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It was too late when Pedro made his way to the bedroom, his body humming faintly with whiskey, mind regrettably not dulled nearly enough. He was hoping Ana would already be asleep when he got there, but she was sitting at the end of the bed, hunched over, staring into nothingness as he entered.
She looked up at him dully, not greeting him, not saying anything. He wordlessly crossed to the closet to change for bed. As he emerged, she looked up at him, expression young and lost.
"What are we going to do?" she asked.
"We?" He frowned. "You made it pretty clear that you don't think there's a 'we' anymore."
She sighed. "The kids don't stop needing us just because our marriage is over."
He felt the words like a stab through his chest. "Family comes first," he said, voice strained.
She turned on him. "What does that even mean, Pedro? I mean, to you, what does it mean? Because to me, it just sounds like something you use to beat yourself up with. A way to keep you from letting yourself have what you actually want."
"And what do you think I want?" he demanded, crossing to lean against the dresser.
"I don't think you know that. How could I? I just know that it isn't to be with me, and it never has been."
"Ana…"
"You’re with me for the kids," she continued. "You say that everything you do is for them, but do you even know who they are? When was the last time you asked Mario what he was interested in? Do you know what sports Claudia is doing right now? Have you talked to Luis except to criticize him in the last week? You're trying so hard not to let them hate themselves like you do that you're causing it. You’re so afraid that Luis might be…" she gestured vaguely, "like you…that you're making it so he'd never tell us if he was."
"He's not!" Pedro snapped. "He's just…"
"Sensitive?" Ana offered.
He glared at her. "He's not like that," he insisted.
"And if he was?" she pressed. "Would you hate him for it too?"
He felt a flare of defensiveness that was nearly immediately drowned out by a crushing wave of sadness. "You honestly believe that I could ever hate any of our kids?"
She regarded him seriously for a moment before sighing, seeming to deflate a little. "No," she said. "I don't. I think you'd hate that they were putting themselves in a position to get hurt so much that you'd make them think that you did." Her eyes pierced through him. "I think you already do that."
"You don't know what you're talking about," he said stiffly. "You don't know what it's like."
"Of course I do, Pedro. I've lived with you for our whole lives. And I see Luis growing up into you. At this rate, he'll end up miserable with his life, married to a woman he hates, whether he grows up wanting to sleep with men or not."
Pedro frowned. He stepped away from the dresser, toward her. She deliberately didn't look at him, so he didn't try to touch her. He settled at her side on the bed. "I don't hate you, Ana," he said.
She sighed. "No," she agreed, "I don't think you do. You just resent me." She eyed him. "You don't really think that the problem between us was ever that you weren't Alejandro, do you?" He didn't look up, but could feel her staring at him. "It was that I wasn't."
He tugged at a loose thread on his shirt, twisting it between his fingers, imagining that if he pulled hard enough, maybe he could just unravel right there into a pile of string and never need to respond. Eventually, he decided that probably wasn't going to happen.
"It was both," he said tonelessly.
"I could have loved you," she said, voice a match to his. "You never could have loved me."
He stared at nothing, unable to look at her. "I tried," he said quietly.
She tilted against him, resting her head on his shoulder. "I know you did. You shouldn't have needed to."
"I keep thinking," he said, voice still low, "about what you said about Ernesto. The problem wasn't that we fucked, it was that I trust him. You never had anyone you could trust, other than me, did you?"
"Of course I didn't," she said sharply, lifting her head. "When I said I gave up everything, that wasn't an exaggeration. I don't have anything left outside of this house and your career."
He frowned. "I never asked you to do that, Ana!"
"No," she agreed bitterly, "you never did. You just assumed."
"I wasn't alone in that," Pedro pointed out. "You made that choice all on your own. You complain about me making choices by myself? This was our life, Ana, and we never talked about it."
"We never needed to! What were you going to do, stay home with the kids?" she snorted. "None of you would have survived it."
"You don't know that." She gave him a skeptical look. "I don't know that! We never even considered it."
