Page 87 of Pride High 2: Orange
“Sure, but I’m going there to see my grandparents, not some awesome grunge band.”
Diego didn’t seem to hear him. He was staring at Ricky with unfocused eyes that were ringed by dark circles.
“Are you okay?”
Diego finally blinked. “Yeah. A bunch of pissed off customers want their cars back before Christmas, so I pulled an all-nighter.”
“Did your mom’s boyfriend help?”
“Nope.”
“That’s so unfair!”
“Yeah, no shit,” Diego replied, as if Ricky had just declared that the sky was blue.
“You won’t have to work tomorrow. Not on Christmas. Do you have anything fun planned?”
“I’ll probably just sleep.”
“That’s it? What about your family?”
“My mom doesn’t stop being crazy just because it’s the holidays,” Diego huffed. “But yeah, I’m sure we’ll decorate the Christmas tree, roast some chestnuts, and build a goddamn snowman together. It’ll be wholesome, like always.”
He made Ricky feel naïve when talking like that, and maybe he was, but he still wanted Diego to have a nice holiday. “I got you something,” he said, lifting his hips to pull it out of his pocket. The wrapping paper was crumpled, but the gift hadn’t looked much better before he’d shoved it in there.
“What’s that?” Diego asked.
Ricky leaned over and whispered, “You have to open it to find out.”
“Smart ass,” Diego said when taking it from him. But he looked happy as he tore off the paper.
Ricky held his breath, hoping that Diego wouldn’t laugh. “It’s homemade,” he warned.
“No shit?” Diego said as the paper fell away. “Hey, it’s Frankenstein!”
Frankenstein’s monster, technically, but Ricky was too nervous to tease him about that. And it was only the head. Ricky had sculpted it out of air-dry clay and painted it himself. Before all that, he’d screwed a metal loop into the top.
“It’s a keychain!” Diego declared. “Fucking perfect!”
“You think so?”
“Yeah! You really made it yourself? Are you an artist or something?”
“No!” Ricky said with a titter. “We used to sculpt stuff back in grade school, and I wasn’t any good then either. But it’s hard to go wrong with a monster. The more you mess it up, the better they look.”
“This is great,” Diego said, still beaming. As he held it up, a silver key dangling at the end caught the light. “What’s that go to?”
“My house,” Ricky said. “We aren’t coming back until New Year’s, so I thought… I feel bad that the plan didn’t work out. You being in the play, I mean. So if you need to get away while I’m gone, you’ve got your own personal hideout. Just don’t drink any of my parents’ booze, or I’ll get in trouble. They don’t know about any of this, obviously.”
“Thanks,” Diego said, the smile sliding off his face. “I didn’t think to get you anything but uh…” He leaned toward Ricky, but not for the reason he would have liked. Instead he popped open the glovebox. “Want some weed?”
Ricky laughed. “I can’t take that on the plane with me. And I don’t know how to smoke, remember?”
“Right. Uhh… I’ll make it up to you somehow.”
“That’s not how presents work.”
“Yeah, but I still owe you one. Okay?”
