Yet a Stranger (The First Quarto #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,64

I have ever met.”

This time, Fer’s smile looked a little closer to real.

For a moment, Auggie wanted to tell him everything about Theo too. About watching the back of Theo’s neck in class and knowing the exact instant Wagner said something that Theo disagreed with. About the times he’d walked outside and headed toward Theo’s house without even realizing it. About the weirdest things that would remind him of Theo: the weave of the upholstery on the couches in the third-floor lounge; peanut butter toast; the sound of a page being turned in a quiet room. Mostly he wanted to tell Fer that he didn’t know what to do to stop hurting all the time.

Carlos’s laughter, loud and honking, broke the stillness. Fer made that face again.

“Fer,” Auggie said, “are you ok?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, really ok? Because I don’t think you are.”

Fer shrugged and spooned the green bean mixture into a casserole dish.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What’s there to talk about, Augustus?”

“Why you’re smoking so much weed. Why you’re so tired. Why I think you’re really sad and maybe feeling helpless or scared or something. I don’t know. But it’s freaking me out a little.”

“The night before you got here,” Fer said, leaning on the counter with both hands, head down, “I had to drive to a rave and pick up Chuy because he’d OD’d again. Again. I make him carry that Narcan shit because if I didn’t, he’d be dead. And the week before that, he stole some fucking Gucci purse that Carlos gave Mom, and I had to track it down in Costa Mesa and haggle, fucking haggle, to buy it back because she was so sad she wouldn’t get out of bed. And if it’s not Chuy doing something messed up, it’s her, because she’s buying Carlos jewelry or she’s taking him on a cruise, or it’s Owen or Hayden or whoever it is that week, or she’s out of Xanax, or she’s just had a breakup and needs to go to a spa in Sedona. And if it’s not Mom—” He cut himself off.

“It’s me.”

“No.”

“It’s ok. I know I’m—I know I’m a lot for you to handle. I know I really annoy you, and I know you’re paying for everything, and I’m not responsible, and—”

“August Paul Lopez,” Fer said, looking up, then considering him, then pulling him into a hug. “You have donkey shit for brains.”

“Fer, why didn’t you tell me?”

Fer hadn’t let him go; he was holding on to Auggie with the kind of desperation that made Auggie think of a drowning man. “What was I going to say? Things have gone to shit since you left? They were already shit, but now Mom doesn’t even have to pretend to be responsible anymore, and Chuy—I mean, we both knew the way he was going. And I am apparently the most dislikable ass crumb ever to fall out of God’s pucker, because I can’t get a fucking second date to save my life.”

“Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s bad luck. It’s a numbers game, and you’ve got to keep trying.”

Fer just let out a slow breath.

“Although,” Auggie said, “you might want to ease up on the ass crumbs and puckers and chutes and cum guzzlers. On the first date, I mean.”

Fer hugged him tighter.

“Fer, I can’t breathe.”

Fer hugged him even tighter.

“Jesus, dummy, put me down.”

“You’re a good kid,” Fer said, squeezing even harder. “You deserve better than this fucktastrophe of a family. I hope you get boned like crazy by that way-too-old-for-you big-dicked bro you’re crushing on. I hope he lets you scarf down his ball hairs.”

For some reason, that made Auggie laugh so hard he started to cry, and then Fer was laughing too, and then both of them ended up lying on the tile, laughing until their mom came to see what was wrong. That just made them laugh harder.

After dinner, Chuy disappeared, and Auggie’s mom and Carlos left not much later. Fer and Auggie watched TV, both of them in sweats, Auggie with a blanket. Fer rolled a new joint, and when Auggie asked, he shrugged and passed it over. It must have been pretty strong because it hit Auggie quickly. They passed the joint back and forth until they had smoked it down to a roach and Auggie was stoned out of his mind. The TV was still on, but he was having a hard time tracking what he was seeing. Mostly, he just enjoyed the lights and colors, and then