The Gang Leader Next Door Just Claimed Me

The Monte Carlo sat in Oscar's driveway like a wounded animal, its hood gaping open to reveal the mechanical guts he'd been wrestling with for the past hour. I could hear him before I saw him—the steady stream of Spanish curses that would've made my abuela wash his mouth out with soap.

He was bent over the engine, his white tank riding up to expose the curve of his lower back where his jeans hung low. The afternoon sun painted his skin bronze, making the black ink of his tattoos seem to move across his shoulders as he shifted his weight. Saints and skulls, virgin mothers and praying hands—a map of contradictions that suited him perfectly.

I paused at the edge of his yard, watching the way his muscles bunched and released as he yanked at something in the engine. A smear of grease streaked across his left cheek like war paint, and his jaw was clenched so tight I could see the pulse jumping in his neck.

"Sounds like you're trying to kill it, not fix it," I called out, holding up the cold bottle of tamarindo Jarritos I'd grabbed from the corner store.

His head snapped up, dark eyes narrowing before recognition softened the hard lines of his face. He didn't smile—Oscar rarely did—but the corner of his mouth twitched as he wiped his hands on a rag that had seen better days.

"Car's being a stubborn bitch," he muttered, accepting the bottle. Our fingers brushed, and I felt that familiar jolt of electricity that had nothing to do with the summer heat. He took a long swallow, his throat working, and I looked away before he could catch me staring.

"What's wrong with her this time?"

"Everything." He gestured at the tangle of wires and hoses like it was self-explanatory. "Thought it was the alternator, but now she's not getting fuel. Might be the pump, might be the filter, might be I'm wasting my fucking time."

I settled against the warm metal of the fender, close enough that I could smell the mix of motor oil and his cologne. "Need help?"

His eyes flicked to me, skeptical. "You know about fuel systems now?"

"I know about handing you tools while you complain. Same thing, right?"

That almost-smile again, quick as lightning. "Pass me the 14-millimeter socket."

Our hands found their rhythm—me passing wrenches, him explaining the difference between fuel injection and carburetors in that low, rough voice that made my chest tight. He talked with his hands when he got excited about something, and I found myself watching the way his fingers moved, imagining them doing other things. Things they shouldn't do to his best friend's little sister.

He worked in silence for a few minutes, the only sound the scrape of metal on metal and his occasional grunt of effort. Then, without looking up from the engine: "Cesar's being an idiot again."

I waited. Oscar didn't talk about his brother often, and when he did, it felt like a gift he was offering—something precious and weighted. "The girl?"

"Always the girl." He yanked at a hose clamp, his jaw tight. "Thinks he's in love. Thinks that means something in our world."

"It means something to him."

Oscar's hands stilled. He turned his head to look at me, and for a moment, the mask slipped—just a crack, just enough to show the exhaustion underneath. "Yeah," he said quietly. "That's what I'm afraid of."

I didn't reach for him. I never did, not when he let these moments happen. I just held his gaze until he looked away, back to the engine, back to safer ground.

"The Prophets been active near the Martinez place," he said, changing subjects with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. "Your brother know?"

"Mario knows everything. Thinks he's the neighborhood watch."

"Someone needs to be." He finally freed the fuel filter, holding it up to the light with a grimace. "Look at this. Clogged to hell. No wonder she was choking."

"How much is a new one?"

"Too much." He set it aside and started cleaning the housing, his movements precise and practiced. "Everything's too much now. Parts, protection, peace of mind." He glanced at me again, quicker this time. "You should tell him to be careful. The Prophets don't care about neighborhood watches."

"I'll tell him you said so. That'll go over well."

The ghost of a smile again, there and gone. "Yeah, probably not."

We fell back into our rhythm—him working, me watching, the afternoon stretching warm and golden around us. He told me about a Santos member who'd gotten picked up last week, how the lawyer was bleeding them dry. I told him about my new shift at the diner, the regular who kept trying to convert me to Jehovah's Witness. He actually laughed at that, a real sound that startled us both into silence afterward.

"Your laugh is broken," I said, handing him a rag. "Like it doesn't know how to work right."

"Don't use it enough." He wiped his hands, studying the grease stains like they held answers. "Not much to laugh about, Spooky."

"You laughed at my Jehovah's Witness story."

"That was pity laughter."

"Liar."

Our eyes met, and something shifted—something dangerous that we both recognized and both ignored. He looked away first, reaching for the new fuel filter he'd had sitting on his toolbox.

"Hand me the pliers?"

I gave them to him, careful not to let our fingers touch this time. The avoidance felt like its own kind of intimacy.

By the time he finished, the sun had dropped lower, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that felt too soft for Freeridge. Oscar slammed the hood with satisfaction, the Monte Carlo's engine purring to life on the first try. He leaned against the driver's side door, arms crossed, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.

