Chapter 1: Stolen Glances Through Grease-Stained Glass
The air in Ricardo’s garage was a living thing—thick with the humid breath of five bodies, stale beer, and the sharp, green scent of crushed weed. A single bulb, caged in rusted metal, threw stark shadows against walls papered with faded posters of Chalino and Los Tigres. The concrete floor was a geography of extension cords, kicked-over Modelo cans, and discarded guitar picks.
Kayden’s fingers found the familiar groove on the neck of his bass, the vibration traveling up his arm and into his ribs as Hector slammed the beat on the tambora. Ricardo leaned into the microphone, his voice raw and sweet on the corrido’s lament. Sweat dripped from Kayden’s temple. He was supposed to be watching his cousin’s fingers for the cue, but his eyes, as they had all afternoon, drifted to the grimy window.
The auto shop next door was a mirror image of this garage, minus the music. And there he was. Xairo. Again.
Shirtless under the hood of a lowrider, a grease-streaked rag hanging from his back pocket. The muscles in his shoulders and back shifted under tawny skin as he worked a wrench. A curl of dark hair fell across his forehead. Kayden’s pick slipped, skidding off the string with a ugly twang that cut through the verse.
“Órale, pay attention,” Ricardo barked, not missing a lyric but cutting his eyes at Kayden.
“Sorry,” Kayden muttered, heat flooding his cheeks that had nothing to do with the garage’s oven-like temperature. He focused on his fretboard, counting the beats. But it was like a magnet was pulling his gaze back to that window.
He’d known Xairo since high school. Different circles. Xairo was varsity soccer, loud laughter in the quad, a kind of easy physical confidence that broadcasted in every stride. Kayden was banda rehearsals, weekend gigs at cousin’s quinceañeras, and a careful, polished charm that worked on girls and tías alike. They’d maybe shared two classes, never said more than ‘what’s up.’ But now, taking auto-shop together at the community college? Seeing him three times a week in that smudged tank top, leaning over an engine block? It was doing something to Kayden’s circuitry.
“You stare any harder, maje, and your familia’s gonna notice.”
The voice was a low murmur in his ear. Isaac. Xairo’s teammate, his shadow. He’d shown up with Hector an hour ago, a six-pack in hand, and had been leaning against a tool chest, watching the rehearsal with amused dark eyes. Now, a knowing smirk played on his lips.
Kayden’s stomach dropped. “I’m not staring. Just zoned out.”
“Right.” Isaac took a swig of his beer. “At his ass. Through a wall. Impressive focus.”
Before Kayden could spit out a denial, the music crashed to a halt.
“Notice what?”
Ricardo’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried. He’d stepped back from the mic, his guitar hanging loosely. Hector stopped drumming. The sudden silence was heavier than the noise had been. All that was left was the buzz of the lone bulb and the distant thump of someone’s stereo down the block.
Ricardo’s eyes, the same dark brown as Kayden’s but sharper, harder, moved from Kayden to the window. His expression didn’t change. He saw the auto shop. He saw enough.
“Nothing,” Kayden said, too quickly. “Isaac’s being a pendejo. Let’s just pick it up from the bridge.”
Ricardo didn’t move. He just looked at Kayden, a long, silent assessment that made the sweat on Kayden’s back go cold. Their family wasn’t just religious; it was a fortress of specific expectations. Their tío was a deacon. Their mother kept a Virgin of Guadalupe candle burning nonstop in the living room. Talk about the maricón down the street was always followed by a spit on the ground and a sign of the cross.
“Yeah,” Ricardo finally said, the word flat. “Nothing.” He hit a chord, a violent, discordant sound. “From the bridge. And Kayden? Keep your eyes on your own hands.”
The rehearsal stumbled back to life, but the rhythm was off. Kayden’s fingers felt like clumsy sausages on the strings. He kept his gaze locked on the cigarette burn on the knee of his jeans. He could feel Isaac’s eyes on him, a mixture of pity and curiosity. He could feel Ricardo’s silent judgment radiating across the space between them.
After what felt like years, Ricardo called it. “We’re done. We sound like shit. Get it together for Saturday.”
Kayden was already unplugging his bass, shoving it into its case before the last word faded. He needed air that didn’t smell like his own panic.
“Hey.” A hand caught his arm. Isaac. His smirk was gone, replaced by something more serious. “Look, man. I didn’t mean to start—”
“You didn’t start anything,” Kayden interrupted, yanking his arm free. “There’s nothing to start. Just drop it.”
He pushed out of the garage door into the fading evening light. The comparative silence was a relief. He sucked in a breath, leaning against the sun-warmed stucco of the garage wall, trying to steady his heartbeat.
Next door, the auto shop’s roll-up door was also open. Xairo was wiping his hands on that rag, talking to someone inside the bay. He laughed, a bright, easy sound that carried across the two driveways. Then, as if feeling the weight of a stare, he turned.
His eyes met Kayden’s.
It was only a second. Two at most. A beat of simple recognition. Then a slight, casual nod before Xairo turned back to his conversation.
That was all. Nothing. Everything.
From behind him, inside the garage, he heard Ricardo’s voice, low and tense. “...need to watch him, ese. You see how he was looking? That’s a problem waiting to happen.”
A problem. Kayden closed his eyes. The image of Xairo, shirtless and gleaming under the work light, was burned on the back of his lids. A beautiful, terrifying problem. He heard the crush of a beer can and Hector’s non-committal grunt in response.
