces.
“I did well on the stupid placement test because it was on paper.” You feel like you’re speaking around that mouth of braces again, “I can understand the vocab and stuff, but our final is all oral.”
“If the final is oral,” Miguel chirps, pulling you closer by the leg of your seat with a splintering screech against the floor, “you might as well just drop the class, mija.”
He’s far too close, your skin might start sizzling. This was a horrible idea, one you’re sure you’ll be paying for later. He might as well put it on your tab.
“I’m just going to go to the tutoring center tomorrow, or try to drop, or fail and lose my spot on the dean’s list.” You go to slam your textbook closed but Miguel’s fingers curl over the spine, spreading out to keep it open.
“Cálmate, you’re not doing any of those,” instead of looking dumbly into his stare, your eyes fix on the rings Miguel wears; one for every long, beautiful finger. He mixes silver and gold, and you can’t decide which metal looks better against his gilded complexion. The things those fingers could do, your eye threatens to twitch at the thought, the places those fingers have been. Nearly all of your friends and the majority of Sorority Row.
“I promised you I’d help, I’m a man of my word,” his tone feels earnest for a beat, and you watch a pointer finger come out to barely graze the hand you’ve still got holding your book. It’s hypnotizing, maybe you shouldn't be so hard on the girls that hang off of his every sentence. All of these years you should’ve been inoculated, and you’re still no better. You might even be fatal.
“Plus, your brother bet me that you’d fail your final.”
Fuck him. And every perfect plane of skin. And that lopsided, toothy grin. And that goddamn laugh that makes you feel undercooked and mushy.
You pull your hand away, moving to stand up but those dangerous fingers curl around your wrist. His touch is so familiar, so easy to get sucked in to, like a rerun of your favorite movie. A physiological horror, maybe.
“C’mon, I bet him that you’d ace it. You’re my smart girl, mi nenita.”
The opening you have to throw a smart remark, or maybe another book, is wasted thinking about if you’re the only one who gets called that.
Miguel drops his grip on you as the front door opens. From the corner of your eye, you see his tongue lick over his bottom lip, just like he does every time he’s won. He must like the taste of your turmoil.
“Is our girl fluent yet, Mig?” Your brother’s presence is booming and a more than welcome distraction. Peter’s hands wrap around your shoulders, pressing his stubbled cheek against your face hard enough to squish your mouth to the side.
“Oh absolutely, she’s on her way to nailing that final. We’ve just got to work on her or-”
“Peter,” your voice interjects, a few octaves higher than what would pass for normal, “you got a lighter? I need a break.”
Your brother pats his jacket pockets a few times before tossing you his zippo. You fumble the catch, nerves rubbed raw and bloody. Don’t give him a reaction. You reclaim a bit of your composure and swipe the pack of Marblo reds from the table.
“Hey! Those are mine,” Miguel’s protest dosen’t reach his eyes, and you can’t hide the pleased smile that he pulls up over your teeth, “fucking brat.”
“Put it on my tab.”
The cement fencing around your brother’s apartment is cold against your ass. Your brother’s lighter sparks a few times before you can light up the cigarette. He should get a new one, but you know he won’t. Peter hates change.
Must run in the family.
It wasn’t always like this, you think against the first pull from Miguel’s cigarette, maybe if I keep ignoring it, we can both pretend it never happened.
What’s longer, death, or a life sentence?
You would have gladly lived and died a lovesick puppy, following your brother and his best friend around like Miguel was leash training. Living in between the moments of your life where he was, where he’s always been. Wrestling in the living room, pretending to hate when he’d gain the upper hand and pin you down helplessly under him. Playing tag, playing house. Calling shotgun in his old mustang, giggling every time your brother tried to argue. “It’s her seat, Peter,” he’d say with his arm over the back of your seat, pulling out of the driveway as if he hadn’t just ripped out your bleeding heart, “get over it.”
You couldn’t tell at first, but that open bedroom door was the last straw bending. The last few moments before the break, the aching stretch as you’re snapped in half. You’re not just Peter’s clumsy kid-sister anymore, you’re the drunk college girl that watched Miguel fucking his tongue into your freshman-year roommate.
You’re the still-drunk girl that walked home alone and touched herself to the memory of his wet smile and lashing tongue. The sobered-up girl that came hard on a toy named after him.
Heavy boots stalk forward, tracing the sidewalk and landing in your eyeline. You take another drag, blowing out into Miguel’s face.
“No fucking manners,” Miguel pulls the cigarette from where it sits between your lips, “what am I going to do with you.”
From where you’re perched, you meet his gaze without having to crane upwards. Miguel’s lips wrap around the stain your lipgloss left. You wonder if he notices, if he likes that taste too.
