Free Bitter Taffy by Amy Lane Page A

“I’ve visited before. I’m not sure I could live there.”
    “I thought I wanted to,” Rico told him, gaze straying to the window again. “But you know? It’s been a good five days back.”
    Miguel nodded. “I’ll say, if you landed in Derek’s lap.”
    Rico looked at him, young and bright-eyed and a little bit… unseasoned, maybe, for what he thought Derek might want in a partner. He had to ask. “So, you and Derek….”
    Miguel shook his head. “No. No! That would be taking advantage,” Miguel said earnestly. “That’s not something Mr. Huston does.”
    Rico felt his lips twist in an unfamiliar smile. “You’d be surprised,” he said.
    “Yeah, but if he’s hitting on you, you know he’s in earnest,” Miguel told him. “Otherwise I might have blown him in the first week just out of sympathy. You’ve got to admit. He’s pretty cute.”
    Rico grinned, because Miguel was pretty cute. “Cute would not be my word,” he mused. “Not for Derek.”
    Miguel shot him a look and rolled his eyes. “Oh man .”
    “What?”
    “I’ve got to leave ,and I would love to see you two dance!”
    “How do you even know we’ll—”
    Miguel shrugged. “Because I haven’t seen him date, really. If he’s hitting on you, Rico, he means it.” Suddenly Miguel got really serious. “You’ll be nice if you let him down, right? I mean… he’s a good guy.”
    Rico wanted to pat him on the head. He refrained. “I promise to be nice in my rejection.”
    Miguel grinned again, popping a dimple, and Rico shook his head. Yeah, this kid wouldn’t be Derek material.
    But apparently Rico was.

The Big Dodge
     
     
    T HE REST of the orientation went smoothly, and lunch was… pleasant.
    Derek didn’t hit on Rico with Miguel there, and without sex on the table (or under the table, or permeating his clothes or his smile or his hair, because damn ,looking at Derek and his all-American-boy smile did not get harder), they could banter about books or music or anything at all. Miguel and Rico discussed the merits and demerits of Mexican soap operas—Rico’s grandmother loved them, which was why Rico despised them, and Miguel’s grandmother loved them, which was why Miguel adored them, and after some lively chatter about that, Derek interrupted them, laughing.
    “Well, guys, it sounds like it’s not the television show, it’s the grandmother!”
    They’d laughed, and Rico was sort of proud of how he’d relegated that unpleasant part of his life to lunch conversation—right up until, as though summoned by the words themselves, his phone rang, and it was family.
    “Oh hell,” he muttered, looking at his phone. “It’s my mother.”
    They were eating outside in a little café about two blocks from Derek’s office suite. Rico stood up and excused himself as he answered the call, and then he walked around the corner to the shady side of the red-boarded building.
    “Hey, Mami ,” he said resignedly. “Sorry I didn’t call last week. Things got busy.”
    “Too busy to call, Rico?” His mother never yelled. She just got “disappointed,” and there was no fighting that.
    “Well, my internship ended unexpectedly. I’m actually back in Sacramento, having lunch with my new boss.”
    “Your internship ended?” His mother turned and spoke a rapid spate of Spanish at someone, repeating the news, and oh good, Rico’s grandmother knew now.
    “Yeah, Mami , it’s all over now. I’ll, uh, talk to you later this week, okay?”
    “But Rico, where are you staying? Didn’t you let your—” There was a disdainful pause. “— cousin take care of your animals? Did you just kick him out on his ear?”
    “No,” he said shortly. “He’s still there with his boyfriend, and I’m sleeping on the couch. I asked them to stay. They’re good people.”
    Rico recoiled as the eruption of Spanish poured through the phone. Another voice added to the cacophony, and he gave up trying to follow the words—his Spanish was pretty