Better Off Read online

  “They pay you?” That was a possible income stream Mac hadn’t considered.

  “In food. Of course, the food is mostly thanks to their wives and mothers, but I don’t complain. I collect enough on Thursdays to carry me through the week.” He hefted a foil-wrapped package from the counter. “Come on, let me grab a shirt and we can head out.”

  “Where are we going?” Mac followed him into the back room where Hailey stashed the packet in the minifridge.

  “On a tour of the neighborhood. Most of the stores will be closed, but we can still get churros if we hurry. Did you eat?” Hailey pulled a thin button-down shirt in a bright blue-and-purple plaid over his t-shirt.

  “I met my sister for dinner.” He didn’t want to go on a tour of the neighborhood. He wanted to peel that shirt Hailey had just put on back off him, to press Hailey down onto the rumpled futon and cover him. But if he expected Hailey to listen to the presentation Audra was putting together, he had to go through with his side of the exchange. But he could get a kiss, at least.

  He snatched Hailey by the wrist and hauled him up against his body. “You didn’t say hello.”

  “I did.” Hailey grinned down at him. “But hello again.”

  “Hello.” He captured Hailey’s mouth, a sense of rightness surging through him as Hailey’s scent tickled his nostrils. He kept his hand wrapped around Hailey’s wrist, stroking his thumb over the soft flesh there as his other arm came around Hailey’s back to hitch him closer. Hailey opened to him by degrees, as if settling into him.

  “Been thinking about that all day,” Mac said when he reluctantly pulled back. His dick was already getting hard, wanting more.

  “It might have occurred to me a time or two too.” Hailey took a quick nip at his mouth. “But let’s go. I promised you churros.”

  There was no treat Hailey could promise him that would be better than the one in his arms, but Mac allowed himself to be towed through the dark store and out the front door.

  “Not much to see on this block, of course, courtesy of you-know-who, but there used to be a bodega there.” Hailey pointed at one of the dark storefronts. The windows still bore faded lettering in a mix of Spanish and English. “And that was a barbershop.”

  “There’s a beauty salon across the street.”

  “A barbershop is a very different thing from a beauty salon. I’ll bet you get your hair cut somewhere it costs you sixty dollars.”

  It cost more than that, actually, but he’d been going to the same hairdresser since he was a teenager, back when his hairstyle had seemed like a very important statement about who he was, which statement had been fairly cringeworthy when he thought back on it. His current side-parted cut was barely more complicated than a buzz cut and probably could be done by a sixty-dollar barber.

  “Do you know anyone at the place you go?” Hailey asked.

  “I know my hairdresser. Who else would I know?”

  “That’s just it. A barbershop is a community center, a place for guys to hang out where the generations mix.”

  “And gossip.”

  “And gossip,” Hailey agreed. “The kind of news that’s important to the people who live here doesn’t get put on television. At least, not from their perspective. I’m sure this project of yours has made the news, but the evictions—”

  “We haven’t evicted anyone. I’m sorry about that notice you were sent. I told our lawyers to stop sending them.”

  “Really?” Hailey’s surprise made Mac bristle. Did Hailey think he would knowingly engage in duplicitous business practices?

  “Really. I didn’t know we were doing that. Apparently it’s standard practice—”

  “But that doesn’t make it right.”

  “No.”

  Hailey stood for a moment, just looking at him. Then his lips quirked up in a relaxed smile, and he dropped a kiss on Mac’s nose.

  “That definitely earns you a churro, but come on, they stop serving at nine thirty.” Hailey moved briskly down the sidewalk, practically dancing as he dodged between people. Mac shook himself out of the daze Hailey’s approval had brought on and lengthened his stride to catch up with him.

  Most of the stores were closed for the night, but that hadn’t emptied the place out. Women clattered by in heels, their eyes on the cracked and heaving sidewalks. Teenagers sprawled on doorsteps, too many with a cigarette in hand. Men hung out of cars that crawled up and down the street in an unending conga line. Music blared from multiple radios in a conflicting mass of noise.

