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longer than a quick glance.
    Gordo nudged me from his spot on my other side. With hair so dark it was almost blue, a beard that was so thick and wiry it could pass as pubic hair and his naturally dark skin tone even tanner than normal, his face was one of the most familiar things in my life. “Are we going to be on the same team together?”
    “The same team…?” And then I remembered what team he was talking about. “Hell, no.” No, no, no, no .
    “Oh come on, Flabs,” Gordo insisted, his dark, nearly pupil-less eyes narrowing.
    Mason, who was still leaning forward, rested his forearm on my knee. “You’re already trying to choose teams, asshole?”
    “I’m not playing, so he can’t be trying to choose teams.” I made sure to look both of them in the eye so that they would know I wasn’t playing around. I wasn’t going to play ever again.
    “You have to play,” the man whose real name was Luis Alberto claimed. “It’s our tradition.”
    What it really was, was a yearly tradition of humiliation and physical pain. I shook my head at Gordo. “It’s not happening, Gordis.”
    “You’re playing,” Mason reiterated, eyeing my boobs again in a gesture that was intentionally meant to annoy the shit out of me. Really, I didn’t think he liked my breasts that much, it wasn’t like I had a D cup size, much less the Double-D size he usually salivated over, but irritating me was definitely at the top of his list of things he enjoyed. “I need those puppies on my team.”
    I smiled at him sweetly.
    There was a time, immediately after my surgery, that I had really tried to get him to quit making comments about my chest. For about six months straight he’d revolved between calling me Hooters and Twin Peaks. In typical Mason fashion, me complaining only made him do it more often. So I stopped telling him anything because I knew he really he did it to get a rise out of me. Instead I just began handling it differently.
    I reached under his arm to twist his nipple, an easy thing to do because he was shirtless. “I’m not playing and if I was, I definitely wouldn’t be playing on your team, jackass,” I said, turning the beady pink nip sharply as he leaned away with a grimace and an ugly “ Nooooo! ”
    The words had barely left my mouth when the bus pulled into a brightly lit travel center with a gas station, twenty-four-hour restaurant and restroom facilities. Eli tossed me a towel before everyone except Mason, who had his arms crossed over his bare chest like that would protect him from me, piled out of the bus with our belongings and headed inside. It was then that I realized I’d forgotten to bring shampoo and soap with me from home. I groaned and peeked inside, realizing that if I went into the showers after I paid, I couldn’t come back out for free.
    I waited outside the men’s bathroom for a few minutes, hoping Eliza or Gordo would hurry up and come out so I could borrow their soap and shampoo. Less than ten minutes later, the smacking of flip-flops on the floor got louder and louder.
    But it wasn’t Eli or Gordo coming out.
    It was Mason 2.0 in basketball shorts, a T-shirt and flip-flops, making his way out with a backpack over his shoulder and black dress shoes hanging off his fingers. He smiled genuinely the instant he saw me standing there looking like a hobo asking for a handout.
    “Everything okay?” he asked, making me feel like a total mess.
    I nodded, my face immediately flushing at the memory that I’d kicked this poor guy in the ass just minutes ago. I cleared my throat when my ears got hot too. “Yeah, I’m just waiting for Eli.”
    Sacha raised a dark eyebrow, giving me a chance to take in the smoky, nearly transparent gray of his eyes. He glanced at the clothes in my hands before pursing his lips. “Did you forget your soap?”
    I was a little hesitant to admit it, but I did, fighting the urge to rub at my ears. “Yeah.”
    He smiled.
    “I want to borrow his,” I