Dark Places

46 | muéstrame cuánto lo amas

—HEY. IT'S ALMOST 4AM ON HALLOWEEN. I'm a little late, but here is what was meant to be your spicy, rather than spooky, Friday update.

❝you don't care if anyone is watching...
just as long as you stay in motion;
we put miles on these old jean jackets,
got caught up in the drunk conversations.
but after the party, it's me and you...❞

☽

"OH, GRACIAS, PRINCESITA," Drake deadpans, leaning down to hook my hip into his body, a slight shift, an inch, but Tyler recoils, spitting a venomous string of bullshit at us. Drake yanks at my arm, tucking me into his side tightly, and extends a hand over my shoulder to stop him. "No la toques."

"Oh, no, I fucking dare him to touch me." I thrash in his grip, flickering flashes of red detailing any rational response. His bottom lip, busted and bloodied, twisted into a scowl. Tyler glares at me coldly. "Mm, dale, hijo de gran puta, I'll put burn this bitch to the ground, babe, si me tocas—"

It takes Drake a millisecond to toss me over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes, so fucking gracefully. "Ah, yala, yala, yala, tiguerrrona..."

"Drake!" I smash a knee into his chest, and Drake grunts, shifting to lock an arm around my bare calves and lock an arm around my bare thighs. It's a tight embrace, a vice grip, taut muscles, restraining me, keeping my dress from hitching up and keeping him from sustaining an injury, a broken rib, a pulverized kidney, a stab of a stiletto. Ah, Drake Medina remembers surprisingly well. "Medina!" His fingers tug at the hem of my dress before it can hitch up. "¡Suéltame!"

Spoiler: Drake doesn't let go.

Infamously, even three, four, five years later, Luz Melo is being dragged out of a shitty house show in Portland, kicking and screaming, spitting a slew of Spanglish at a crowd of white trash cabrones, sober or not. I suppose my legacy shall live on.

Fuck. Them.

"Jesus Christ, Luz," he hisses, crashing through a doorway into a smoky cluster of bystanders. It's only three, four, five people, blurring by, parting and scattering to take refuge inside, as if Drake is a heat-seeking missile, about to torch anything in front of us. "I think you needed to hit eso paraguayo more than I did."

I swing a fist against his back petulantly. "¡Suéltame!"

Drake takes the last two steps off the porch and lurches me over his shoulder. I land on my feet, stumbling, staggering through sheets of rain, across slippery grass, squelching mud, sinking, and when I steady, soaked to a feverish rage, I want to scream.

"¿Qué coño haces?" I hiss, planting both palms on his chest, desperate to push past him, but Drake doesn't give, continuing to walk me back, back, back, through a howling lash of windfall, icy pinpricks, silver strokes of rain, further and further from Tyler Ouellette. "No!" I grind my heels into silt, slowing his advance. "I didn't hit him hard enough, Medina!"

No.

"If you don't keep fucking moving, Melo..."

I grind to a halt.

Drake doesn't miss a beat, plowing forward, catching me, hands on hips, hooking, hoisting up, up, up onto his hips. Fuck. Instinctually, I curl, arms and legs latching around him, clinging, and I dig my fingers deep into his hood, brush my thumbs across his throat, claw my nails the nape of his neck as I drive down to kiss him.