It’s a weird thing, being back home. Harold still works at the general store. Aunt Agnes died and her weird tweaker son is living in the house that used to always smell like fresh bread. The drug store you and your friends would buy Jaritos at is still there, and Skip Juarez is now legally ‘Skip’ Juarez. He’s also still the one who picks you up from the airport despite your call to your parents.
“Man this is crazy,” Skip had hugged you tightly at the curb, then asked about your life in Los Angeles (’the big leagues, Eli! Look at you!’) and if you had seen your ‘hot sister’. Then it’d gone real quiet. When he finally broaches the topic of your visit- and you had told him because he needed to know why you were suddenly returning to the shithole you grew up in after how they’d treated you- he sounds impressed. “So Nuru fuckin Jones is a mob boss huh?”
“I guess.” You look out the window, watch miles and miles of fields and telephone poles whiz by. “The guys apologized for trying to rob me. They told me he’d- and I’m not kidding-” you turn back to Skip so he can see sincerity in your eyes, “they said he’d skin them alive if they hurt me even emotionally.”
“Damn.” Skip laughs, the tone breaking a little because wrapping his mind around honors student and resident quiet kid who went pre-med Nuru Jones running a mafia? You aren’t sure you believe it either.
After a moment Skip slaps the steering wheel and looks at you.
“And he’s still living here?!”
You grimace. You don’t… technically speaking… actually know.
“You guess?!” Skip practically shrieks as he turns off onto the road that’ll take you to his house. You haven’t contacted your parents again, but luckily Skip’s wife Rei is your second favorite Juarez, and his daughter Mari is your first. Skip himself comes in at a paltry third.
“I’m going to swing by his house.” You sit back in your chair. “And… I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“Play ‘beautiful stranger’ on a boom box?” Skip grins and you punch his arm gently.
“He dumped me, okay?!” You didn’t realize how much it hurt until you say it out loud again so many years later. “So. I don’t know, maybe Jones is just… sentimental?”
“I’m not on his no-hit list,” Skip scoffs, “and I was his friend too. When has resident cold fish Jones been sentimental, Eli?” You take a right into Skip’s neighborhood- the same one he used to live in as a kid, but a bit more gentrified now.
“Well that’s something.” You lean forward, jaw dropping at the literal fleet of white escalades on Skip’s block.
“I have a gun in the glove box,” Skip begins grimly, but he doesn’t need to continue.
Because there on the street in front of his house in broad daylight…
Is Nuru Jones.
And oh no he’s hot- still hot. He’s wearing a white tailored suit in the height of summer with no signs of sweat. His short twists are pulled into a ponytail and he’s got reflective shades on. He’s standing in the walkway with his hands in his pockets, shoulders back, the lines of his suit crisp and clean, and he’s standing with Skip’s wife and daughter. Mari is unperturbed by Jones’s demeanor and look, holding up her Build-a-Bear duck for his perusal. The duck has sunglasses and Nuru Jones pulls his reflective shades off and casually puts them on the little girl.
“Now you match,” he says in that delicious velvety baritone, standing back and turning toward you as Skip parks in his driveway. Mari giggles and adjusts her new- probably very expensive- shades and races toward you.
Skip gets out of his car and scoops her up.
“Bro are these Gucci?” Skip stares at the shades on his daughter’s face.
But Jones just stares at you.
You realize you’re staring back at him and you shake off… whatever you’re feeling, walking around the side of the car and retrieving your rolling bag to buy yourself a few more crucial seconds to gather yourself.
You step around back and realize Jones is much much closer. He stops in his tracks when you make eye contact. Then he waits as you walk toward him as casually as you can.
“You googled me,” he blurts instead of whatever devastating thing you were expecting. When you don’t reply he squares his shoulders and tries to recover his dignity. “I have people watching for that sort of thing.”
“You have people watching for a lot, apparently,” you say, and he has the grace to look a little embarrassed. He licks his full lower lip and you helplessly watch his tongue. You snap your gaze back to his eyes and he is looking at you as if he can’t help himself either, so you’re even. You shift your hip and let one shoulder drop. He swallows. But that’s not why you’re here. You look pointedly at him. “You apparently have a lot of people.”
“Elian-” You haven’t heard your name on Jones’s lips since the end of high school, when he’d said he was going pre-med at Brown and you’d wished him a happy life. He seems lost for words now, not that Jones had ever been chatty.
Skip comes up next to you holding Mari on his hip, a supportive presence at your right.
“It’s kinda hot out. You guys wanna come inside? We have AC in the living room.” Skip is mostly asking you, which you appreciate.