"Are you going to consider it now?" she asked sharply.
He sighed. "I could have, after I lost. But now, with Brady…" he trailed off.
She gave him a hard, searching look. "Do you even want to be mayor, Pedro?" she asked.
For the first time in a very long time, he actually considered it. "Yes," he said, faintly surprising himself with the answer.
"For the kids?" she asked derisively.
"For the city," he said, not letting himself give in to her needling. He met her eyes. "I think I could do some good for the people. Do you not believe that anymore?" He frowned. "Did you ever?"
She glared at him, but relented after a moment. "Of course I do, Pedro. I think you could be an excellent mayor. I think you would have been better with me at your side, but you'll have to make do."
He smiled ruefully. "I would have been," he agreed. He winced. "My team's looking a little thin at this point. You're gone. Marwen's gone. I guess he'll probably jump Brady's ship to join you." He eyed Ana, whose smugness was answer enough. "And Ernesto…"
He felt bad mentioning him again, but even on a professional level, his absence left a tremendous gap in Pedro's life. He expected Ana to make a face or say something snide, but instead she just regarded Pedro contemplatively. "Trust," she said eventually, quietly.
"What?"
"Ernesto. You said you trust him. Not trusted. You still do."
"Of course I do," he said. "He's never given me any reason not to. I'm the one who failed him. He could have turned me in at any moment. He still could. He hasn't."
"You need to fix things with him, Pedro. We can't leave this unresolved. For any of our sakes."
He sighed. "I know," he said. "Now that you've returned the money and it looks like I might be mayor after all…"
"That’s not what I mean. I'm not talking about the money. I'm talking about you and him."
"There is no me and him anymore."
"What were we just saying about assuming?" she pointed out. "Have you talked to him?"
He shook his head. "Not since the election."
She frowned. "Maybe he'll come back. Maybe he won't. He'd be completely justified in walking away. But you need to ask, Pedro. I didn't always agree with his decisions, but you're going to need someone. And it's not going to be me."
"I know," he said, voice dull. "I do need him. Even just professionally." He tried to imagine working alongside Ernesto all day every day, unable to touch him, unable even to find any solace in stolen smiles and glances. Or, somehow even worse, falling into bed with him again and still needing to keep secrets, still needing to lie.
He felt sick.
"I don't think I can do this anymore," he admitted. He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "I think…I'd need to tell him."
They had been here before, Pedro reaching his limit of dishonesty, Ana the stalwart wall between him and the consequences of his weakness. This time, however, she surprised him.
"He can already destroy you," she said simply. "Give him all the ammunition you want. Just keep me out of it so I can protect the kids if you go down."
He stared at her. "You don't mean that."
She glared at him. "Do I want you to go to jail? No, Pedro. You say that everything you do, you do for the kids. What do you think that would do to them? What would it do to this city if the people find out that both their mayoral candidates turned out to be crooks?" She softened slightly, standing to pace back and forth in front of him. "But this has been your whole life. Our whole lives. Having only each other, because no one else can ever know. I thought for a long time that we could do it, that we needed to. That if we were only strong enough…" She sighed. "It's not sustainable, is it?"
He shook his head bleakly. "It never was."
"I don't know that I'll ever tell anyone," she said. "I don't know that I'll ever find anyone that I feel like I need to tell. But you've always been - "
"Weak?"
She frowned. "Honest. You say in your speeches that you don't lie, and it's mostly true. You lie to me. You lie to yourself. You lie about Alejandro. That's about it." She gave a half smile. "I was built for politics, Pedro. You've learned how to be good at it, over time, but it's not natural for you. You want to tell the truth. If you feel like you need to tell it to Ernesto…" she held out her hands. "You'll live with the consequences. We all will."
Abruptly, instinctively, he surged to his feet and gathered her into his arms. She froze briefly, and he thought she was going to push him away, but instead he could feel her fold against his chest, burying her face in his shirt, as if enjoying the feeling of being held in his arms for what might be one of the last times. "Thank you, Ana," he breathed out against her hair.
