Mom Handed Us One Lease, So I Handed My Stepbrother My Bed novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Marigolds

For three weeks the doors stayed open and my phone stayed face up.

I learned what it was like to be looked at all day.

On the first Sunday of November, Southtown walked its dead down South Alamo Street, and we went.

There were drums, and girls on stilts in lace and skeleton paint, and a thousand marigolds in paper bags.

Candles burned on every curb, and the smell of copal smoke hung over the road.

I had grown up with this.

My grandmother built an altar every year with sugar skulls and pan de muerto and my grandfather's photograph.

Jakob walked beside me in a clean black shirt.

A girl at a corner table had painted a calavera on one side of his face.

She had drawn it crooked, and he had let her.

He wore it all evening with great patience.

"You're staring," he said.

"I'm admiring your face."

"It's half a face," he said.

"It's the better half."

At the community altar at the end of the block, I stopped.

There were photographs in tin frames, plates of tamales, and a bottle of tequila.

Jakob took out his wallet.

From behind the cards he took a small, worn photograph of a woman in a garden hat, laughing at whoever held the camera.

"Lorene," he said. "My mother."

I had never heard her name from him.

He set the photograph on the edge of the altar, between a candle and a skull.

"Eight years," he said. "She'd have liked you."

"How do you know?"

"You'd have made her laugh at the table."

I slid my hand into his.

We stood there, and the drums went by.

He did not say anything else, and neither did I.

At the end of the walk, in the crush of people at the corner, I pulled him close by his shirt.

"Roof," I said.

"What?"

"The hatch in the hall closet. Take me up there."

His eyes went to the sky, and then to me.

"There's a parapet and a lot of neighbors."

"They're all at the parade."

He took my hand and walked fast.

The apartment was dark and warm, and the radio downstairs was playing a bolero.

← Chapter 8 · All chapters · Chapter 10 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend