Read Learning to Lose for Free Online Page B

the first one here?
    Didn’t I tell you? feigned Sylvia. In the end I canceled the party because Mai was going to León and it wasn’t a good day for people. No shit, should I leave? he asks, somewhat uncomfortable. No, no, how stupid of me. Dani hesitates before entering, how embarrassing, me here by myself. Well, we can celebrate it just you and me. It’s not like we need a lot of people to have a party, right?
    Sylvia leads him to her room where the music is still playing. She closes the door behind her. My father went to the soccergame. Sylvia opens the smaller package. It is a Pulp CD, with an almost plastic blonde on the cover, naked and upside down on velvet as red as her painted lips. A reduced price sticker. She can’t manage to open the plastic wrapping, absorbed in her effort as she notices her face reddening. Someone calculated that on average each person wastes two weeks of their life just getting the fucking plastic off CDs, says Dani. While he talks, he unwraps the second present, a bottle of Cuervo tequila. I thought there would be more of us, but now we’re going to have to drink it ourselves, he says.
    Sylvia gets two small glasses and sits on the bed. Dani looks over the walls of her room while the new CD plays and they nod their heads to the beat. Sylvia reviews the decorations in her room in search of inexcusable mistakes, something she should be embarrassed about. There are photos of her with Mai, some posters, and it’s pretty messy. They each drink the first shot in one gulp and then toast with the second one. Sylvia opens a bag of potato chips and puts some pistachios in a bowl. They start unshelling them and every once in a while one of them comments on the music. “Why do we have to half-kill ourselves just to prove we’re alive?” It’s good, right? Yeah. The shots burn in Sylvia’s throat and then lodge themselves in her stomach like a bubble of fire.
    Can I mix it with Coca-Cola or is that a sin? No, it’s a good idea, says Dani. And then his eyes land on the photo of a singer on her wall. You think that guy is good-looking? Depends on who you compare him to. Yeah, of course, if you compare him to Lelo, says Dani, referring to Don Emilio, the physics teacher. Did you have him as a teacher, too? As a teacher is overstating it. He spent a semester taking hikes around our desks while westuck our pens out on the edge so his lab coat would get ink lines all over it. The guy was a real mess.
    Later he translates for Sylvia while the singer drags out each syllable: “It’s the eye of the storm. This is what men in stained raincoats pay for but in here it is pure.” Fuck, it’s strange, right? says Sylvia. And then she feels ridiculous about her comment. She moves a step forward and Dani brings a hand to the nape of her neck, beneath her curls. Sylvia feels like he takes forever to bring his mouth close to hers and kiss her delicately. The first thing she notices is the thin frames of Dani’s glasses brushing her cheek. His mouth tastes of tequila and when their lips separate they both take another drink.
    They lose all sense of time, but they spend forty-five minutes kissing, caressing each other’s backs, drawing themselves toward each other. When Dani brings his hand to her ass, on top of her pants, and then scrabbles under the waist to plunge onto her bare skin, Sylvia sucks in her stomach because she feels fat and then she leans against the wall. She unbuttons his plaid shirt slowly and strokes the line of his ribs with the tip of her finger. I’m really drunk, she announces, and his only response is to fill up their glasses. They kiss with their mouths flooded with tequila. It spills down their chins and they laugh. He unbuttons her pants, she feels Dani’s excitement when she places her hand over his pants. She stops him from releasing the clasp of her bra. She fears that her breasts will spill everywhere, taking over. Aren’t you going to let me take off your clothes? asks