Waiting for Sunday

chapter 14 - holding back, holding true

Quincy has barely parked the car at the curb outside of Felix's condominium before Reina is upon them, standing from where she was waiting on the front steps, her face the mottled pink-orange hue it always turns when she's angry. Her dark gold hair is wild and unsettled about her face, brown mascara smeared along the edges of her hooded eyes. She is in a sweater that more closely resembles a blanket and altogether she would look cozy and nonthreatening if not for the fact she is clearly stewing with rage.

"Hi, Reina," Quincy calls out in a sing-songy voice as Felix steps out of the SUV. For nearly as long as Felix has known Quincy, she's had a crush on his older sister. They dated for three extremely awkward months in college and Quincy has been trying to get back in her good graces ever since.

"What the fuck," Reina says, a pleasant greeting directed at both of them.

"You look pretty as always," Felix says, plastering on the ear-to-ear smile that has won him many household arguments before. "Ooh, did you paint your nails? They're shiny."

It doesn't look like it's going to win this one. Reina curses at him in Spanish, grabbing his cheek and pinching it so hard he starts to see stars. "You look awful, Felix. What did you let that weird farm woman do to you? And why? What if you died?"

"I didn't, though."

"But what if you did?"

"Like you wouldn't like to be rid of me?" Felix jokes. "You told me I was the bane of your existence."

"Yeah, when I was sixteen and an idiot. Apparently you are twenty-seven and an idiot!"

"Reina, please," Felix says, and winces. "Let me go; you're going to pull my face off."

She does, muttering an apology under her breath. "Don't...say things like that," she says, quietly. Then, more quietly: "I'd be sick. I'd be sick if anything happened to you."

Reina is always like this, her honesty as sudden and arresting as an earthquake, shaking the very ground Felix stands on.

He smiles, tipping her head and pressing a brief kiss to her forehead. "I'm sorry," he tells her as he lets her go. "I'll make it up to you. I have ginger ale inside."

She looks up. "And pomegranate juice?"

"Of course."

"You have to promise you'll tell me everything. Why you went to see this lady in the first place, what exactly happened, everything."

"I promise, I promise," Felix says, pivoting to face the entrance. He makes an exaggerated show of rolling his eyes. "God, you're annoying."

Reina's response to this is a decisive kick at the inside of his knee. "You're really gonna say that while I'm behind you?"

"Be nice to him, Reina!" Quincy calls from the car. "He's had a long night!"

"Goodbye, Quincy," Reina replies.

"You sure you don't want me to come with? It's a very long and complicated story, and Felix's throat is still wonky—"

"Goodbye, Quincy," Reina says again, and Quincy laughs and rolls the window up, the car engine kicking to life, before the rumble of it drifts further and further away.

As they climb the steps to Felix's condo, there's a part of him that wishes Quincy really had stayed, that he wouldn't have to face the unforgiving glare of Reina's scrutiny by himself. He starts, "You didn't—"

"Angel wouldn't care. He'd just tell me I was overreacting, so no, I didn't call him."

Felix pauses outside of his door, leaning his weight against the wall as he searches his pockets for his keys. "You don't think you could be overreacting? I mean, a little bit?"