"Thanks for the company," he said, which was as close as he ever got to thank you for making me forget.

"Thanks for the mechanical education."

"You're a shitty mechanic."

"I'm an excellent tool-passer. Different skill set."

That almost-smile again. I memorized it, stored it away with all the others—evidence of something that existed only in these small moments, these stolen afternoons when Oscar Diaz let himself be something other than Spooky.

I pushed off the fender and started toward the sidewalk, feeling his eyes on my back with every step. "See you around, Oscar."

"Yeah," he said, and I heard the door to his house open and close behind him before I'd even reached the corner.

I was still smiling at something Oscar had said—some dry comment about carburetors that had landed five minutes too late—when I saw Mario on our porch. He sat on the top step, elbows on his knees, watching me approach with the focused attention of a predator. Or a worried older brother. With Mario, the line blurred.

"Where you been?" he asked before my foot hit the first step.

"Nowhere. Oscar's place." I kept my voice light, casual, reaching past him for the screen door. "His Monte Carlo was acting up again."

Mario didn't move. He blocked the door with his body, and I was forced to stop, to face him. Up close, I could see the tension in his jaw, the way his fingers drummed against his thigh. "You were there for three hours."

"So?"

"So." He stood, unfolding slowly, deliberately. At twenty-three, Mario had already perfected the posture of a man who expected to be listened to. "So I don't like you spending time with Oscar Diaz."

I rolled my eyes, reaching for the door again. "He's our neighbor, Mario. We've known him since we were kids."

"That's not the point." His hand shot out, not rough but firm, catching my wrist. "He's not the same kid who used to let us use his basketball hoop, hermana. He's Spooky now. Leader of the Santos. You know what that means."

I knew. Everyone in Freeridge knew. It meant blood on your hands and targets on your back. It meant power that looked like protection until it wasn't. It meant the man I'd spent the afternoon with—the one who'd laughed at my stupid joke about Jehovah's Witnesses—existed inside a shell of violence and reputation.

"He's my friend," I said, and the words tasted wrong, incomplete. Like describing the ocean as wet.

"Friends don't look at friends the way he looks at you."

My stomach dropped, but I kept my face blank. "You're imagining things."

"I'm not blind." Mario released my wrist, but he didn't step back. The porch light flickered above us, catching the worry in his eyes and turning it harsh. "I see how he watches you. I see how you watch him. And I'm telling you—" he lowered his voice, glancing toward the street where anyone could be listening "—getting close to him is playing with fire. You'll get burned. Maybe worse."

The unspoken hung between us: Cesar's girlfriend. The Prophets. The girls who disappeared into the Santos' world and never came out the same.

"We're just friends," I said, and this time the lie felt physical, ash coating my tongue, heavy in my chest. Because Mario didn't know about the jarritos I kept buying because Oscar liked tamarindo best. He didn't know about the afternoons I'd catalogued like treasures, the almost-smiles I'd counted like currency. He didn't know that "friend" was the smallest word I had for what Oscar Diaz had become to me, and still too large for what I wanted to be.

Mario studied my face, searching for cracks in my performance. I let him look. I'd had years of practice hiding this particular truth, and I used every trick I'd learned—steady breathing, relaxed shoulders, the careful blankness that passed for innocence.

Finally, he stepped aside. "Be careful, hermana. That's all I'm saying."

I pushed past him into the house, feeling his eyes on my back just as I'd felt Oscar's earlier. Two sets of watchful men, two versions of protection that felt like walls closing in.

In my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at my hands. They still smelled faintly of motor oil from passing Oscar tools, from brushing against his in the exchange. I didn't wash them. I lay back against my pillows and let myself remember his laugh—broken, surprised, real—and knew with absolute certainty that I would go back. That Mario's warnings were already too late.

The fire had been lit years ago. I was just now feeling the burn.

The afternoon heat had settled over Freeridge like a blanket, thick and suffocating, when I saw him. I was on my porch swing, pushing myself in lazy arcs with one foot, the chains creaking a rhythm I'd known since childhood. And there he was, crossing the lawn without invitation or announcement, his black t-shirt already darkening with sweat across his shoulders.

Oscar didn't speak as he approached. He never did when he had something heavy on his mind—just showed up, present and imposing, and waited for the world to adjust around him. He sat on the steps below me, his back against the railing post, knees bent and forearms resting across them. From above, I could see the crown of his head, the close-cropped hair, the intricate tattoo that crept up his neck and disappeared beneath his collar.

We stayed like that for a long moment—me swinging gently, him motionless—two figures in the stillness of a Tuesday that felt like it was waiting for something.

"Party Saturday," he finally said, his voice rough as gravel. "Santos house. Ray's getting out."