“I shouldn’t,” Jones says before you can answer. “It’s-”
Rei yells some angry Spanish at Jones from the doorway which roughly translates to ‘shut up and get inside’ when the expletives peel away.
Jones gestures you ahead of him and the four of you shuffle inside. Jones makes a hand gesture to his escalade people and all the other escalades pull away and drive off as one, while the two guys by his car do rock-paper-scissors and then the winner follows you to the door, posting himself outside under the awning.
Skip’s living room is dark but cool. Mari runs off while Rei starts turning lights on. It’s a cute little room that could use a good remodeling. The paint hasn’t survived a four year old in the house, but the furniture is relatively clean- accounting for the kid in the house.
“I’ll get you a towel to sit on,” Rei tuts at Jones. “A white suit in this house won’t last long.”
“I should have thought of that,” Jones agrees, smiling wryly, a pull of his lips making him devilishly roguish and brutally reminding you of why you’re there.
“Why am I on your no-hit list Jones?” Your hand hurts from holding your rollerbag so hard. You can see Skip giving you a pitying look, but he herds Mari back out of the room where she’s tried to bring more stuffed animals to show you.
“I didn’t- don’t want you hurt.” Jones turns his whole body to face you, a beacon in the cool darkness with all the shades drawn to keep out the heat. “That is why.”
“And why not? You haven’t seen me in years. You were never the sentimental type Jones.” You’re angry and hadn’t noticed it. You had known since the day you parted that you had wanted him to fight for you. You had wanted him outside your house begging you to go to Rhode Island with him.
But he had just left. And you ended up in Los Angeles. And apparently the anger stayed.
“I went to school in California,” you tell him pointedly, and Jones nods. “But I guess you knew that, with your secret society shit, huh?”
“I did know.” Jones shifts his weight from foot to foot, and the fact that his tells are the same so many years later makes your chest constrict painfully. “I thought of reaching out many times.” He breathes through whatever he was going to say and you’re still so attuned to him that you wait patiently for him to organize his thoughts. You’re falling into old patterns again so easily. He opens his mouth to speak.
“Why didn’t you then?” Your voice doesn’t break but it’s not even either. There’s a wobble that means Jones affects you just as much as he ever has.
“I chose my career over you,” Jones says almost viciously, and you fight hard against the urge to recoil. There’s a lump in your throat that’s been these since the day Nuru Jones left town, never to be seen again. Maybe this fight is what you left here and have come to collect. “I chose school and a richer future over us.” He slams his hand against his chest. “I’m not the sentimental type!” He takes a single step toward you and you remain rooted in place. “I’m impersonal and level headed and ruthless! That’s why I’m a good surgeon!” He shakes his head.
“So you owed me protection at least,” you reason out for yourself, and Jones looks a bit like you’ve slapped him. “I get it.”
“No!” Jones’s hands reach for you, then spasm and fall away before you can touch. “No.’ He puts his hand over his face, dragging his fingers down and exhaling noisily. “No,” he says again like you didn’t hear him the other two times. “That’s not why. We agreed a long time ago not to owe each other anything.”
You grew up richer than Jones. His family suffered from multiple societal issues you didn’t. You took Jones with you to summer camp when his mother hadn’t been able to pay for it. You parents- before they knew that the boy you were bringing was your boyfriend and not best friend– had covered it with ease and a hand wave. She had let Jones eat at your house, let your parents pay for his school trips, sometimes even his birthday cakes. Jones had arguably felt weird about it and when he had mentioned med school he had promised to pay everything back when he was rich. You’d made him promise you something else instead.
“Why are you yelling?” Mari has escaped her parents, and Rei rushes in, hissing apologies and scolding Mari as she drags the little girl to the back of the house. “But they’re fighting!” Mari’s screeching protests vanish behind a closed door and you and Jones stand silently in their kitchen.
“You don’t sound very impersonal and level headed right now,” you tell him, and hear your attitude sneering out through your words.
“I’m never level headed about you,” Jones confirms, that handsome half smile making its way back onto his elegant sexy stupid face.
“I shouldn’t have come back.” You let the rolling bag go- and it immediately falls backward and hits the carpet. You and Jones look at it, then at each other.
“Your bag fell,” he tells you unnecessarily. You find yourself half-laughing. That’s Nuru Jones, alright. You’re falling back into his orbit, dragged toward him by something heavier and more powerful than gravity.
You’re reaching down for your bag when Jones’s white sleeve passes you, pulling your bag up and standing in your personal space.
