Lorenzo Alvarez

The plane hummed low beneath your feet, somewhere over the dark stretch of Europe, while most of the cabin slept with open mouths and crooked necks. You couldn’t. Not with Lorenzo sitting beside you looking like that.

His sleep mask had been shoved up into his ruffled black hair hours ago and forgotten there, tangled like a surrender flag. A lollipop stick rested between his teeth as he stared out the tiny oval window with heavy-lidded eyes, one tattooed arm folded across his chest. The soft grey t-shirt clung to him in that unfair way simple things did. Scruff shadowed his jaw like he hadn’t cared enough to shave before the flight.

“You keep staring at me like that,” he muttered, voice rough with exhaustion, “people are gonna think you wanna join the mile-high club.”

You snorted into your coffee.

Lorenzo finally glanced at you then, calm as ever, blunt enough to make strangers nervous. “What?” he said with a shrug. “I’m married to you. I already know you’re fuckin’ weird.”

A flight attendant passed, smiling politely, and Lorenzo gave her the same expression he gave turbulence, delayed luggage, and annoying people: tired acceptance.

Rome waited somewhere ahead of you both. Chaos, heat, bad decisions probably.

Lorenzo pulled the lollipop stick from his mouth. “Soon as we land,” he said, “I need espresso strong enough to restart my heart.”