I stopped the swing with my heel, the chains rattling into silence. "Ray? The one who—"

"Yeah." Oscar turned his head to look at me, and the afternoon sun caught the gold in his brown eyes, made them look almost amber. "Two years inside. We're celebrating."

He said it like a weather report. Like fact. But I heard what he wasn't saying, what lived in the space between the words. He wanted me there. In his house. In his world.

"Okay," I said, because anything more would have betrayed how my heart had started hammering against my ribs.

Oscar's jaw tightened, a muscle jumping there. He stood slowly, unfolding to his full height, and suddenly the porch felt smaller. "Not okay," he corrected, and there was an edge to it now, something raw beneath the controlled surface. "I want you there. I'm telling you to come."

The command in it should have rankled. Would have, from anyone else. But from Oscar, it felt like confession—like the words had cost him something, this admission of want.

"Then I'll come," I said.

He nodded once, sharp, and started down the steps. At the bottom, he paused, his hand on the railing, not turning back. "Eight o'clock. Don't wear anything..." he stopped, searching for words that wouldn't reveal too much. "Just come."

I watched him walk away, the set of his shoulders defensive even in retreat, and pressed my palm flat against my stomach where something dangerous and warm had taken root.

That night, I stood in front of my closet with the fan rattling in the corner, inventorying dresses that suddenly felt like costumes. The red one was too much, the blue too little, the black like I was trying too hard. I held up options and imagined Oscar seeing me in them—Oscar in his element, surrounded by his crew, the music loud and the air thick with smoke and the particular tension of the Santos' world.

And I knew, with a clarity that made my hands shake, that I was preparing to cross a line I'd been tiptoeing toward for years. The safe bubble of afternoon conversations and shared Jarritos was about to burst. I was going to step into his world, and I had no illusions that I'd step back out unchanged.

I chose the black dress. Not for him, I told myself. For confidence. For armor.

Mario found me Thursday evening, folding laundry in the living room while our mother worked a double. He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me match socks with the same intensity he'd shown on the porch two days before.

"You're going somewhere Saturday," he said. Not a question.

"A friend's party." I kept my eyes on the socks, my voice carefully neutral.

"Which friend?"

"Just someone from the diner." The lie came easier than it should have, smooth and practiced. I felt him studying me, felt the weight of his suspicion pressing against my skin like physical force.

"Be careful," he said finally, and the words echoed his earlier warning so precisely that I wondered if he knew. If everyone knew, and I was the last to admit it aloud.

"I always am," I said, and the lie between us thickened the air until he pushed off the doorframe and walked away, leaving me alone with my secrets and my anticipation and the certainty that Saturday night would change everything.

Friday afternoon found me at the drugstore on Mission, staring at a wall of lipsticks like they held the answer to some question I couldn't quite name. I picked up a deep red, then put it down. Too obvious. A nude, then. Too safe. My fingers kept drifting back to the black dress hanging in my closet, wondering if I'd made the right choice, if there was any right choice when it came to Oscar Diaz.

And I couldn't stop thinking about the way he'd said it. Don't wear anything... The sentence he'd abandoned hung in my memory, incomplete and charged with possibility. Had he been about to say revealing? Dangerous? Or something else entirely, something he couldn't let himself finish?

I bought the red lipstick. And a new mascara. And I hated myself a little for the flutter in my stomach as I handed over the cash, like I was sixteen again, preparing for my first real date.

At home, I tried on the dress three more times, turning in front of the mirror, studying my reflection with critical eyes. The black fell to mid-thigh, simple and sleeveless, nothing that should feel like a statement. But on me, it felt like a declaration. Like armor and vulnerability at once.

My phone buzzed. A text from Cesar: You coming tomorrow?

I stared at it. Oscar had told his brother. The knowledge sent a fresh spike of nerves through me. This was real. This was happening.

Yeah, I typed back. See you there.

I spent Friday evening in a state of suspended animation, too restless to read, too distracted to watch television. I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of Freeridge settling into night—car doors slamming, distant music, the occasional shout that might be celebration or warning depending on the tone.

And I thought about the shadows. Oscar's world ran on different rules than mine. I'd seen the edges of it my whole life, the way men stepped off sidewalks when he passed, the way conversations fell to whispers. I'd told myself I understood it, that I could navigate it, that my sunshine—my mother's word for me, my brother's teasing nickname—could exist anywhere.

But Saturday night would test that theory. I would walk into a house where I didn't belong, surrounded by people who knew exactly who I was and what I represented. The outsider. Mario's sister. The girl Spooky watched.

The girl Spooky wanted.

That thought, finally admitted, made me sit up in bed, my heart hammering. Because it wasn't just my imagination, my hopeless crush. He'd said it, hadn't he? The rough edge in his voice, the way he'd needed me there. I'm telling you to come. Not asking. Needing.

