Meet our messy love

A/N: This is an unrelated excerpt of a sequel, The Loser, to my upcoming novel, Silent Bites, which is going to be published this July. I hope you enjoy!! Pre-order Silent Bites here. Please share the link and if you do get a copy of my book, I’d love your feedback and review!! Thank you all so much for your support!

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In New York City, the unlikely romantic pair, an immigrant, Columbian man and a retired police captain, wake up from their sleep to grab coffee at their friend Sera’s Salty & Sweet Cafe. It has been three years since the shooting incident at that same cafe. Things have changed. Some people have become better, some thing have changed for the better.

Dan thinks about this as they walk, hand in hand to the cafe: Last Night:

Arturo putting on heavy eye liner, curling his hair, putting on a tight mini skirt and a pink top.

“It’s been a hot minute since I tried this top on,” Arturo says with half-lidded eyes, fidgeting with the lacy bottom of the blouse. The night is frosting their window, and the couple feels toasty in their apartment together. It is about ten in the evening.

“You look so good,” Dan says, holding onto Arturo’s waist, pulling him closer. Dan caresses Arturo’s curly, messy afro and they kiss. Licking his lips, Arturo kisses Dan deeper and sits on his lap.

“I’m hungry, baby. I know it’s late,” Arturo mumbles into their kiss. Dan laughs.

Dan makes impromptu grilled cheese sandwiches with Campbell’s tomato soup. He adds cream, fresh basil, a pinch of oregano, salt, white pepper and some red pepper for spice.

Arturo puts on, Driving on 9, by The Breeders. He’s making Dan dance with him in between every spice he adds. It irritates Dan at first but he gets into it, laughing as Arturo puts his hand in front of the spice cabinet to stop Dan for a moment to dance. Dan dips him, his hand delicately holding Arturo’s neck as he moves him up, his deep brown eyes softer than ever. It makes Dan want to pinch himself to see if he could be dreaming. He feels more in love with Arturo at this moment and in control with his life than he ever imagined he could.

“I would dump the soup can in a bowl, microwave it with water and eat it,” Arturo says, making Dan laugh and shake his head.

“That’s why you need me. You needed more spice than that in your life,” Dan adds.

They fell asleep on the couch together with their plates nearby.

They order their coffee and say hi to Sera. Dan jolts out of the memory of last night as they chat with her.

“Your boys are about three now, right?” Arturo asks her. She nods, pursing her lips.

Sighing, Sera says with heavy look, “Yep. Double the trouble with twins! They keep me up most nights. They’re my special strength yet I feel weakest when I’m with them. Like I’d give into anything they want.”

Arturo smiles, “I’d imagine that being a parent would mean something stronger than anything you can imagine yet you feel you’re being more vulnerable than ever. A superhero like you.”

Sera laughs, “Not especially. I think I feel like I need a refuel all the time. Running on empty. But, I find myself doing everything I need to do no matter what.”

Dan nods, “Like a superhero!”

Arturo agrees, “A pretty one at that!”

Sera winks at her friends, “Take the coffee on the house! You know I love the flattery especially..” she lowers her head, “Since I haven’t used makeup today!”

She points to Arturo, “But you did, honey, it looks great but I think you need to check your eye liner…”

Dan does a double take and realizes that Arturo forgot to take off his makeup before they went on a coffee run.

“Oh, what the heck…” Arturo mouths out and Dan whispers, “It’s ok, we’ll be home in a minute.” They both wave quickly to Sera as they walk out of the cafe.

Dan holds Arturo’s hand, as the latter appears increasingly self-conscious about forgetting to take off his make-up. Dan knows that Arturo is very private about his cross-dressing and has never been seen in public before with make-up.

As they cross the street, Arturo trips near a pothole, a strange, glowing liquid making him slip. Dan tries to help his boyfriend from falling but Arturo lands on a random, tall man.

“Hmmm?” The taller man looks at Arturo discerningly, “You ok, there bud?”

Dan looks over at the stranger, hoping that there’s no trouble. He walks over to Arturo and takes his hand again, saying, “You alright?”

Arturo nods. “Yes. Yeah, I’m sorry,” Arturo frowns, looking at the stranger. “I apologize for that.”

The man nods, “No problem.”

Arturo shakes off his nerves as they enter the apartment building, which brings them face to face with the landlord.

“Oh hey you two!” Clarissa, the landlord shakes them down as they try to rush to the elevator to their apartment.

Dan nods to her and says, “Hey! Sorry we have to go. Arturo has a client to meet up with in a minute…”

Arturo snorted and says, “Yes, sorry!”

Of course, that was a lie(Arturo did run a side business of making handcrafted inclusive clothing for all genders and trans people but didn’t work on weekends). But somehow, the well-known nosy landlord was following them upstairs and eyeing Arturo closely. Dan tries to hide the messy overnight makeup Arturo has on his face, to no avail.

“We have inspections coming up. And pest control will be coming this afternoon if that’s alright…”

Dan nods. “Sure, no problem.”

“I’m, uh, excuse me, but, Arturo? Do you have a black eye, or something?” She asks.

Dan gives her a dirty look. “Huh? Black eye?”

She shakes her head and puts her hand up, “No offense. I don’t mean anything offensive.”

Arturo gets in front of Dan as the elevator door opens. “Naw. I just forgot to take off my makeup last night, I fell asleep and woke up forgetting about it. Hah, ya know how it is…”

The nervous rant made Clarissa squint her eyes and frown.

“No, I don’t. How could you possibly know that? You’re a man.”

Dan grunts as Arturo’s face turns sullen and embarrassed. “Ok. Thank you so much,” Dan says sarcastically as he goes out the elevator with Arturo. “We have to go.”

Dan whispers to Arturo, “She must be a MAGA…”

“Are you going to change your name? I hope not. I really don’t need to change documents and you can’t legally change your gender anyway….” Clarissa starts saying to them down the hall.

Arturo turns around, “There’s more important things you should worry about in the world…”

“Like illegal immigration? Yeah. Too bad. Your family is legal, right?”

Dan is about to lose his temper but Arturo looks at him softly, making Dan relax.

“I didn’t think you were racist and transphobic. What a shame,” Dan says anyway. Arturo sighs.

“I’m not racist. I just want secure borders. And it’s just science that there’s only two genders…”

Arturo bats his lashes and says in the most fruity voice, “Aw, honey, don’t be silly and jealous about the way I look fabulous… it’s just that even without makeup, I still look better than you!”

Dan blushes and pulls his boyfriend gently inside their apartment.

Clarissa looks baffled and says nothing.

Dan looks at her, unapologetically, saying, “Welcome to my life, our messy love, and if you don’t like it, tough!”

They both collapse in mirthful laughter, as Arturo says through giggles, “I bet you we’ll evicted by the end of the month!”

Dan nods, “We will find a better place…”

They drink their coffee as they try to settle down. Arturo feels weirdly more confident about himself.

“Was that really my morning… well, our morning?” Arturo laughs, “I think I’ll wear my eye liner more often outside. Just, make sure that it looks nice and not runny next time, otherwise I’ll be having an anxiety attack!”

Dan kisses Arturo’s forehead. “I’ll be proud to go out with you in any capacity.”

“I like what you said about our messy love…” Arturo wraps his hands around Dan’s neck, pulling him close.

Dan smirks, “Messy? Yes. It can be. But that’s why it’s important.”

They kiss deeply. The way that Arturo pictures the most intimate and revealing kiss, better than a movie, it’s softer than anything he could’ve ever imagined.