  Mac was a big man and Hailey wasn’t, but he was glad for Hailey’s presence at his side in this alien environment, for the reassurance of his composure in this carnival atmosphere with its underlying hint of danger. This was normal for Hailey—the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle farther down the street, the constant blare of car horns, the bump and press of people, the smell of smoke, both tobacco and… otherwise, the hooting calls of harassing teenagers. It was normal for Hailey, but it shouldn’t be.

  Hailey stopped in front of a patisserie. Through the glass doors emblazoned with the word Chocolate in gold foil, Mac saw a small room full of people and tiny two-top tables.

  “Crowded.”

  “Always,” Hailey said as he ushered Mac inside.

  They joined a line snaking across the black-and-white tiled floor nearly to the door. The air smelled like chocolate and coffee, and a steady babble of voices made the crowded room feel even more crowded. Mac turned his face up to read from the menu hanging over a display case filled with every kind of sweet.

  “You’re getting churros,” Hailey told him, turning him away from the menu to face him. “Unless you don’t like churros.”

  “I don’t even know what churros are.”

  “Then you’re getting churros. Hot chocolate or coffee? Traditionally, it’s hot chocolate. You sort of dip them.”

  Mac allowed Hailey to order him hot chocolate as he tried to recall the last time he’d had any. He should’ve joined Declan at the gym if he was going to be indulging in cocoa and whatever a churro was after a three-course meal with Julia-Louise. The cashier rang them up, and before Mac could get his wallet out, Hailey pulled a handful of small bills from his pocket.

  “This is my show-and-tell, so it’s my treat,” he said as he counted out a stack of ones. He put the change the cashier handed him into the tip jar and picked up one of the wide ceramic cups that’d been set in front of them.

  “Churros’ll be right up,” the cashier said before turning to the next customer.

  Obviously the place should stay open later if they did this kind of business, maybe expand. Mac sipped from his cup. The chocolate was rich, thicker than he remembered cocoa being, as if it really were made of chocolate.

  “Good, right?” Hailey had a chocolate mustache on his upper lip, which Mac resisted the urge to lick. Instead he licked his own lips, figuring he might look much like Hailey. Hailey’s eyes followed his tongue, and Mac wondered how long this tour was going to go on, because as delicious as the hot chocolate was, he’d rather be swallowing down Hailey.

  Churros, when they arrived in a paper sack, turned out to be a donut-like confection in a long star-shaped stick that reminded Mac of what his Play-Doh Fun Factory had pumped out.

  Hailey threaded his way through the crowd to a table that freed up just as they got to it. It was barely big enough for two grown men to sit at. Mac kept his elbows off it in consideration of the sticky shine coating the wooden top and pulled his knees in tight to stay out of the way of the pack of people surrounding them.

  The churros were both crispy and oily, sinfully delicious, and definitely made for dipping in chocolate. He let the conversation falter as he ate, one eye on the way Hailey was enjoying his and one eye on all the people coming and going around them. Many of them slapped Hailey on the back as they went by or called out a greeting to him in a mixture of Spanish and English.

  “Where did you learn Spanish?”

  “Here. I can’t d
o more than easy conversational.”

  “So then what brought you to a neighborhood that’s, um, Spanish?” He couldn’t exactly say “why would a white guy move to a Hispanic neighborhood?” but that was what he meant. Not only was Ball’s End too poor to support a bookstore in its current state, but Hailey must feel like an outsider, though he seemed to be an accepted one, at least.

  “It was what I could afford, to be honest.”

  “It’s a question of start-up costs versus return on investment,” Mac explained. Sure, it would be more expensive to buy into a good retail location, to stock new books instead of old and pay for advertising, but making money required spending money. Bookstores weren’t a good choice of venture these days, but a small store run well could probably support one or two people. Hailey appeared to be low-maintenance enough. He was sucking down his churros like he hadn’t eaten in a week.

  “I could help you find a better location,” Mac offered. “I’m not just saying that because I want you out of there.”