I got up and stood at my window, looking out toward the Diaz house. The lights were on downstairs, and I could see the shape of someone moving in the kitchen. Oscar, probably. Or Cesar. I pressed my palm against the glass, cool against my overheated skin, and let myself want.

Two years. Three. However long it had been building, this thing between us. And tomorrow, I would step across the threshold he'd opened, into the heat and noise and danger of his life. The safe afternoons would be behind me. Whatever came next would be real, irreversible, written in the language of his world.

I didn't sleep much that night. And when I did, I dreamed of fire.

Saturday arrived like a held breath.

I woke early, my body already thrumming with nervous energy, and spent the morning in useless motion—cleaning my already-clean room, reorganizing my closet, anything to keep my hands busy and my mind from racing ahead to eight o'clock. The black dress hung on my door like a promise, or a threat, and I kept finding reasons to walk past it, to touch the fabric, to imagine the night unfolding.

By afternoon, the heat had built to something oppressive, the kind of dry California warmth that made the air shimmer. I stood in the kitchen drinking glass after glass of water, my mother watching me with knowing eyes that said nothing. She'd worked her double, come home exhausted, and still she saw through me in that way mothers do.

"Going out tonight?" she asked, casual, peeling an orange at the counter.

"Mm. A party."

"With Oscar?"

The orange peel tore in her hands. I froze, the glass halfway to my lips, and watched her face for judgment, for warning, for the same fear Mario carried. But she just separated a segment and ate it, her eyes on the window, on something I couldn't see.

"Be smart," she said. "That's all."

I nodded, unable to speak, and escaped to my room before she could say more or I could say too much.

Mario found me at six, as the light was beginning to soften toward evening. I was at my mirror, applying the red lipstick with shaking hands, and he stood in my doorway watching the transformation with hard eyes.

"Where?" he asked.

I met his gaze in the glass. "I told you. A friend's."

"Which friend?"

"Does it matter?"

He stepped into the room, close enough that I could smell the aftershave he wore, the same brand our father had used. Close enough that I could see the worry carved into his face, the protective anger he couldn't quite hide.

"It matters if you're walking into something you can't walk out of," he said. "It matters if you're lying to me."

The lipstick tube clicked against my teeth. I turned to face him, the dress still hanging behind me, the evidence of my intent laid bare in the makeup, the careful hair, the perfume I'd already applied.

"I'm not a kid anymore, Mario."

"You're eighteen."

"And you're not my father."

The words landed between us like stones. I saw him flinch, saw the hurt flash quick and sharp before he locked it down behind the same wall Oscar used, the same wall all the men in this neighborhood built to survive.

"I know what you're doing," he said quietly. "I know where you're going. And I'm telling you—asking you—don't."

"Why?"

"Because he's not—" Mario stopped, his jaw working. "Because once you step into that world, you don't get to step back out. Because I love you, and I don't want to watch you get swallowed by something that takes everything."

I wanted to argue. Wanted to tell him he was wrong, that Oscar was different with me, that I could handle whatever came. But the truth sat heavy in my chest, the knowledge that he wasn't entirely wrong, that I was choosing this—choosing Oscar—knowing exactly what it cost.

"I have to go," I said.

Mario studied me for a long moment, his eyes moving over my face like he was memorizing it, like he was already seeing me changed, lost, gone in some direction he couldn't follow. Then he reached out, surprising me, and adjusted the collar of my dress where it had fallen slightly off my shoulder.

"Call me if you need me," he said. "Any time. I'll come."

"I know."

He nodded once, sharp, and walked away. I heard his footsteps on the stairs, heard the front door open and close, and knew he'd remove himself rather than watch me leave. It was his gift to me, this pretense of trust, this space to make my own mistakes.

I finished my makeup. I put on the dress. And at seven-thirty, with the sky bleeding orange and purple above the rooftops, I walked out of my mother's house and toward whatever waited.

The weight of Mario's worry followed me like a shadow. But ahead, burning brighter, was the promise of Oscar's eyes when he saw me cross into his world. The promise of finally knowing, one way or another, what this thing between us could become.

I didn't look back.

The Santos' house throbbed with music before I even reached the door, bass notes that I felt in my sternum, in my teeth. I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, gathering myself, the black dress suddenly feeling like too little fabric, too much exposure. But I had come this far. And I wouldn't turn back now.

Inside, the heat hit me like a wall—bodies packed tight, the air thick with cigarette smoke and the sweet, cloying scent of cheap beer. Someone had pushed the furniture against the walls to create a makeshift dance floor in the living room, and the kitchen beyond was crowded with people shouting over the music to be heard. I recognized some faces from the neighborhood, others I didn't know at all. Santos members, probably, or their girls, their hangers-on.

