Page 154 of Antihero

He took her by the shoulders, stood her against the wall, and raised his burner phone to snap a picture of her. She blushed, fixing her hair. “What’s this for?”

“’Cuz I want to,” he said, thumbing her photo off to the boys with a text: Get reddy to partay!! It didn’t send right away. Reception was ass here in his building, especially in the lobby, but he hoped the phone’d grab signal when they got to his room so the boys could see what they had to look forward to.

Blanca handed him the gift bag, which he snatched, heading upstairs.

“It’s just a dumb thing,” she said, gesturing at the bag. “I thought, you know, you said there’s family stuff going on and sometimes it’s good to have a family you can, like, be in charge of yourself, you know? I mean, play with and feel safe and stuff. Even a koala family. Stoopid though, prolly.”

Most of the light bulbs in the stairwell were out. The asshole on the second floor left his takeout boxes right on the landing, mounded like a pile of leaves, and there’d been flies and cockroaches but the dickhead landlord never did shit. It smelled like Chinese food and rot.

B-Roll said, “Just walk around it.”

She did her best, high-stepping in her shiny Vans. She looked so clean, a girl like her way off her turf in a place like this. Next floor up, at his door, he fumbled with the keys, got it open.

The dude he sublet from called it a one-bedroom but it was really a studio, a three-hundred-square-foot rectangle. He held the door for her.

She went in.

He saw her shoulders deflate a few inches.

The place was a shithole, sure. Thirdhand furniture, rusty appliances, gross brown carpet, grease stain up one wall, his unpacked stuff spilling out of moving boxes. Battered window shades cast a nicotine-yellow glow across the jumble of dirty clothes and mismatched dumbbells. A freeway ramp rose just outside his window, and the traffic noise and headlights could be a lot if you weren’t used to them.

But that’s not why her shoulders dropped.

It was because there was no Luce in here. A younger sister wouldn’t last five minutes in a place like this.

Oh. And there were the cameras, too. Set up on tripods around the main prop he still had from Manny. The prop was covered in a white sheet. Saving the surprise for later.

B-Roll closed the door behind him. Threw the dead bolt. It gave a good thunk.

Blanca spun to him, clutching the gift bag to her stomach. Her voice came out like a squeak: “Where’s Luce?”

“Right, I forgot to mention. Turns out? She can’t make it now. But that’s okay. I have some buddies coming over.”

Her eyes darted nervously to the cameras. “What’re those for?”

“I shoot some art photography now and then.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Girls trying to break into Broad-way.”

He threw an arm wide, palm out, the whole your-name-in-lights thing, trying to lighten the mood. But she didn’t laugh.

New approach: “The woman I shot last week was super-hot. Like model-hot. Better looking than anyone I’ve seen in person.”

To make them shrivel, all you had to do was sprinkle the right words, salt on a snail. Sure enough, Blanca shrank into herself. She looked small. Small and unsure of herself.

“Oh, hey,” he said, adding a honeyed note of comfort, “you’re good-looking too.”

“Thanks. I mean, not like model-hot…”

“Well, not everyone is.”

Just a tiny sting, keep her off-balance.

“I’m sorry, but I just…” Her narrow chest heaved beneath that sweater. “I think maybe I should get back home. I mean, I do have trig homework, and since Luce isn’t here—”

“Since Luce isn’t here, we can party.” He sidled up, ran a finger along the line of her jaw. Stopped beneath her chin, tipped her face up to his. Her eyes were scared but her mouth wanted him to kiss her. Those glossy lips parted, her breath tasting of mint. “Grown-up fun.”