  “I believe you.” Hailey patted Mac’s arm, and Mac made a grab for his hand. “But there aren’t any other locations in the neighborhood at my price point. I’ve looked.”

  “This isn’t exactly your neighborhood, Hailey.” Mac scowled a warning at the teenager who’d just bumped into their table.

  “It’s my neighborhood now. I may have landed here randomly, but I’m glad I did. I needed a community. Traveling with my parents as a kid was like being part of a circus. We were always moving, but we brought our people with us. Living in the dorms was similar—very communal. But when I graduated, got a job, got my own place….” Hailey grimaced and pulled his hand back, but Mac grabbed for it again, and Hailey smiled at him as he twined their hands together. “I got a little lost after college, but I found my way here, and now I’d like to help Ball’s End the way Ball’s End helped me.”

  “That name is awful.”

  Why must Hailey be so stubborn about the place? It would become a nice enough neighborhood once Mac got done with it—not the sort of place he’d live himself, but a perfect place for Hailey—but right now it was squalid and run-down, inconvenient and very likely dangerous. Churros and chocolate hadn’t changed Mac’s mind about any of that.

  “I like balls,” Hailey answered with a wink. “Oh, hey, Edgar. You remember Greg?”

  The tottering drunk who’d come into Hailey’s Comic on Mac’s first visit to the store staggered up to their table, barely managing to balance a cup of chocolate between his hands.

  “You want this table? We were just leaving.” Hailey got to his feet and took Edgar’s cup from him to place it carefully on the table.

  “Mumble-mumble-mumble thank you.”

  Mac cleared the table of their dishes on the assumption that no one else was going to do it as Hailey got Edgar settled at the tiny table.

  “Girl!” Hailey’s high-pitched exclamation made Mac whirl to catch him throwing himself into the arms of a round Black woman with a stack of braids on top of her head.

  “Hey, sweetie,” the woman said as she hugged him back. “How is it having the place to yourself?”

  “Lonely. Mac, this is Yolanda. She used to live upstairs. How’s the new place?”

  “Expensive and too fucking far away. How am I supposed to get my fix?”

  Mac blanched, but Hailey’s next words made him realize he’d jumped to an unfair conclusion.

  “You better get up to the counter, then. I’m surprised they’re even still serving.”

  “Don’t I know it. I was on pins and needles the whole way here. Those buses can’t ever keep a schedule.”

  She gave Hailey another squeeze before releasing him, making Mac wonder what sort of relationship the two of them had, not that it was his business. He was getting a bad case of possessiveness where Hailey was concerned. They’d messed around once without exchanging histories or promises. He had no right to object to anything Hailey might be up to.

  Hailey trailed after Yolanda to the counter, so Mac followed along too, listening with half an ear as the two of them gossiped.

  “Elisa’s still with her sister-in-law out in Quilling,” Yolanda told Hailey once she’d placed her order. “Two women and five babies in a two-bedroom house.” She shook her head, lips pursed in a heavy expression of disapproval. “Lost her job, you know. Couldn’t get the babies to care and get downtown for work on time, the buses running the way they do out there. Guess that thousand dollars she got to move out don’t look so good to her now.”

  “What can we do to help?”

  “Aw, sweetie. What can you do? She got a roof over her head, at least. James was never good for much, but his sister done right by her. She gonna apply for housing, but you know how long that takes.”

  “Well, tell her if she needs help with the application, I can look at it with her. Sometimes those forms—”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  Mac shifted restlessly. He didn’t know Elisa, but if she and her sister-in-law had five babies between them without any men in the picture, he could guess what sort of person she was. It was nice of Hailey to worry about her—Hailey clearly worried about everyone—but she wasn’t Hailey’s problem. Hailey seemed to notice his restlessness, because he wrapped things up with Yolanda.

  “Love you, dollface,” he told her as he gave her yet another hug goodbye. “And give Elisa my love too. And the babies,” he added over his shoulder as he led the way out of the crowded patisserie.