“I think I’ve had more than enough of you today.” Your quip is half-hearted and falls flatly on the pavement between you.
“Ya know, for someone with a stick shoved up her ass,” Miguel steps closer, taking up the space between either knee, “your posture sucks.”
You straighten your back in protest, but a low tree branch pokes into your spine. A yelp splinters from your throat as the wood catches where your leggings meet your sweatshirt.
Miguel laughs, but leans forward and reaches around your middle to snap the branch from where it’s stuck against your tailbone.
“Told ya.” He flattens his palms against the cool cement, you can feel the warmth of his thumbs on either side of your thighs. Rule number three, Don’t let him get too close. But you’re trapped already, surrounded in three of the four directions.
“I think we need to have a little chat, Mami.”
Maybe if you fall backwards into the tree behind you, you could try to make a break for it. A few scrapes and bruises sounds significantly more palatable.
“I think I’m good, I’ve met my heart-to-heart quota for the year.”
You try to stand, but Miguel’s hands keep your hips down where you’re sitting. You can feel the ridges of his fingers where his rings lie, the warmth of his skin, the slight tremor in his left hand.
“Ay coño,” Miguel tilts his face up to give you a smile, his canines look sharp enough to break skin, “no need to play coy now.”
Flashes of wet lips and borrowed shoes run past your vision. There’s no way you’ll make it out of this conversation in one piece, you feel yourself chipping already.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” you yank the cigarette from Miguel as he exhales, blowing his smoke from the side of his mouth. What a gentleman.
“I see,” he tuts. You watch him swipe his tongue across his teeth, it takes every ounce of will to keep you from thinking about how your lip gloss tastes in his mouth.
“Maybe I should bring in an outside perspective, I wonder if Peter saw anything on Saturday.” Miguel stands up straight and spins around to feign walking away, “He can help us track down the creep that was watching me fuck your little friend-“
“I don’t know what you want me to say, O’Hara,” your jaw is clenched hard enough to snap wire, “That I’m sorry? I promise I didn’t see anything? I promise I won’t tell anyone?” At least anger is a little easier than shame. Even if you’re the one in the wrong, it feels evil for Miguel to play with his food like this.
“O’Hara?” He laughs, turning back to face you with crossed arms.
“Well, Parker, I guess I’m just wondering,” Miguel takes the spent cigarette from your hand, pulling the last of it with a final inhale and dropping it onto the ground. You hear the crunch of his boot as he puts it out.
“Did you like what you saw?”
His face is only as far away as your eyelashes, two hands coil around your legs, hiking them up behind your knees. His lips are so close to you that you can taste his gum- cinnamon. A flavor so specific to him, you swear that’s the only reason he likes it.
“No,” your voice is barely above a whisper, speaking to someone you wish couldn’t hear it, “I mean, I wasn’t trying to… watch you. I was going to the bathroom and-“
“And you thought you’d stop by for an anatomy lesson? I only promised I’d help you with Spanish.”
Your eyes prick with frustrated tears, it’s either fess up or fall backwards and make a break for it.
“I was drunk,” your voice is louder than it should be, the arch in Miguel’s eyebrow seems to agree with you.
“I was tired, a- and drunk, and when I walked by your room I was… curious, I guess.”
His hands loosen from where they press into your leggings. He hasn’t let go yet, thumbs now drawing circles into the thin spandex. If his touch wandered any farther, you’d be done for- the damp heat spilling from your center outwards is mear inches from the tips of his fingers.
“Little Parker was curious,” his voice croons, “about what exactly? The birds and the bees? What mommies and daddies do when they love each other?”
Miguel’s waist blocks your legs from twisting over each other, there’s no relief to be found, it seems there never is- for you at least.
“I know what the-” his patronizing widdles down any sharp comeback you’ve got holstered until the points are dull, “I’m not a fucking kid anymore. I’m plenty versed in that area of study, and I definitely don’t need any notes from you.”
You’re not as hopeless as Miguel thinks, your first year of college was spent on any ‘anatomy lessons’ you had still been missing. Underwhelming, unsatisfying, clinical even, but the specifics would be buried next to your grave before you’d give them to Miguel.
“Hey Mig, ya ready to go?” Your brother’s voice almost knocks you from the cement ledge you’re perched on.
Miguel doesn’t falter for a second, whispering into the shell of your ear and punctuating with one last malicious smile. Your skin feels sticky, like you’ve just crawled out of a mouse trap.
The words he moved around his lips are left to echo in the now-empty space in front of you. His Mustang whines as it pulls out of the driveway and you try to shake loose from the grip still searing your thighs.
“Just let me know if you need help studying those more private subjects, I’m known to be quite the tutor.”