And every head that turned seemed to carry the same calculation—who is she, what's she doing here—before moving on, dismissing me as unimportant. I was grateful for it. I found a corner near the hallway, pressed my back against the wall, and tried to look like I belonged. Like I attended gang parties every Saturday. Like my heart wasn't hammering against my ribs, searching for Oscar in every shadow.

I didn't see him. The thought registered with a strange mix of disappointment and relief. I had time, then. Time to settle, to breathe, to prepare myself for whatever happened when our eyes finally met across this crowded, dangerous room.

"Hey. You look lost."

The voice came from my left, friendly, unthreatening. I turned to find Mateo leaning against the wall beside me, a red plastic cup in his hand, his smile easy and open. He was handsome in a soft way—curly hair, warm brown eyes, a jaw that hadn't quite hardened into the angles that marked the men in this neighborhood. I knew him from somewhere, the periphery of school or the bodega on Fourth, one of those faces that existed in the background of my life without ever demanding attention.

"Just getting my bearings," I said, and my voice came out steadier than I felt.

"First Santos party?" He didn't wait for confirmation, just nodded like he'd guessed right. "They're intense. I'm Mateo, by the way."

"I know. I mean—I've seen you around."

His smile widened, pleased. "And you're Mario's sister. The sunshine girl."

The nickname landed strangely here, in this dim hallway surrounded by shadows. But I nodded, accepting it.

"That dress," Mateo continued, his eyes moving over me with obvious appreciation that somehow managed to stay on the right side of respectful. "You look—" He stopped, searching for the word, and I found myself waiting, my body tense with the awareness that I was being looked at, being seen, in a way that suddenly felt complicated. "You look like you don't belong here," he finished, and there was something almost kind in it, like he was warning me rather than criticizing.

Before I could answer, before I could decide if I wanted to answer, I felt it. The shift in the air, the sudden stillness that spread through the room like a ripple, like a held breath.

I looked up.

And across the crowded backyard, visible through the open kitchen door, Oscar Diaz leaned against the house with a beer in his hand. His posture was casual, almost lazy. But his eyes—his eyes were locked on me with an intensity that stopped my breath, that made the room tilt around me.

He wasn't looking at Mateo. Wasn't looking at the party, the crowd, anything but me. And his jaw was tight, his expression carved into something I barely recognized, something that made my stomach drop with a mixture of fear and something darker, something that answered the heat in his gaze with heat of my own.

"Spooky's staring," Mateo said, his voice dropping to a whisper, and I heard the nervousness in it, the sudden awareness that he was standing too close to something that belonged to someone else. "You should—"

But I couldn't look away. Oscar hadn't moved, hadn't blinked. And in his eyes, I saw the friend I knew—the man who teased me, who brought me coffee, who let me see him vulnerable—warring with something else entirely. Something possessive. Something hungry.

Something that had finally stopped pretending.

The transformation happened in the space between heartbeats. One moment, he was Oscar—the man who'd teased me about my music taste, who'd fixed my mother's leaky faucet without asking, who'd sat with me in comfortable silence while the world went wrong around us. The next, he was Spooky. The name fit him now in a way it never had before, something spectral and dangerous rising to the surface of his skin.

His beer hung forgotten in his hand, liquid sloshing as his fingers tightened. I watched his chest expand with a breath that seemed to cost him something, watched the muscle in his jaw jump and settle. And still, he didn't look away. The weight of that stare pressed against me like a physical thing, pushing the air from my lungs, making my pulse stutter in my throat.

Mateo shifted beside me, his body angling to put himself between me and that gaze. It was a mistake. I saw it the instant he moved—saw Oscar's eyes narrow further, saw his shoulders drop into a predatory line, saw the beer get set down on the windowsill with deliberate care.

"Hey, we should—" Mateo started, his hand reaching for my elbow.

But Oscar was already moving.

The crowd sensed him before I could track him, bodies pressing aside, conversations stuttering to silence. He didn't push through. Didn't need to. Something in his presence carved space around him, something that made people step back without knowing why. I lost sight of him in the crush of bodies, in the sudden panic of not knowing where he was, and then he was there—filling the hallway, filling everything.

Mateo's hand dropped from my arm. He took a step back, then another, his face draining of color. Oscar didn't touch him. Didn't speak to him. He just looked at him, one long moment of held silence, and whatever Mateo saw in that look sent him scrambling backward, muttering apologies I couldn't quite hear over the blood rushing in my ears.

Then Oscar's hand closed around my wrist.

His fingers were hot, calloused, the grip firm enough to bruise if I'd tried to pull away. I didn't. His thumb pressed against the pulse point hammering there, and I felt him register it, felt something shift in his expression—hunger and fury and something desperate underneath, something that looked almost like fear.

"Come," he said. Not a request.

