Dawn was breaking over Lake Austin. Pink and gold streaks struck out across the sky. Peeking up from a hillside, half submerged in trees, was a modern little condo with a wonderful view.
The roof of this condo was covered with sleeping high-schoolers. Some with blankets, some half naked, all clutching their heads like empty bottles.
Separate from the flat roof, angled harshly into the sky was a hypotenuse of metal. It was one of those architectural flashes that looks great and allows for a kick ass window but dangerously impairs inebriated-roof-clambering. Perched at the vertex of this right triangle, like two triumphant Pythagorases, were Aja and Rafael.
Rafa pursed his lips, “Is tonight going to make things weird between us?”
Aja flicked the bangs from her deep brown eyes. “No.”
—
Cool wind blows through the trees. The leaves sang. Birds danced. It was 68 degrees fahrenheit.
Rafa smiled. Aja caught it in her eyes.
“The only thing that was weird was your piano playing,” she teased.
“You said you liked it last night,” said Rafa, insecurity eating at the edge of his voice.
“It was lovely, it was lovely… but I think both of our playing got less lovely as the night went on.”
Rafa nodded, “The Boozy Woggie.”
Aja laughed. She leaned over conspiratorially, motioning at the sleepers, “I wonder if we kept them all up.”
Rafa leaned in too, smiling ruefully. “I don’t think the horn of Gabriel could have kept these idiots awake.”
They chuckled. Rafa shifted his gaze out over the precipitous edge of the roof, down four stories, onto the leafy lawn.
“It’s a miracle no one fell off” he whispered.
Aja laughed from behind him, “Yea, Kayley was so fucking drunk.”
She proceeded to take a cigarette from inside her shirt. She lit it. Puffed it. Rafa looked at her through the pink smoke.
He moved closer. She noticed. Her eyes darted up and down his body in approval. She breathed out the smoke and Rafa caught it in his mouth. She offered him the cigarette. As he reached out to take it his hand touched hers. Aja pushed her lips forward.
One of the sleeping bodies laughed softly.