"You love him," she said, sounding exhausted.
He sighed. "I don't know," he admitted. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "I love you," he said. "Not the way I should have, I know, but that doesn't mean that I never did."
"I know," she replied. She didn't return the sentiment. "I don't regret it," she offered instead. "Building this life together." She pulled away, sitting on the bed and settling down against the headboard.
"No," he agreed. "No matter what else happens, I don't think I could ever regret that." He chuckled. "Remember when Luis decided to quit football, and I was so against it? You had to sit both of us down to say that sometimes you outgrow things, and it doesn't have to mean you're failing at them, it can just mean that your life is moving into a new phase."
She let out a bitter laugh. "I didn't think I sold that speech at all. He was never a very good player."
"And we were never very good at marriage." He sat beside her. "Maybe we'll be better friends."
She gave him a sad smile. "We were pretty good at that, weren't we?"
"Sometimes," he allowed. He looked down at them, together in the bed, just as they had been for most nights of the last twenty years. He gestured toward the door. "Do you want me to…?"
She lifted her chin as if to nod, but seemed to second guess herself. "No," she said. She crawled under the covers and reached for him. He let her gather him into her arms and closed his eyes, pillowing his head against her chest, holding onto her tightly in a goodbye neither of them knew how to voice.
The next day, he stood in front of Ernesto's door, allowing himself to hesitate only a moment before knocking.
The resignation in Ernesto's face as he opened the door to find Pedro there was expected. The surprise wasn't. Pedro had thought that he would have been an inevitability to Ernesto, that he would have been expecting him to show up at any time. The fact that he was clearly momentarily shocked by Pedro's appearance hurt more than Pedro wanted to admit.
Ernesto let him in, stepping back from the door and gesturing Pedro in like he was restraining himself from slamming the door in his face. The room was sparse and dull, Ernesto's suitcase lying open on the floor in a corner, overflowing, never unpacked.
"I got a call from the lawyer," Ernesto said, sinking down onto the edge of the bed and looking up at Pedro. "It's over?" He looked haggard and worn. He had always carried a charming air of informality, but here his unshaven and rumpled look felt like an accusation rather than his familiar casual coziness.
"The money's back," Pedro assured him. "They 'found' an accounting error."
"How?" Ernesto's voice was dull.
"Ana," Pedro said succinctly. He gave a humorless chuckle. "Not for me. Certainly not for you. She couldn't leave this hanging over a campaign she had worked on. Especially not one where she was married to the candidate. She's going to run for governor." Ernesto's eyebrows shot up. Pedro gave a thin smile. "She's done pulling strings from behind the curtain."
Ernesto seemed to consider this for a long moment. "It's about time," he said eventually.
"Yeah." Pedro gave a half smile. "I'm probably going to be mayor."
"I know."
"I can't do that without you."
He could tell that Ernesto didn't want to return the smile, but he could see the ghost of one creeping across his face anyway. "I know," he repeated. "That’s not going to be a concern for her? Her husband being mayor of Miami?"
"Ex husband," Pedro said.
Ernesto went still. It took him a very long time to raise his eyes to meet Pedro's. "Yeah?" he asked, a nearly imperceptible tremor in his voice.
"It'll take time," Pedro said, "but yeah."
A muscle twitched in Ernesto's jaw. Pedro felt a sudden need to kiss him there. He held himself very still so he wouldn't reach for him. "I don't know if I should offer condolences or congratulations."
Pedro let out a rough laugh. "Both?"
Ernesto looked at him seriously. "I am sorry," he said. "It can't be easy."
Pedro lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "It's time."
He expected some kind of reply like 'it's been time', but Ernesto just nodded. "Why are you here, Pedro?" he asked.
Pedro closed his eyes. Ernesto said his name like no one else ever had, full of an unaccountable fondness, even now.
"If you'll let me," he said, opening his eyes and sinking into a chair across from Ernesto, "I'd like to tell you a story."