He pulled me through the kitchen, past faces I didn't register, through the living room where the music still throbbed and no one met his eyes. I stumbled after him, my heels catching on the uneven floor, my free hand reaching for something to steady myself and finding only the solid heat of his back. He didn't slow. Didn't look back.

The stairs were narrow, steep. He took them two at a time, forcing me to match his pace or fall behind, and I clutched at his shirt, at the waistband of his jeans, anything to keep from losing my balance. His bedroom door was at the end of the hall. He shouldered through it and pulled me inside, and the sudden quiet after the noise of the party made my ears ring.

The door slammed. The lock clicked.

He released my wrist and turned to face me, and I saw it then—saw what he'd been hiding, what I'd only glimpsed in fragments before now. His chest heaved with breaths he couldn't control. His hands hung at his sides, fingers curling and uncurling like he was fighting the urge to reach for me again. And his eyes—his eyes were wild, stripped of every mask he'd ever worn, every defense he'd built between himself and the world.

"What the hell was that?" The growl ripped from his throat, low and rough, and I flinched from the violence in it even as my body responded to something else entirely. "What the hell were you doing?"

I opened my mouth to answer, to defend myself, to demand he explain himself. But the words died as I watched the war play out across his face—the anger I'd expected, yes, but beneath it, bleeding through like ink through paper, something raw and unguarded and terrified.

He'd been fighting this. I saw it now, saw the years of restraint in the tension of his shoulders, saw the cost of every moment he'd kept his distance. And in the space between us, charged and crackling, I understood that whatever happened next would change everything.

I stared at him, at the wildness in his eyes, and felt my own temper flare in response. "I was standing here," I said, my voice sharp. "Talking to someone. Like a normal person at a normal party."

"Normal?" He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You think this is normal? You think he was normal?"

"He was being nice."

"Nice." The word came out like a curse. Oscar took a step toward me, close enough that I could smell the beer on his breath, the soap on his skin, the something else underneath that was just him. "You don't know what these guys want. You don't know what they see when they look at you."

"And you do?"

The question hung between us. His jaw tightened, that muscle jumping again, and I watched his hands curl into fists at his sides like he was holding himself back from something.

"I see you," he said, and his voice had dropped to something barely above a whisper. "I've always seen you. And I see them looking at what's mine."

The possessiveness should have angered me. It did anger me, some distant part of my brain registering that he had no right, that I wasn't property, that this was exactly what Mario had warned me about. But the rest of me—the part that had watched him for years, that had memorized the way he moved and the sound of his voice and the rare, precious moments when his guard dropped— that part went still and breathless at the words.

"Yours?" I managed.

He made a sound, something torn from deep in his chest, and then his hands were on my face, his palms rough and warm against my cheeks, tilting my chin up until I had no choice but to meet his eyes. "Don't pretend you don't know," he said, and I heard the break in his voice, the fracture in the armor. "Don't pretend you haven't felt this. I've been fighting it for years. Years, mija. Your brother. Your age. My life. I've told myself every reason why not, and I believed them. I believed them."

His thumbs traced my cheekbones, and I felt the tremor in his fingers, the control costing him something. "But then I saw you smiling at him, and I wanted to kill him. I wanted to burn this whole house down with everyone in it. And I knew—I knew—that I was done pretending."

"Oscar—"

"I don't care anymore." The confession tore out of him, raw and ragged. "I don't care about any of it. I just need you to tell me I'm not crazy. Tell me you've felt this too."

I couldn't speak. My heart hammered against my ribs, and my hands found his wrists, holding him there, keeping him close. The answer must have shown on my face, in the way my breath came short, in the way my body leaned into his touch despite everything.

His eyes searched mine, desperate, and then he made that sound again and his mouth was on mine.

The kiss was nothing like I'd imagined in my quiet, shameful daydreams. It was harder, hungrier, his teeth catching my lower lip as his hands slid from my face to my waist, pulling me against him until I could feel the hard line of his body through my dress. I gasped, and his tongue swept in, tasting of beer and something sweeter, and my fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, closer.

He walked me backward until my shoulder blades met the door, his body pressing me there, pinning me with his weight. One of his hands found my thigh, hiking my dress up, and I felt the calluses on his palm against my bare skin, the heat of him burning through me. I made a noise I didn't recognize, and he swallowed it, his hips grinding against mine in a rhythm that made my vision blur.

"Wait," I breathed against his mouth, and he froze instantly, his whole body going rigid, his hand stilling on my leg. "I just— I need to know this isn't just—"

"Just what?" His voice was rough, strained.

"Just jealousy. Just possession. Because I can't— I won't be—"

He pulled back enough to look at me, his eyes dark and blown wide, his chest heaving against mine. "No," he said, and his thumb traced my jaw with something almost gentle, at odds with the desperation in his grip. "This isn't about him. It was never about him. This is about you. About waking up every morning and choosing not to come to you, and being so tired of choosing."

