MALACHI SLEPT RESTLESSLY, tossing and turning for most of the night. Sometime around three, he rolled over, sweaty and uncomfortable. He'd need coffee later today. Lots of it. His eyes blinked open. Maybe if he peed, he'd be more comfortable—

Reza was awake and had been staring at the back of his head. As Malachi's eyes opened, Reza's quickly snapped shut as if he didn't want him to know he'd been watching him. Malachi's cheeks flushed. He scrunched up his face. "Reza?"

"No, no. Reza is sleeping. Come back later."

Malachi grinned despite himself. "Douchebag."

Reza's eyes snapped open. He sat up, using one hand to prop himself up. "What the hell and the fuck did you just call me?!"

Malachi rolled onto his back, looking up at Reza. His eyes were black as midnight and just as deadly. "Douche," he enunciated, "bag."

Reza flipped him off. Malachi rolled his eyes. He sat up, miscalculating how far Reza was from him. As he sat up, their faces nearly collided. He scooted to the edge of the bed.

"You were staring at me."

"I wasn't staring at you, I—" Reza tucked his legs up beneath him. Sometime in the night, he'd shed his flannel pajama pants and heavy sweatshirt for his boxers. For once, Malachi forced himself to look Reza in the eye. He didn't trust himself to look anywhere else. "I was just looking in your general direction."

"Mhm." Malachi picked at his own sweat-stained t-shirt, suddenly self-conscious. He didn't know what to do with his hands, his voice, his eyes—how were you supposed to look someone in the eye? You couldn't very well look at both their eyes at once! How did people do this? Malachi was giving himself whiplash focusing on one of Reza's eyes and then the other. While his left one was pure, inky black, he noticed his right one had a small shaft of dark, stormy gray cutting through it. He could see himself in the reflection of his eyes. He looked just as awkward and scared as he felt.

How could he carry on this conversation? He didn't know how to carry on a conversation. What were they supposed to talk about—the weather, the missing girl? Malachi didn't know how to navigate this—any of this.

Reza casually tossed one arm up over his head. "Still can't sleep either?"

Malachi shook his head. He wanted to say a million things to him, but he couldn't bring himself to speak. He was too hot and his head was still spinning from their conversation earlier. Besides, Mila never left his mind. She was all he could think about. They were too close to her. Too close to finding her. And yet here they were. In a motel in some Texas town, trying to sleep. When Mila could be out there, in danger.

Malachi's heart hammered in his chest, the blood pounding in his head. He couldn't think. The silence grew longer, unbearable. Malachi desperately searched for something to fill it. He didn't want Reza to stop talking, didn't want to stop hearing his voice. He said the first thing that came to his mind:

"I once wrote Dr. Phil self-insert fanfiction."

Reza sputtered out a laugh. "Where the fuck did that come from?"

Malachi shrugged.

"Like, as a joke, no?"

Again, Malachi shrugged.

"Does it still exist? Please tell me it still exists."

"Immortalized on Wattpad. I forgot my password. It was nearing a hundred thousand reads last time I checked."

With a sly, foxlike grin, Reza slowly reached for his phone on the bedside table. "Let's see, let's see. How many Dr. Phil self-insert fanfics with almost a hundred thousand reads can there be...?"

Malachi made a frantic grab for Reza's phone over his body, his arm grazing over his bare chest, his knee, sending the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. "No!" Why did he tell him that? Now he had too much power over him!

Reza held the phone just out of Malachi's reach, typing on it with one hand. Within seconds, he'd pulled up the dreaded fanfic and read the dreaded opening line. "Choke me, Daddy—!"

"NO!" Malachi screeched, his face red. He'd been in middle school and thought it was hilarious. He'd written it with Mila sitting over his shoulder, eating popcorn by the handful, offering suggestions, both laughing themselves sick.

Reza howled with laughter, holding Malachi back with one hand, his phone in the other. "Malachi, you kinky bastard!"

"It was a joke!"

