The afternoon sun was golden and forgiving, slanting through the windshield of Marco's beat-up sedan as it hummed along the familiar route toward Alex's university. The car was its usual chaotic self—empty energy drink cans in the cupholders, a skateboard rattling in the back, and the faint, lingering scent of Carlos the raccoon who had definitely been inside recently without permission.
Alex was in the passenger seat, her backpack heavy with textbooks between her feet, a half-finished iced coffee in her hand. She was scrolling through her class syllabus on her phone, mentally preparing for the two-hour lecture on organic chemistry pathways that awaited her.
Marco was driving with one hand on the wheel, the other draped over the back of her seat, his posture loose and relaxed. His sunglasses were perched on his nose, and he was humming along to some reggaeton song that played softly through the crackling speakers.
It was peaceful. It was normal. It was, by their standards, almost boring.
Then Marco's phone buzzed in the center console.
He glanced down at the screen, and his entire demeanor shifted. The easy smile vanished. His jaw tightened. His eyebrows drew together into a deep, furious scowl. His hand tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles went white.
"Pinche güey," he muttered under his breath, the words dripping with venom. "¿A poco este cabrón me está llamando?"
Alex looked up from her phone, immediately alert. "What? Who is it?"
Marco didn't answer. He jabbed his finger at the screen, accepting the call, then hit the speaker button with a sharp, angry tap. He'd learned his lesson about holding his phone while driving—three weeks ago, they'd almost veered into a ditch when he'd gotten distracted by a text, and Alex had spent a solid thirty seconds hitting his arm with punches that he'd later described as "aggressive butterfly kisses." He now used speakerphone. Reluctantly. Under protest. With frequent commentary about how the government was suppressing his freedoms.
"Yo, ¿ése?" Marco's voice was flat, cold, nothing like his usual warm chaos.
A man's voice crackled through the speaker, nasal and slightly wheezy. "Hey, Marco, my dude. Got a favor to ask."
Marco said nothing. His eyes remained fixed on the road, but his jaw was working side to side, grinding his teeth.
The man on the phone continued, apparently unbothered by the silence. "So, I got this thing this weekend, right? Family stuff. My tía's anniversary, lot of drama, you know how it is. I was wondering if you could cover my shift? Saturday night. Just the one."
Alex watched Marco's face. She saw the muscle in his temple twitch.
"Cover your shift," Marco repeated, his voice dangerously quiet.
"Yeah, man. Just Saturday. I owe you one."
The car was silent for a beat. Two beats. The reggaeton had faded into nothing, the only sound the hum of the tires on the asphalt.
Then Marco exploded.
"¡NO MAMES, GÜEY!" he shouted, his voice filling the small car like a thunderclap. Alex jumped, sloshing her iced coffee over her fingers. "¡FUCK NO! ¡Y CHINGA TU MADRE!"
He was gesturing wildly now, one hand flying off the wheel to jab at the phone in the console. The car swerved slightly. Alex grabbed the door handle.
"¡CADA VEZ QUE NECESITABA QUE ALGUIEN CUBRIERA MI TURNO, TU PINCHE CULERO Y TODOS TUS KILOS DE SOBRA NO APARECÍAN POR NINGUNA PARTE!" He was breathing hard, his face flushed with genuine, years-old frustration. "Every time! EVERY. TIME. I needed a shift covered, your fat ass was nowhere to be found! ¡NI EN LA ESQUINA! Now you show up with a 'plus-sized personal problem'—your tía's anniversary, ¡qué bonito!—and I'm supposed to give a fuck?"
The man on the other end tried to interject. "Marco, come on, it's just—"
"¡CÁLLATE!" Marco roared. "I don't want to hear it! ¡YA BASTA! Take your plus-sized problem and your plus-sized ass and find someone else to scam! ¡PORQUE AQUÍ NO HAY TACOS PARA NADIE!"
He slammed his finger onto the end call button so hard the phone rattled in its cradle.
The car fell silent.
Marco sat there for a moment, his chest heaving, his hands gripping the wheel at ten and two like he was trying to strangle it. Then he exhaled, long and slow, and the tension seemed to drain out of his shoulders.
"Wooo..." He ran a hand over his face, then let it drop back to the wheel. "Este puta madre..."
Alex was still staring at him. Her mouth was slightly agape, her iced coffee forgotten and dripping onto her jeans. She had seen Marco angry before—frustrated, annoyed, dramatically indignant—but this was something else. This was years of stored resentment exploding out of him in a torrent of creative Spanish profanity.
Marco turned to look at her, and as if a switch had been flipped, his face softened into that familiar, easy grin. The storm had passed as quickly as it had arrived.
"So," he said, his voice light and cheerful, as if he hadn't just verbally eviscerated a coworker in two languages, "wanna get Taco Bell for your class?"
Alex blinked. Once. Twice. Her brain was still processing the whiplash.
"You... you just..." She pointed at the phone. "That was... there were words I've never heard before. I didn't know Spanish could make those sounds."
Marco shrugged, completely unbothered. "That's Chucho. He's a pendejo. He's been pulling that shit for two years. I've been waiting for him to call me for a favor so I could tell him exactly where he could put it." He grinned wider. "Felt good, actually. Cathartic. You should've recorded it. Could've sent it to my therapist."
"You don't have a therapist."
"I don't? Shit. Then who's that guy I've been paying fifty dollars a week to listen to me complain about my mom?"
Alex shook her head, a reluctant laugh escaping her. "You're impossible."
"And yet, here you are." He reached over and squeezed her knee, quick and affectionate. "Now. Taco Bell? Yes or no? I'm thinking four Crunchwraps. Maybe five. One for each stage of your lecture. Stage one: 'I'm paying attention.' Stage two: 'I'm bored.' Stage three: 'I'm hungry.' Stage four: 'I'm angry at the professor for existing.' Stage five: 'I'm contemplating dropping out and joining the circus.'"
"I'm not joining the circus."
"That's what stage five Alex always says. And then stage six Alex eats a Crunchwrap and feels better about her life choices."
Alex sighed, but she was smiling. She couldn't help it. No one made her smile like this. No one made her feel like the chaos of the world was manageable, even funny. Even after a two-minute phone call that had featured more profanity than a Quentin Tarantino movie.
"Fine," she said. "Taco Bell. But I'm paying for my own."
Marco gasped, clutching his chest in mock offense. "¡Mi amor! You wound me. You think I would let my novia buy her own Taco Bell? What kind of boyfriend do you think I am?"
"The kind who almost crashed his car because he was too busy screaming at a phone."
"That was one time."
"It was three times."
"Two and a half. The third one doesn't count because I was already parked."
Alex opened her mouth to argue, but Marco had already merged into the turning lane, his phone call forgotten, his mood restored. He was humming again, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, occasionally glancing over at her with that soft, fond look that made her stomach do something complicated.
"Extra nacho cheese sauce," she said quietly.
Marco's grin somehow got even wider. "That's my girl."
He reached over and took her hand, lifting it to his lips to press a kiss to her knuckles before settling their joined hands on the center console.