Ernesto frowned. "And what if I've heard enough of what you have to say?"
Pedro held out his hands. "Then send me away, Ernesto. You certainly have the right."
Ernesto held his gaze for a very long time, until Pedro had nearly convinced himself that he was going to point him to the door without another word. Instead, he sighed, seeming to shrink into himself. "Of course I'll hear you out, Pedro," he said, sounding utterly defeated.
Pedro nodded. "Thank you." He pushed a hand back through his hair, shoving it out of his eyes. He lifted his chin, looking at Ernesto solidly. "You already have enough on me to put me away. You could have done it to save your skin, and you didn't. You'll have more on me after this. If you choose to go to the authorities with it…" He sighed, his nose burning with the memory of chlorine, the unbearable impulse to breathe it in. "I won't blame you."
Ernesto didn't offer him any assurances. He just sat quietly at the end of the bed, watching Pedro, waiting.
"When I was a kid," Pedro began, "my mother worked for a family. They had a son my age named Alejandro."
He had never spoken many of the words aloud. Not even to Ana. At times, they wouldn't come. At other times, he choked on tears he didn't allow to fall. He ended the story with his head buried in his hands, unable to face Ernesto any more than he could face himself.
He stayed there when he finished, hunched over, fingers tangled into his hair, a broken man awaiting the gallows.
In the thin sliver of floor he could see before him, he saw Ernesto's knees appear, felt his hands close around Pedro's elbows. He lifted his head, looking bleakly at the man folded onto the ground in front of him, a contrast to so many moments between them before, when he had been the one on his knees.
Ernesto reached to take Pedro's face in his hands. He drew him forward, resting their foreheads together, his eyes dark and serious as they pierced into Pedro's soul. Pedro desperately wanted to close his eyes, but he allowed Ernesto to hold his gaze, waiting for his judgment.
"You have been living with this," he said, "for so long."
Pedro swallowed thickly. He nodded, forehead rocking against Ernesto's. "I always will."
"Ana…" Ernesto's gaze went distant, as if putting together the pieces of a long perplexing puzzle. "She was always telling you to stay calm."
Pedro breathed out a ragged laugh. "She had a lot of experience at it," he confirmed. "She was always afraid that if I got upset, I'd say something I shouldn't." He hadn't mentioned any of the others in his story, had made it sound like he and Alejandro had been alone in the car. But even if that had been the reality, of course Ana would have known. Of course she would have been the steadying force between Pedro and his own guilt. Of course she would have always been at his side, reminding him to stay calm, to be steady, to keep his goddamn mouth shut. "We've always protected each other."
Ernesto's gaze sharpened. "What did you need to protect her from?"
Pedro pulled back slightly, breaking the contact between them but staying close. He shook his head. "That's her business, Ernesto."
He didn't really expect Ernesto to object, and he didn't. He nodded, clearly considering Ana's history to be the least of their problems. "Why are you telling me this, Pedro?" he asked instead.
Pedro sat back in his chair. Ernesto settled a little more comfortably onto his heels in front of him, looking up at him steadily. "I'm tired of lying," Pedro admitted. "Ana said to me earlier that I only ever lie to myself, to her, or about Alejandro, but that's not true. I've lied about you, too. I lied in never admitting who you were to me. I hid you. I created a reality where the version of you that mattered most to me only existed in private. And that wasn't fair. To you, to me, to Ana, to my kids, to the campaign." He sighed, shaking his head. "I'm not saying that I can change all of it right away, or even at all. I'm not saying I think you should come back, professionally or otherwise." He gave Ernesto a hopeless little smile. "In fact, I think you probably shouldn't. But I'm tired of the lies, Ernesto." He reached forward to cup Ernesto's face in his hands. "I care about you. I need you to run this city with me, yes, but more than that, I just need you. I know I haven't given you any reason to trust me. In fact, I've given you exactly the opposite, but - "
Whatever defense he might have offered was swallowed in the soft press of Ernesto's lips to his.
