Out of Nowhere (Middle of Somewhere 2)

“It’s his birthday” is all Rafe says, smiling at me warmly.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dorothy says to Mikal. “He doesn’t want that.” I take a deep breath and turn to Dorothy in relief, ready to give her whatever she wants for getting me out of it. “Look at what he’s wearing! It’s gotta be gray. Ooh, maybe use the crackle topcoat,” she says, nudging Mikal with her shoulder. Then she looks up at me and winks, nodding. I shoot her a look and she just laughs and goes to the sponge-painting station.

“Well, who’s gonna do Rafe’s, then?” I say, and the smile on his face becomes slightly forced.

“Me!” Mischa yells. “Please, me,” she says to Rafe. He nods at her and sinks down on the bench next to me.

Of course, within five seconds all the kids are gathered around us, not doing anything but eating snacks while they watch me and Rafe get our nails painted.

“Colin, your hands are so messed,” says Mikal.

“What?” I say, mildly offended. My hands are spotless. “Dude, have you seen most mechanics’ hands? Mine are the cleanest you’ll ever find.”

“Oh, um, right. No, sorry, Colin. They’re nice,” Mikal says, patting the back of my hand and shooting a look over my head. “There you are!”

DeShawn walks over and nods at everyone, setting his white backpack down carefully in the corner of the gazebo. Anders creeps along at his side, his all-black outfit an almost comical inversion of DeShawn’s.

“Happy birthday, Mikal,” DeShawn says, kissing him chastely on the cheek, and Anders follows suit.

“DeShawn, I got white especially for you,” says Tynesha from the other side of the nail polish table.

Once they have DeShawn and Anders settled at the table, Carlos says, “Hey, maybe Anders should get white and DeShawn should get black. Or you could mix them.” He winks at them both lewdly. DeShawn braces himself on the table and pushes himself off the bench slightly, leaning into Carlos’ space. I’ve never seen him the slightest bit aggressive before and everyone freezes. He keeps eye contact with Carlos, his expression never even changing. After about thirty seconds that feels like an eternity, he sits back down and picks up the white nail polish.

“Sorry, bro,” Carlos mutters and DeShawn nods peacefully, placing the black nail polish in front of Anders.

“Aaaanywaaay,” Mischa says. “So, I’m thinking of doing galaxies on Rafe. It’s awesome ’cause his hands are so big that I’ll be able to get really good detail. What do you think?”

The table agrees, but I stopped listening the second she mentioned Rafe’s big hands because all I can think of is waking up to them all over me. Recently, he likes nothing better than to wake me up by slowly stroking me to an aching hardness and then going down on me the second I’m conscious enough to nod okay. It’s basically the hottest thing ever and suddenly I’m feeling extremely self-conscious to be sitting at a table full of teenagers. I shake my head to clear it and avoid eye contact with Rafe.

When I tune back in, Rafe’s fully engaged in a conversation with Mischa about the intricacies of a galaxy manicure and DeShawn is weighing in about the relative scale of the cosmos. Mikal is pushing on the skin around my nails with something that looks terrifyingly like an instrument of dental torture, and has apparently selected a gray nail polish for me.

“Dude,” I say, “you’re gonna paint my nails the color of a dirty floor?”

“It’s avant-garde!” Mikal insists.

“Whatever. The gray trend is saturated and over,” Mischa says.

“No way!” Mikal insists, clutching the bottle to his chest.

“Um, never mind,” I say. “It’s cool. It’s… uh… oh, it’s like um, rims—tire rims. It’s cool.”

“Dirty rims,” Carlos mutters under his breath, but when I shoot him a look, he raises his hands in peace. “What should I do, Mikal?”

Mikal looks Carlos over. “Um, neon green?”

Carlos grins.

“Hi.”

I look to my right and Ricky’s standing a few feet away.

“Hey, Ricky. How are you?”

She looks at the floor and cocks her head.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell Mikal.

I’m very careful not to bring up anything personal when Ricky’s working at the shop. Rafe was the one who first mentioned it, and it quickly became clear that he was right. That Ricky just wants to work on the cars when she’s at the shop. That she can only focus on that one task and that if I try to ask her about other things, she gets flustered and upset. As a result, though, this is the first time I’ve seen her outside of the shop since she started working there. I crouch down so Ricky’s taller than me.

“Hey,” I say. “You’re doing great at the shop. Really great. You liking it there okay?”

She nods, but she unwraps her arms slightly, bouncing gently on her toes.