"This shit is too steamy to be a joke!"

"Reza!"

"Shut up, shut up, it's just getting good!"

Without thought of the consequences of his actions and knowing exactly what happened next in the fic, Malachi launched himself over Reza and snatched the phone out of his hand, breathless. He quickly closed the app and triumphantly looked up at Reza. "A-ha!"

Reza looked at Malachi, mouth slightly open, eyes half-lidded. He was still grinning, dimples pocketing his cheeks.

"What?" Malachi asked. "Are you into that? Dr. Phil choking you?"

"Malachi..."

That's when Malachi realized his mistake. In launching himself over Reza to grab the phone out of his hand, he'd landed directly on top of Reza's lap, his legs spread on either side of him. And Reza was only wearing his boxers. Malachi's face turned red as a stoplight. Quickly, he clambered to the other side of the bed, as far away from Reza as he could possibly get. Reza's phone dropped to the bed.

"Sorry," Malachi mumbled.

Reza tapped his thumbs against his knees. Malachi didn't think anything could wipe the grin off his face. "That was amazing, that just made my night," he said. "You deserve a Pulitzer."

Malachi couldn't even look in Reza's general direction. He nodded.

Reza fell silent, stretching his long legs out in front of him. "Malachi?" he asked.   

"Mhm?"

"Does that mean...?" he struggled to get the words out. "Does that mean you like guys?" he asked.

Malachi screwed up his face at him. His face was no longer as red as a stoplight; it was much worse than that. It was the red of Satan's tan line. Why did writing a joke fanfic about Dr. Phil choking him make him automatically gay? Sure, he was, but that wasn't the point. "It was a joke. Mila and I wrote it together. We wrote one on her profile about Bob Duncan."

"Yeah, but...?"

"But?"

"Does it? Seems a bit gay to write self-insert fanfiction about another man, no? Even as a joke."

"Why?" Malachi took a deep breath. He could barely let out the question he wanted so desperately to ask. "Do you want me to?"

Finally, he looked over at Reza. His face was just as red as Malachi's, if not redder, his eyes still half-lidded. Malachi could see his chest rising and falling with each breath—much too fast.

Malachi realized, with the appropriate amount of horror, that his eyes had wandered to Reza's bare chest. Reza wasn't jacked, he didn't have the perfect, clean-shaven body—what he had was so much better. Scruffy, dark hair covered his chest, his arms, his legs, a trail of it leading teasingly down to his boxers. His chest was relatively normal-sized, if a little broad, his stomach about of normal shape, if a little pudgy.

Malachi gasped. His eyes flicked back up to Reza's, who shrugged at him. Malachi nodded in response.

That was all that needed to be said.

Like magnets, Malachi and Reza were drawn to each other. Malachi couldn't say who made the first move. Maybe they both did. The next thing he knew, Reza's lips tickled his, soft and gentle.

"Is this okay?" Reza asked against Malachi's lips.

Malachi nodded and nodded and nodded and nodded. Boy, was this okay!

Reza's hands wrapped around Malachi's waist, tugging him toward his lap. Malachi more than happily obliged. He cupped his hands around Reza's cheeks, rubbing his cheekbones with his thumbs. Reza's body glistened with sweat. Malachi was sure he wasn't much better. Reza tilted his head, deepening the kiss. Malachi pushed his tongue through the barrier of Reza's lips, colliding with Reza's. He tasted like cinnamon and cloves—like a spiced tea on a cold fall day.

Just as quickly as it began, the kiss ended. They pulled apart. Malachi sat with his back against the headboard, Reza mirroring him beside him, not touching.

"I've wanted to do that for a long time." Reza sounded breathless.

"Even when you thought I was a murderer?"

"I never thought you were a murderer. Just that you might be."

"You didn't sound like that when I was in jail."

"Shh." Reza put his finger against Malachi's lips and his entire body buzzed. "Shh."

Malachi grinned. "I thought I hated you at first."

"Oh, I really thought you hated me. You were awful to me."

