Young Writers Society

"Philip!" Mrs. Garcia sang in her thick Mexican accent as the two walked into 304. She kissed her eldest son on the cheek first, then smiled warmly at Rhys and kissed him on the cheek as well. "My sweet Rhys. Here for our famous burritos, hm?"

"Si," he replied, making her laugh. She always laughed at how terrible his attempts at Spanish sounded. Mr. Garcia was in the kitchen frying tortillas, humming to himself as he did so. Lip's little brother Jose was sitting on the couch in the living room, eyes glued to the TV and an XBox controller in his hands. Lip went back into the bedroom he and Jose shared to put his keys on the stand beside the bunk bed and his jacket on the hook over the back of the door. He returned to the kitchen moments later, where Rhys was helping Mr. Garcia flatten tortillas.

"How was work?" Mrs. Garcia asked, handing Lip a water bottle from the fridge. Lip shrugged, taking a drink.

"Same as always. Scraped silicone onto some washers, screwed some nails into their places. Same soup, just reheated." He set his water bottle on the wooden kitchen table, taking the ground beef out of the fridge and putting it in the pan on the stove. Rhys handed him a spatula from the drawer and Lip began to break the ground beef up as it browned.

"And how was your day, Rhys?" Mrs. Garcia turned to the younger man, still smiling warmly. Rhys blushed a bit under the attention.

"It was good. Ethan's working late again, so thanks for letting me come bug you all."

"Never bugging us," Mr. Garcia said quickly in his gruff, low voice. "You're like a third son to us, you know that."

Rhys blushed further and focused on flattening the tortillas. As much as he liked being a son, he really wanted to be a son-in-law. He pushed the thought from his mind and handed the tortilla to Mr. Garcia to fry.

They became consumed in their work until a little while later they were all sitting in the living room, Mr. and Mrs. Garcia on the couch and the three boys sitting on the floor with their legs crossed. Each one had a stuffed burrito or taco and rice on the side. They bowed their heads and allowed Mr. Garcia to lead them in saying grace.

"Amen," they all said in unison, then opened their eyes and dug into their food. Rhys closed his eyes again as he chewed, fireworks going off in his mouth. If he could marry food, the Garcia burrito would be it. The only thing he loved more than this burrito was cocaine.

He focused his eyes on the TV, where House Hunters was playing, as the family chatted idly in Spanish around him. Oddly enough, he missed his mom. It wasn't often he thought of her, not after she had left them for the glamour of Los Angeles, but seeing the way Mrs. Garcia cared about her boys - and Rhys himself - made his heart ache for the woman he hardly knew. The people on the show picked the third house. Rhys finished his burrito.