“I’m glad you came back,” he offers you the bag and a tense smile.
“Why are you glad?” You take the bag and for an electrifying second your fingers brush Jones’s.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Jones’s hands curl into fists, and you know him well enough even after all these years to recognize him building up his courage.
“Spell it out for me.” You hold your rollerbag tightly, readying yourself for whatever.
“Oh we’re doing this?” Jones is almost asking himself, weight shifting before he squares his shoulders and flexes his hands at his sides once. “Okay.” He blows out his breath, eyes closing for a moment before he affixes you with a serious dark eyed look, fathomless and deep, like you’re looking into his very soul. You know that whatever he says, you’ll believe him. Your heart pounds.
“Elian,” Jones’s voice is deep, almost gravelly. “Leaving you here was the greatest mistake of my life. I wanted nothing more than to go to you, but by the time I’d figured out that I could it was too late. You’d gone to California and you were pursuing your own life.” He shakes his head. “I have regretted not fighting for us for my entire life.”
There’s a silence where you imagine you’re meant to say something. Or maybe throw yourself into his arms. But you don’t. You stand there, thinking about it. Or thinking around it, and you do nothing.
You realize Jones is reading you, looking at the corners of your mouth, the lines of your eyebrows, the tension in your hands. You may know him so well, but he knows you to the same degree.
“I won’t tell you to marry me,” Jones says sharply, like he’s pulling his trump card, going all in. “But I want to try again. You and I.”
You realize you’ve been derailed.
“You’re a mob boss!” You sound accusing, and Jones blinks once like he’d forgotten the whole reason you are there.
“I am,” he confirms easily. “Is that- that’s a deal breaker?” He seems surprised by this, like you’ve always been the badboy in this relationship.
Not that there’s a relationship there.
“Well- no, but-” you can’t believe your own whore mouth. Jones has you wrapped around his little finger and all he’s done is show up at your friend’s house and picked up your bag for you! You can’t believe how pathetically gone on this asshole you are. “I’m not leaving California. And I don’t want to be in the mob.”
“I am not technically the mob,” Jones begins, but you shush him angrily.
“I’m not upending my life for you Nuru Jones!” Your tirade ends abruptly when Jones grins. You scowl. “What?!”
“I like hearing you say my name.” He shrugs almost bashfully and you’re so caught up in how cute he is you miss your opportunity for a scathing comeback.
“So are we done fighting?” Skip peeks out of the other room and you immediately notice he has his revolver shoved into his pants. Jones looks over at him, clocks the piece immediately, and huffs a chuckle.
“We’re done fighting,” Jones confirms for him. “How long are you in town, Elian?” He turns soft brown eyes on you, the intensity making you want to squirm where you stand.
“He didn’t say,” Skip says for your benefit, since you apparently can’t speak English anymore.
“I was going to stay for the weekend,” you feel badly imposing on Skip’s hospitality too long. The man has a family now.
“That isn’t very long,” Jones sounds more disapproving than disappointed.
“I’m not crowding Skip’s house,” you tell Skip more than Jones and see him smile gratefully at you. He really is your best friend, even all these years later.
“Stay at my house,” Jones offers. “As long as you’d like-”
“OH no.” Rei has her hands on her hips and she comes up beside her husband like an avenging angel. “He is not staying with you Mr. Big Shot Escalade. You can go to him in Los Angeles if you want to make grand gesture!” She bustles out past her husband and stands protectively at your side. “Elian is a nice boy, he deserves a little pursuing, no?”
“Absolutely,” Jones agrees even while you try to interject. “I’ll book us first class to Los Angeles.” He checks the urge to reach for you again, but he smiles in a way that isn’t painful. “If you don’t mind.” His lips twitch, “I wish to coax you to love me all over again.”
“It’ll take more than a first class ticket to get me to love you,” you glance at Skip and Rei, who are both nodding like this is a great deal for you. Rei looks impressed with Jones’s resolve.
“You’re on a no-hit list,” Skip reminds.
“It’ll take more than a first class ticket and protection to make me love you,” you correct yourself.
“Of course,” Jones agrees fervently.
You throw your arms in the air dramatically, because what else can you do when everything you’ve ever wanted- including leaving this podunk town first class with the man you love- is being dropped at your feet.
Your rollerbag hits the floor with a thud. There’s a moment where you all look down at it, wheels spinning in the air, handle pressed into the carpet.
“You can start by buying me a new rollerbag,” you say, looking sidelong at Jones, whose face lights up.
“I can do that,” he promises, and it sounds a lot like a completely different promise.