"I'm sorry." Malachi turned his head to look at Reza. "I never hated you."

"Really?"

"I just—my dad was really messed up in the head, my childhood—"

"Don't blame your shit on your childhood."

"I'm not. I'm just explaining it. I just... in my head I confused anger and—and whatever this is. And I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that."

Reza pursed his lips. "You didn't deserve the way I treated you, either. I'm really sorry."

"My dad beat me," Malachi mumbled, and he didn't know why he was confiding in Reza. "When he found out I was... gay." He whispered the word, barely able to admit it out loud.

"Malachi, I'm sorry—"

"It's okay. He's dead now."

"That still doesn't mean it's okay."

"An overdose," Malachi explained. He could only confide in him so much. "On the meds he was taking for his PTSD." He shook his head. "I hate him so much. Hated him so much. And he instilled in me—so much hatred. That's all he ever taught me. How to hate and be angry and hurt the people I thought I cared about and I just feel like everything I am is because of him." His voice broke. "Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see him staring back at me. I don't look anything like my mom or Talia. I just look like him."

"Malachi," Reza insisted, "you are not your father."

"What about yours?" Malachi asked. "What about your parents?"

"My mom's been pretty accepting. It was hard for her at first, but she's come around. She even runs a weekly meeting out of our basement for Muslim LGBT kids and their parents. She calls it MAHAT—Muslims Against Homophobia and Transphobia. People come from all over Ontario. We once even had a guy all the way from Saskatchewan. Even our mosque is pretty supportive of me. But my dad..." He shook his head. "We just don't talk about it. Like, at all. Good or bad—there's just silence. And he always tells me he's praying for me, that I get onto the right path. I don't want him to pray for me. My ex-boyfriend, he couldn't even call him my boyfriend. He just called him my 'buddy.' And we couldn't kiss or hold hands or anything around him or he'd freak. He'd always get really weird when he was around, too. But my ex-girlfriend... he loved her. He used to call her his 'daughter-in-law' even though we only dated for, like, two months in high school. He even gave me condoms, and it just made me so angry—because how can he pick and choose which Bible verses to believe in? How can he go around thinking homosexuality's a sin 'cause the Bible says so, but encourage me to have premarital sex with my girlfriend? It just doesn't make any sense."

"Your mom sounds cool," Malachi mumbled. "Your dad sounds like a dick."

"My mom's the best." Reza grinned, and Malachi liked this topic of conversation much better. He liked it when Reza smiled. "I don't know what she ever saw in him. She tells me he used to be hot, but I don't know how he could be. He's got a porn mustache."

"Hey!" Malachi argued. "So does Dr. Phil, and he's the sexiest man alive!"

Reza gave Malachi a knowing face. "I thought you said that fanfic was a joke..."

***

NOWHERE, Arizona, in the middle of the desert. A town called Paperflower wrapped around dusty, cracked Route 66. Paperflower was not so much a town as it was a place someone stopped halfway between destinations. A liminal space nestled by the side of the highway.

At a roadside diner, Malachi and Reza sat side-by-side in a red cushioned booth overlooking the vast, endless desert, their knees pressed together, neither one acknowledging what they said last night, what they did last night. Every time Malachi thought about Reza sitting beside him or their knees pressed together, he went red from the tips of his ears down to his Adam's apple. As Reza sipped his margarita through a purple curly straw (seriously, who the fuck was Reza Gutiérrez?), a young woman walked up to them.

She was tall, ethnically ambiguous, and fat, with a wildly curly dark brown mullet. The slit shaved in her eyebrow seemed to wink at them. Her button-up was tucked into a pair of mom jeans. Her white sneakers had a yellow smiley face etched into them. A kazoo stuck out of her back pocket.

"Hey," she said, awkwardly. "Are you guys here about Sofía?"

Malachi nodded and pulled his knee away from Reza's.