He pushed off from the wall, his bass case heavy in his hand. He couldn’t go back in. He couldn’t stand here. The walk home was ten blocks. He started moving, the sound of his own footsteps loud in his ears, trying to outpace the echo of his cousin’s words and the ghost of that single, ordinary nod.
He started moving, the sound of his own footsteps loud in his ears, trying to outpace the echo of his cousin’s words and the ghost of that single, ordinary nod.
The ten blocks home were a blur of cracked sidewalk and the smell of someone’s dinner—onions and cumin—spilling from a kitchen window. Each step replayed the scene in the garage. You stare any harder… Notice what? Shame was a hot, sour taste at the back of his throat. It wasn’t the staring. It was the wanting. The specific, sharp pull low in his gut when he’d seen the sweat track down the line of Xairo’s spine. That was the sin. The thought. The first, stupid, unbidden thought that had nothing to do with friendship or auto shop partners.
His house was a squat, beige stucco box, the porch light a buzzing halo of insects. The living room TV blared a telenovela. He slipped through the front door and went straight down the hall, bypassing the kitchen where his mom was probably rolling tortillas.
The bathroom door locked with a satisfying click.
He leaned against it, closing his eyes. The image was right there, waiting for him. Xairo, shirtless, the defined cut of his hips above his low-slung jeans, the way the light caught the muscle of his shoulder as he turned the wrench. It was a stupid, trivial moment. It was everything.
His hand was already on his belt. He knew it was wrong. A twisting, sick feeling of guilt coiled with the tightening heat in his stomach. The two feelings were inseparable, one feeding the other. He thought of his tío’s voice, rough from Sunday sermons. La tentación viene, pero el hombre fuerte la rechaza. Temptation comes, but the strong man rejects it.
He wasn’t strong.
He fumbled with his jeans, his breath coming short. He gave in, chasing the memory of that glimpse through the grimy glass, amplifying it in his mind. It was fast, desperate, a physical purge. A flush of overwhelming release, immediately swamped by a wave of crushing shame. He braced his hands on the sink, head hanging, avoiding his own eyes in the mirror.
He turned the shower on scalding, scrubbing his skin raw with a bar of soap that smelled like his father. The water couldn’t wash it off. The guilt was inside, lodged next to his ribs.
When he emerged in a cloud of steam, pyjama pants and a clean t-shirt feeling like a flimsy costume, the house had settled into the evening routine.
“Kayden! Dinner!” his mother called.
They sat around the old wooden table—his mom, his dad, his younger sister Luna. A simple spread of beans, rice, and stewed chicken. His father reached out his hands. They bowed their heads.
“Padre nuestro, que estás en los cielos…” his father began, his calloused palms rough against Kayden’s.
Kayden mouthed the words, the familiar prayer a hollow rhythm on his tongue. Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día. Y perdona nuestras deudas, como también nosotros perdonamos a nuestros deudores. Forgive us our trespasses. His skin felt freshly scorched. He could feel the gaze of the small wooden cross on the wall above the fridge.
“Amén.”
“Amén,” the family echoed. Forks clinked.
“How was practice?” his mom asked, serving him an extra scoop of rice.
“Fine. It was okay. Ricardo’s on my case about a new song.”
“He just wants the band to sound good,” his dad said, not looking up from his plate. “That’s family. He pushes you because he cares.”
Because he’s watching, Kayden thought. He pushed his food around.
“Did you see that video of the cat that sounds like it’s saying ‘hello’?” Luna asked, her phone in her lap. The normalcy of it was a lifeline.
After helping with the dishes, Kayden retreated to the relative privacy of his bedroom. The guilt was a dull ache now, a constant companion. It needed an outlet, a punishment. He knew what would make it worse.
He grabbed his phone, flopping onto his bed. His thumb hovered over the Instagram icon. This was the other side of the shame—a morbid, needy curiosity. He typed Xairo’s name into the search bar. There he was. Xairo Ara. A profile picture of him laughing on the soccer field.
His heart did a stupid, frantic thump. He clicked.
The feed was a casual scroll of his life. A shot of his soccer team, arms around each other. A stupid meme about carbs. A sunset. Then, one from a few weeks ago at the beach. Xairo was shirtless, of course, sunglasses pushed up on his head, smiling wide at the person behind the camera. Water droplets on his chest.
Kayden’s breath hitched. He zoomed in, the pixels blurring. The ache returned, different now, mixed with a strange, painful longing.
He was about to close the app, to wallow in fresh self-loathing, when his eyes caught it. Just below the profile name. Two small words.
Message
Following
Not just “Follow.” Following. As in, Kayden Mae was following Xairo Ara. His brain stuttered, tripping over the information. They followed each other? Since when? High school, probably. A mass follow-back spree during senior year. He’d never once interacted, never even liked a photo.
A new, icy kind of panic seized him. If he looked at this photo now, zoomed in, lingered… would Xairo see? Would some notification tell him Kayden Mae viewed your story? Would it show up that he’d been staring at a months-old beach picture for three straight minutes?
He threw the phone down on the bedspread like it had burned him. It felt infinitely more dangerous than the garage window. That was a glance, potentially deniable. This was a digital footprint, a record of his attention.
He stared at the ceiling, the glow-in-the-dark stars he’d put up as a kid now just faint smudges in the dark. He was following him. The connection was already there, quiet and dormant, and he’d just prodded it awake. The thought was terrifying.
And, underneath the fear, it sparked something else. A tiny, dangerous thread of possibility.