He let out a quiet sound that may have been a whimper into Ernesto's mouth. He kissed him back desperately, fingers rasping against his beard. "What…?" he breathed out.
"I wouldn't have done the things I've done for you for just anyone, Pedro," Ernesto said, drawing back from the kiss. "I haven't forgiven you. Maybe I never will. And I can't trust you right now. But I still - " he broke off, hesitating. "I care about you," he said, carefully repeating Pedro's words. "I want to be there with you to make this city a better place." He smirked. "And I know you need me to make it happen, especially now that you won't have Ana." His brows drew in tightly. "Or Marwen, I hope."
Pedro let out an involuntary laugh. "No," he said definitively. "He's with Ana. Good fucking riddance."
Ernesto chuckled. "Good," he said. "I'm not working with him."
"Me neither," Pedro promised. He stared in wonder at Ernesto. "You'll come back?" he asked.
Ernesto hesitated. "To the campaign, or to you?"
Pedro blinked. "Both, I hope?"
Ernesto's lips curved into a smile. "Right answer." He leaned in to kiss Pedro again. When he drew back, however, his expression was serious. "I won't do it again," he warned him.
"I won't ask you to," Pedro promised.
"You're going to have to explain rehiring me," Ernesto said.
Pedro shrugged. "It was an error," he said. "The money is there. I defended your innocence, and I was right to. You did nothing wrong."
"I trusted you," Ernesto pointed out. "That was probably wrong."
Pedro let out a painful laugh. "True," he agreed. "That's not a mistake you should make again." He leaned in to kiss Ernesto deeply. "But selfishly, I hope someday you will."
Ernesto sighed. He stood from his knees, stretching. He reached to take Pedro's head in his hands, tilting it up to face him, fingers curling into the edges of his hair. "Don't make me regret this," he warned, and leaned down to kiss him with an intensity that stole Pedro's breath from him.
They fucked there on the thin sheets of the uncomfortable bed of the room where Ernesto had been hiding from the consequences of Pedro's actions. Ernesto got Pedro sprawled out beneath him and took and took and took, until Pedro was a helpless mess of sensation and need, lips useless but to beg, body made for nothing but to give Ernesto what he wanted from him.
He gave, and he pleaded, and he felt whole for what may have been the first time in his life when he finally lay still in Ernesto's arms, both of them sated and breathless.
It was a mirror of the previous night with Ana, a beginning rather than an ending. As he closed his eyes, feeling Ernesto's breath begin to even out within his chest, he considered his words, her response.
"What do you think I want?"
"I don't think you know that."
She was right. He had spent so much of his life trying not to allow himself to even consider what he wanted that every time he tried to reach for it, it seemed to slip further and further from his grasp.
He knew, though, as he lay folded tightly into Ernesto's embrace, that whatever the future held for him, he needed it to include this. It was no longer a simple desire. It was a demand, a necessity, in a way he had never allowed it to be before.
The force of it was nearly as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
He curled closer to Ernesto, feeling the low rumble of him letting out a quiet sound of question or comfort, his hand sweeping a warm arc across Pedro's back, settling reassuringly against his skin.
As he drifted off to sleep, his mind went to a young man curled into himself on a beach, eyes on something he could never have, something he couldn't even allow himself to admit that he wanted. He could practically hear the pounding of the surf, taste the watered down beer, salty with the remnants of seawater on his lips.
The futures that boy had imagined had all shattered that night, splintering into something unrecognizable, as had he. Slowly, after decades, Pedro finally felt like he might be starting to fit the pieces back together into something that made sense, something sustainable and honest and real.
He fell asleep lulled by the gentle rise and fall of Ernesto's chest beneath him, and for once, when he dreamed of the sea, he no longer was haunted by the sharp glimmer of Alejandro rising from the waves. Instead, the surface was still and calm, glistening with the first edges of light from beyond the horizon.
Somewhere in the distance, the sun was rising.