The girl swallowed awkwardly and slid into the booth across from them. "I'm Kalani Kamaka. I, uh—yanno, the girl who might've met her. Mila, I mean. Whatever. Fuck. This is all so confusin'."

Introductions were made. Malachi asked for permission to film and was granted it. ("Make sure to get my good side. No, no. The other good side. Aw, hell, they're all good sides. I'm so hot.") Kalani ordered a plate of scrambled eggs and drowned it in hot sauce. Malachi swirled his cup of steaming hot black coffee. He'd asked for it iced and couldn't bring himself to tell the waiter he'd messed up.

Kalani fiddled with the top button of her shirt. "I was sittin' in my car, parked at this lake in Amarillo, yeah? Just taking a break from drivin'. When this car comes careenin' past me, like—"

"What kind of car?" Malachi asked.

"Dunno." Kalani shrugged. "It was, like—neon green. Pretty hard to miss."

Reza swirled his margarita. "That's what the cop said, too."

"Oh. Okay." Kalani's eyebrows shot up. "But this car literally goes flyin' into the lake. So I dove in after it in case someone was trapped in it. I'm terrified of deep water, man, but I wasn't gonna let someone drown. There was this girl—I got her out and to the shore. Absolutely balls-out freezin', dude. She told me her name was Sofía. I offered her a ride; she told me where she was goin', but she didn't... she didn't know the address or even the name of the town. Just knew how to get there. She said she was goin' to her cousin's wedding—"

"Mila doesn't have any family out here," Malachi mumbled.

"But she could," Reza offered, "that you just don't know about."

Malachi shook his head. "No. I know her family. She has family on the East Coast and family in Peru. That's it."

Kalani waved her hand to catch their attention. "I offered to take her there. We stayed in Amarillo for the night, then headed for Arizona. But we got lost in the desert without any gas. I thought aliens were gonna abduct us. She insisted on walkin' to look for help while it was still dark out, before it was too hot. She was gone the whole night. We'd gotten into an argument before she left, so I thought she'd abandoned me. I thought I'd never see her again."

"What kind of argument?" Malachi asked.

Kalani fiddled, once again, with the top button on her shirt. Her cheeks reddened. She looked down at her shoes. "Somethin' happened between us. Or, she thought somethin' happened. But it was nothin'. Then she found somethin' out about me and got super upset."

Malachi didn't want her wasting his time. "Could you be less vague?"

"No wonder she's friends with you." Kalani rolled her eyes. But she obliged. "She kissed me. Or I kissed her. I don't remember. And then I told her I have a girlfriend back home. That's what got her so upset."

Malachi tilted his head. Mila kissed a girl? Good for her.

"But she came back for me," Kalani continued. "She'd found, uh, this gas station, She'd brought me a map and gas. Some woman had driven her back from the station. Mila left with her. That was the last I saw her."

"Do you know where this station was?" Malachi asked. Maybe they could find this woman. Maybe she knew what had happened to Mila next. "Or what it was called?"

Kalani nodded. "I'm pretty sure. I passed it when I was drivin' after all that happened. I think. It was the first place I came across. If you guys follow me, I can lead the way."

Malachi pushed Reza out of his seat so he could get out of the booth. He motioned toward the exit. "Come on," he ordered.

Reza lifted his half-drank margarita. "Do you think they'll let me take this to go?"

***

MALACHI AND REZA FOLLOWED Kalani's Prius to the outskirts of Paperflower, to the first (or last) building looming out of the desert—the Navajo Gas Station: a small, beige, decrepit gas station with pumps that looked straight out of the 60's. Two cars—a newer SUV and a rickety old pick-up truck—baked beneath the desert sun. Kalani parked beside the SUV, and Reza parked beside her. They climbed out and said their goodbyes to her.

Inside, the station looked deceptively normal. Aisles of snacks, candy, and miscellaneous medications lined the floor. A wall of cigarettes hung above the cash register. Along the back wall, glass refrigerators sported energy drinks and milk, soda and beer, iced tea and health drinks. Behind the counter, a twenty-something indigenous guy with longish, straight dark hair and a thin pair of glasses sat on a plastic folding chair, flipping through a copy of Better Homes and Gardens, a fan blowing his hair over his shoulders.