He kissed my forehead, my temple, the corner of my mouth. "I love you," he whispered against my skin. "I've loved you since before I knew what to call it. And I'm done pretending I don't."

The words broke something open in my chest, some door I'd kept locked so long I'd forgotten the key. I pulled his mouth back to mine, and this time I was the one who deepened it, my tongue sliding against his, my body arching into his touch. He groaned, low and wrecked, and his hands found my hips, lifting me, carrying me—

And then I was on his bed, the worn mattress dipping beneath my weight, and he was above me, his body covering mine, his mouth trailing down my throat, my collarbone, the hollow above my heart. His hand found the zipper of my dress, and he paused, his eyes finding mine in the dim light filtering through the window.

"Tell me to stop," he said, "and I will. I'll walk away. I'll never touch you again."

I reached up, my fingers tracing the sharp line of his jaw, the ink on his neck, the softness of his mouth. "Don't stop," I whispered. "Please. I've waited so long."

His eyes closed, something like pain crossing his features, and then his mouth was on mine again, and his hands were pulling my dress away, and the world narrowed to the heat of his skin against mine, the weight of him pressing me into the mattress, the certainty that nothing would ever be the same.

His mouth stilled against mine, and for a moment we stayed like that, breathing hard, his body still pressed against me on the narrow bed. Then he pushed himself up on his elbows, and the distance between us felt like a wound.

"Talk to me," I said, my voice steadier than I felt. "You can't just drag me up here and—and take me like I'm some—"

"Like you're some what?" His jaw tightened, but he didn't move away. "Like you're mine?"

"Like I'm property, Oscar. Like I don't get a choice."

The words hit him. I saw it—the flinch, the way his eyes shuttered for just a second before he rolled off me and sat on the edge of the bed, his back to me, his head in his hands. The line of his spine was rigid with tension, the ink on his skin moving with each breath.

I sat up, pulling my dress back into place, suddenly cold without his weight. "You want to tell me what that was downstairs? Because I was talking to someone. That's it. That's what people do at parties."

"Mateo Reyes." He didn't turn around. "You were talking to Mateo Reyes. You know what he did to his last girlfriend? You know what the Santos know about him?"

"I know he was being polite."

Oscar laughed, harsh and short. "Polite." He stood suddenly, pacing to the window, his silhouette dark against the streetlight filtering through. "You think that's what he wanted? To be polite?"

"I think you're being insane."

He spun around. "And I think you're being naive." But even as he said it, I saw the crack—the way his voice wavered on the last word, the way his hands opened and closed at his sides like he was reaching for something he couldn't hold. "You don't know what it's like. Seeing you there, smiling at him, letting him—" He broke off, his throat working.

"Letting him what? Look at me?"

"Yes." The word came out strangled. "Yes, goddammit. Letting him look at you like that. Like he had a right. Like he could just—" He stopped, his chest heaving, and I saw it then—the fear underneath the anger, the desperation masquerading as possession.

I stood up, crossing the small space between us, and I didn't touch him. I just stood there, close enough to feel the heat coming off him, close enough to see the pulse hammering in his neck. "You're not making any sense."

"Because you don't—" He stopped. Closed his eyes. When he opened them again, something had shifted, some wall crumbling. "Because you don't know. You don't know what it costs me. Every day. To be near you and not—" His voice broke. "To watch you grow up and know I can't— That I shouldn't—"

"Shouldn't what?"

"Want you." The confession tore out of him, raw and ragged. "To want you like this. To see you in that dress tonight and know I brought you here, that you're here because of me, and still not be able to—" He turned away again, his shoulders hunched, and I saw his hand come up to press against his chest like he could hold himself together.

"Oscar."

"Your brother." He laughed, but it sounded wet, broken. "Your age. My life. I've told myself every reason. Made lists. Recited them like prayer. And then you smiled at him, and I wanted to put my fist through his face. I wanted to burn the whole house down." He turned back to me, and his eyes were shining, wet, stripped of everything. "I can't do it anymore. I can't pretend I don't feel this. That I don't—"

He stopped. Swallowed. "That I don't love you. That I haven't loved you since before I knew what to call it."

The words hung between us, heavy and fragile. I felt my own breath catch, my own hands trembling at my sides. And in the silence, with the party muffled and distant and the world narrowed to this room, this moment, I understood that the anger had never been about Mateo at all.

It had been about years of wanting, finally breaking through.

He took one step closer, the floorboards creaking under his weight, and the air between us shrank until I could feel the heat rolling off his bare chest.

“I can’t watch it anymore,” he said, voice scraped raw. “Not some pendejo putting his eyes on you, not his hands, not even his smile in your direction.”

