Golden Girl | Oscar Diaz

Part I: Una Vez

The next time he sees Neni she nearly runs him over with a grocery cart. She looks at least a little embarrassed about it.

"Sup," he says, and she quirks a grin.

"Hi  Oscar," she says. She's in athletic gear again, biker shorts on this  time. Her hair's in a messy bun, eyes looking tired. "How you been?"

"Good," he says, raising an eyebrow at her, "you gonna lie and say you been the same?"

Neni laughs, says, "Here I thought you were gonna tell me I look good anyway. How tired do I look?"

"Like you ain't slept since I last seen you," he says, "thinking of me?"

She  snorts this time, and he can't help but grin back at her. He might not  be getting lucky with her anytime soon but she's entertaining, at least.  "Not exactly," she says.

He glances down at her cart, only a  basket in his grip, just stocking up on things he's a little low on.  She's got half the store, from the looks of it: fresh produce, rice,  beans, tortillas. He raises both eyebrows when he sees the array of  multivitamins she's got among it, though, several different brands, the  cart alive with color. "Health kick?"

She blinks at him, real  slow, like she's not sure what to say to him. Finally, she says, smile  tucked in the corner of her mouth, "Grab one of them."

"What?"

She pushes her chin at the cart, repeats herself. "Go 'head."

He decides to humor her—feels his expression blanche when he catches the Prenatal  in all caps, white text against a blindingly bright pink. He blinks at  it, and then at Neni, and then at the bottle again. He says, "We.  Definitely didn't sleep together, right?" and it makes her laugh loud  enough that heads turn.

"Wow," she says, tongue against her lower lip, "I'm. I don't even know what to say."

"I've  got one chiquillo at home already," he says, shaking the bottle at her.  She reaches out, takes it back from him with a roll of her eyes, "I  ain't the type to cut and run, but one's enough for me."

"You got a kid?" she says, tilting her head at him, "That didn't come up last we talked."

"My  brother," he says, feeling a flash of—pride, maybe, or paternal  instinct, or just straight-up affection. "Sophomore this year."

"That's  tight," she says, tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, "guess  bringing that up wasn't a good way of getting what you were after, anyway."

"Was I after something?"

"So that's why you say you don't strike out," she says, smirking a little, "you be forgetting, huh?"

"I  dunno what you're talking about," he says, and then, looking at all of  the things in her cart, remembering his mother, wobbly, trying to fit  everything in her arms shortly before Cesar was born and she and Oscar  were still bussing everywhere, "you need help bagging your stuff?"

She blinks at him. Says, tone a little dry, "It's not your kid, Oscar."

"Yeah," he says, "but that don't mean I can't help you out, a little."

She  hums a little. Curls her fingers over the cart's handle, nails no  longer painted but filed into an oval shape, her expression still tired  and now a little unsure. "You're just tryna help?"

"You got food  for a fucking house and not just you, parece, and they got like, three  baggers here." He raises his eyebrow at her. The expression usually  works, but she just considers him with a tilt of her head.