"Welcome." He didn't look up from his magazine. His name tag read "Chris." "Can I help y'all with something?"

Malachi barreled toward the counter, Reza at his heels. He fumbled for the photo of Mila he'd brought with him, straightening out the crumbled senior picture. He shoved the photo in Chris's face. "Have you seen this woman?"

"Actually, yeah. Must've stopped here. Lotsa folks do. This place is like an oasis, first sign of civilization outta the desert." He leaned forward, squinting at the photo, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "She missing or something?"

"Missing and presumed murdered," Reza nodded.

"But that's bullshit," Malachi added.

"There were sightings," Reza explained.

Chris leaned back in his chair and called out, "Ma?"

A short, plump, indigenous woman poked her head out of what Malachi assumed was the break room. Her skin was brown and wrinkly, her hair thin and gray. She had the kind of face that was immediately trustworthy. Her upside down name tag read "Donna." "What?"

"Come and have a look at this."

Donna waddled out from behind the counter and squinted at the photo.

"Have you seen her?" Malachi asked.

"Oh, yeah. That's—what was it? Lía? Sophie? Somethin' like that."

"Sofía?" Malachi offered.

"Do you know her?" Reza asked.

"Yeah, that's it! Sofía! Came in here a couple days ago. Poor thing was lost and dehydrated. I gave her some food and water on the house. Then she had me drive her out to get her friend who was stuck out in the desert, but she refused to ride with her, wanted me to drive her back here. Looked for someone to hitchhike with all day. Finally found someone as it was getting dark."

Malachi's heart sank. They were so close to Mila, and yet she was slipping out of their reach. But why would Mila hitchhike? She knew enough about true crime to know it was a death sentence. He tried to make sense of it, tried to rationalize it, but it didn't line up with the smart, capable girl he knew. Maybe it was the only way. Maybe she really was running from someone. Or maybe she'd gotten upset enough at her "friend"—who must have been Kalani —to risk her life over it.

"Do you know who she got a ride with?" Malachi's heart thrummed in his chest. He was grasping at straws. But  he didn't know what else to do.

Donna looked down at Chris. "As a matter of fact, I do. Know her pretty well, too."

"My girlfriend," Chris nodded. "Gina."

***

GINA WAS a short, chubby indigenous woman in a neat skirt suit. She waltzed into the gas station, her dark brown hair falling in a sharp bob at her shoulders. In any other situation, Malachi would have noticed she had the same haircut as her boyfriend. Small town like this, there must not have been many hair stylists. Her coppery brown skin glowed beneath the fluorescent lights. "Hi. You guys think something's wrong with Sofía?"

Malachi already had the photo of Mila in his hands, crinkled with the constant pressure he'd put on it. He showed it to Gina. "Her name isn't Sofía."

Gina looked at the photo, then up at Malachi. "That's what she told me it was." She nodded, her hair bouncing along her shoulders. "I dropped her off at the motel I work at. She's been staying there the past couple of nights."

Malachi straightened up. He'd felt so far from Mila when Donna had told him she'd hitchhiked away from the gas station. But now here was the person she'd caught a ride with, and she remembered where she'd dropped her off. Even better, Mila had been staying there this whole time. For once, she felt within reach. Hope glowed in his chest. Maybe he could see her again—within the day.

"Can you show us how to get there?" Reza asked.

"Sure. I could. But she's gone all day. My coworker said his friend works at Waffle House, and she told him she spends her days there. I have no idea why. I can take you guys there instead."

Maybe they would find her. Maybe she'd be okay. Maybe everything would go back to the way it'd been before. Maybe she was never in danger. Maybe she was alive and free. But why would she willingly go to Waffle House? Malachi thought she hated them. But then again, Malachi'd thought a lot of things about her.