The Cegua's Prey

Pablo, the appetizer

I should've stayed.
"Honey," my wife called, "don't forget your wallet".
I grabbed it from her and gave her one last kiss on the cheek.
"I will be back before midnight, I promise".
And then I left.
I should've said something else. I should've said I love you one last time.
I went into the bar where I was supposed to meet my friends and saw them sitting at a table in the darkest corner of the place.
Of course, they wouldn't want their wives to know where they were or why ladies were sitting on their laps.
My best friend, Rafael, pointed at the empty chair next to him, holding a beer on one hand and a woman, whom I thought might be freezing due to the lack of fabric covering her pale skin, on the other.
"So, how'd you manage to get unleashed tonight? I thought Levana never let you out."
I half-smiled.
He could be an ass when he wanted to, but we'd been pals ever since we were kids and now worked alongside me at the same factory. There was not much room for escaping him.
Not that I desperately wanted to, of course, especially since he had introduced Levana and me and taken me in to crash on his couch whenever the lady and I fought.
"I just said I'd hang out with the hottest and most amazing guys in this town, but..." I gestured to the eye candy on their laps, "I may have to tell her they weren't available for me".
Nicolás puffed as if he were an old machine in desperate need of an adjustment.
"We're always available for you, you know that."
Nicolás was the kind of guy who looked like a chubby, smiley doofus but would win a fight with three bigger men effortlessly. He was as strong as a mountain and just as big but his personality was weaker than a twig. He'd do whatever Rafael would tell him to in the blink of an eye; nevertheless, what he lacked in brains he compensated in loyalty and a killer protective instinct.
"No," I retorted quickly, chuckling as I grabbed an extra chair. "Please, it's easier this way."
We three were an odd lot. Me, a scrawny guy with brown skin and acne scars; Rafael, a tall strong white man with a handsome face; and Nicolás, a mountain with a friendly face and the smallest eyes in town.
Not something you'd like to encounter in the street at night, but, hey! At least we had each other.
"By the way," I said, a couple of hours later. The girls had been long gone and the last call was soon to be called. My friends gave me their drunken attention and I tried keeping my focus on what I had been dying to tell them all week long. If only the world would stop spinning...
"I need to tell you guys something important."
"Whatever you need to say," Rafael interrupted, "you can say, after another tequilita, hm?"
"No, listen to me right now," I demanded, my fist dropping a little too violently on the table.
Looking back, that must've been what caught her attention. I just went and put a giant bullseye on my back.
What an idiot.
"I got an opportunity to start over in Mexico."
Rafa and Nicolás opened their eyes as wide as I had ever seen, but they stayed quiet. They wanted me to explain.
"My cousin's fiancée's sister wants to hire me to build a house in Monterrey and Levie and I will be leaving in a month," I announced.
The faces of my two friends lit up, they congratulated me with warmth and genuineness, feelings I had seen in them only a couple of times before. They told me they were happy for me, and that I'd be missed, but I could tell I had bummed them out. We stared at our soon-to-be empty glasses, each lost in our thoughts. 
After the bartender told us the bar was closing and that we had to get out after the last song ended, we picked up our coats and got out.
The night was warm. We were in the middle of summer, and the air seemed as if we were held by the world while telling us we were safe and sound. There were opportunities for all of us to be happier than we were in that decomposing town, they just needed to find theirs.
I was so happy I'd finally be able to get out of that hole, I didn't think I'd be getting into a much worse one.
Just as I was mumbling my goodbyes and tumbling away from them, Rafa grabbed my coat and turned me around so fast I thought I'd fall on my face.
"Are you insane?" He asked, his breath stench of cheap booze and stale cigars. I tried to escape from his awfully strong embrace, only to be squeezed tighter and tighter. "We still haven't celebrated your departure, pendejo."
"I'm leaving in a damn month, didn't you hear? We have plenty of time for you to..."
"No!", he persisted, his grip on me loosening enough for me to fall to the floor on my knees, "We will celebrate you now at the dump of a bar that never closes and forget about it until you go."
I looked at him, ready to discuss the matter further, but his expression stopped me. Even though his face was as serious as a stone, his eyes were glossy, as if he were about to start crying right there.
I got up, dusted my pants, and turned to Nicolás, who was standing awkwardly in a dirt path which led to the other part of town where the dump bar was, the part of town reserved for all kinds of illicit activities and home to the worst kind of people. To get there, we'd have to walk for thirty minutes or so in complete darkness and silence.
I hesitated.