My throat closed. “Oscar—”

“No.” His hand lifted, knuckles brushing my cheek like he couldn’t stop himself. “I’ve swallowed every reason—your brother’ll kill me, you’re too young, I’m no good. But tonight, seeing you laugh for him—” His jaw locked. “I wanted to break his teeth. I still do.”

The confession cracked the room open, left us both breathing too loud. I felt the truth of it bloom inside my ribs, bright and terrifying.

“I’m done pretending,” he whispered. “Done letting rules I never asked for keep me away from the only thing I want.”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He closed the last inch, one hand sliding to the nape of my neck, the other flattening against my back, and then his mouth was on mine—hard, urgent, years of denial crushed into a single, bruising kiss. I tasted salt and desperation, felt the tremor that ran through his shoulders when I opened for him.

He walked me backward until my thighs hit the mattress. With a tug he lifted me, setting me on the edge, pushing between my knees so the rough denim of his jeans scraped my bare skin. My dress rode higher; his palms slid up my thighs, calluses dragging, leaving fire.

I tugged his belt loose, metal clinking, and he groaned into my mouth, hips rolling forward, grinding the thick ridge behind his zipper against the thin cotton of my panties. A shudder ran straight through my core, wetness pooling, my body answering the pressure with a helpless roll of its own.

“Tell me you want this,” he rasped against my lips, fingers hooking under the elastic, teasing, not yet pulling. “Tell me it’s not just me.”

I framed his face, thumbs brushing the dampness under his eyes. “It’s never been just you.”

The last restraint snapped. He stripped the panties down my legs, mouth returning to mine, tongue stroking deep while he guided my knees around his waist. His hand went to his fly, zipper opening, and then the hot, heavy length of him filled my palm—velvet over steel, slick already at the tip. I spread the moisture with my thumb and he bucked, a guttural sound tearing from his throat.

“Fuck, baby—” He lowered me to the mattress, settling between my thighs, crown nudging my entrance, stretching me open by slow, deliberate inches until I arched, nails scoring his shoulders. “Look at me.”

My eyes locked on his, and he pushed all the way in, the sudden fullness wrenching a cry from me that he swallowed with another kiss. Then he started to move—deep, rolling strokes that hit every nerve, the headboard tapping the wall in time with his thrusts, our breath mingling, sweat sealing skin to skin.

And when he whispered my name against my mouth, voice broken, I knew the years of waiting had ended.

His hips rolled against mine, the rhythm building slow and devastating, each thrust dragging his length through the slick heat of me until I was gasping against his mouth. And his hands—his hands were everywhere, rough palms skating down my sides, thumbs pressing into the hollows of my hips, fingers digging in with a possession that made my spine arch off the mattress.

"Wait," I breathed, and he stilled immediately, chest heaving, eyes dark with concern. But I just reached between us, finding the place where we joined, my fingers brushing the slick base of him where he stretched me open. He groaned, forehead dropping to mine, and I felt him pulse inside me at the touch.

"Don't stop," I whispered. "I just wanted to feel."

His laugh was shaky, broken. "You're killing me."

And then he moved again, deeper this time, angling his hips so the hard ridge of him dragged against the sensitive spot inside me with every stroke. My head fell back, exposing my throat, and his mouth was there instantly—teeth grazing, tongue soothing, the scrape of stubble leaving marks I knew I'd find tomorrow. The pleasure built in waves, each crest higher than the last, my nails carving crescents into his shoulders as I urged him on.

He shifted his weight, one hand sliding under my thigh to hitch my leg higher around his waist, opening me further. The new angle wrenched a cry from my throat, raw and unguarded, and he swallowed it with a kiss that tasted like desperation and devotion. His other hand found my breast, thumb circling the peak until I was writhing beneath him, the coil in my belly tightening to the point of pain.

"Oscar—" His name broke on my lips, and he knew. He always knew. His hand dropped between us, callused fingers finding the swollen bud above where we joined, pressing firm and circling in time with his thrusts. The dual sensation shattered me. I came apart with his name tearing out of me, my body clamping down around him in rhythmic spasms that drew out his own release.

He buried himself deep, hips stuttering, and I felt the hot spill of him filling me, the pulse of him inside me as he groaned my name against my neck. For long moments we stayed like that—locked together, breathing hard, the sweat cooling on our skin as the world slowly reassembled around us.

He rolled to his side, pulling me with him, still joined, his hand tracing lazy patterns on my hip. And in the silence, with the party still distant and muffled, I felt the last of my walls crumble. I pressed my face into his throat, inhaling the scent of us, and his arms tightened around me like a promise.

"Stay," he murmured, lips brushing my temple. "Just tonight. Just—"

"Yes," I whispered back, because there was no other answer, because I had already given him everything. And as his heart slowed against my palm, I knew this was only the beginning.