  “Elisa lived upstairs too,” Hailey told him as they strolled farther down the street.

  “I figured.”

  “She’s got three kids—”

  “Babies?”

  “Nah, that’s just an expression. Oldest one’s ten. Youngest is two, I think? They’re all still young enough to need looking after, anyway. I used to help with her two oldest after school. Anyway, she took one of those relocation bonuses you guys were handing out because a thousand dollars sounded like a lot of money to her and she figured she was getting tossed out eventually, but you heard. The buses aren’t bad between Ball’s End and downtown during working hours—”

  Mac knew that. It was one of the reasons why Ball’s End made a great gentrification project. Good bus service was a must to attract urban millennials.

  “—but the service sucks out beyond Ball’s End. You get into Quilling, you need a car. A thousand dollars doesn’t buy a car and put it on the road. It barely covers relocation expenses, as people inevitably find out. Now this building.” Hailey waved at a derelict structure across the street. The lower windows were covered in plywood, which was covered in graffiti. The upper windows were broken or gone completely.

  “Why not renovate this one?” Hailey asked. “It could use it.”

  Mac surveyed the building, then glanced back in the direction they’d come from, a few blocks from the patisserie and a few more from 502 Main Street. He’d have to review their surveys, but he could guess. “Location’s not as good.”

  They were deep into Ball’s End now. The street already felt darker and more dangerous, the sidewalks not as crowded, the stores less well maintained and the entranceways to them dark and smelling like urine. Gentrification happened from the edges.

  “I know you don’t want to move, Hailey, but trust me that I know how to reclaim a neighborhood. You can’t just start from anywhere.”

  Hailey frowned at him. Mac hated him frowning.

  “What?”

  “It’s that word. Reclaimed. Think about it for a minute. Who are you claiming it from? Who are you claiming it for? This neighborhood belongs to people like Miguel and Yolanda.”

  “You’re here. Can’t we integrate?”

  “Is that really how you think it’s going to come out, Greg?”

  “We’re not trying to push out people of color to bring in white people, I promise. This isn’t about discrimination. It’s about making Ball’s End a better place to live. For everyone.” He kissed Hailey, trying to wipe the
frown off his mouth. “Will you keep an open mind until you see our presentation Monday? I think you’re going to like what we’re planning to do.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  That was a really good question. So good, Mac didn’t try to answer it.

  Chapter Six

  “I’m sorry things haven’t worked out for Alyssa,” Mac said as they strolled back along the frost-heaved sidewalk toward Hailey’s Comic.

  “Elisa.”

  “Right, Elisa. But that doesn’t mean everyone who got displaced ended up worse off. Your friend Yolanda’s doing okay.”

  “You heard what she said.” Hailey pulled out his keychain with a jingle—though how anything had fit into such tight jeans, Mac wasn’t sure—and opened the front door.

  “Right. The bus service sucks. But she could petition the city to get it extended.” He followed Hailey through the dark store, dodging the occasional stack of books or unexpectedly looming armchair.

  Hailey glanced over his shoulder with a look Mac couldn’t quite read in the limited light. “You think she hasn’t? If you petitioned to get it extended, the city might entertain the idea. When Yolanda Brown petitions, not so much.”

  “Maybe not one Yolanda Brown, but pull a thousand of them together and see what happens.” That was the trouble with these kinds of neighborhoods. No one took initiative. That was why outsiders like him had to step in and tackle the projects the locals hadn’t taken on themselves. Like that ramshackle building Hailey had pointed out down the street. At some point it would have to be addressed, quite possibly by C&G, but how long had it been left in that condition before they showed up?

  In the interest of not pissing Hailey off right before he was about to get laid, Mac kept those thoughts to himself, instead pointing out that though Yolanda might be paying more rent in her new location, she was undoubtedly getting a nicer place in exchange for it.

  “You think? Come on, there’s one more thing I want to show you.”

  Mac didn’t want to see any more things, unless— “This?” He palmed Hailey’s cock through his jeans, which were tight enough that he could pick out which direction it leaned.