A half smile curling up his lip, Nicholas turned his back on Dustin and began to cook. He was making a taco platter because, well, that was all that was offered at Taco Taco! The silence continued through most of the meal, as Nicholas watched Dustin wolf down six soft tacos, barely pausing to chew. Only as Dustin was washing down his late-night meal with a Mexican Coke, did Nicholas finally speak. “Man, you’re eatin’ like y’got a hole inside that needs fillin’. I should know. Though, tacos wouldn’t cut it for me. Hell, I’m pretty sure after working here I won’t ever eat a taco again.”

“How long have you been working here?” Dustin asked.

“Not even two weeks but it feels like two years. I work the late shift. Ten P.M. til five A.M. It stays kinda hoppin’ til about three, but the last two hours are fuckin’ killer.”

Dustin nodded, even though it was hard to empathize with his brother. Dustin’s only employment to date was tutoring rich kids in twenty-million-dollar apartments. “I thought you had another month in the program.”

Nicholas explained he’d had another three weeks left in his three-month rehab stint, but he was released early on good behavior. What this meant for other people was they had excelled in the program and were granted an early exit, but Nicholas rarely behaved.

“So, you got kicked out?” Dustin asked, careful not to add the word “again” to the end of his question for fear of sounding judgmental.

“Uh-uh, took the fall for someone else.” Nicholas said this in a way to show that was all there was to know for now. He grabbed Dustin’s plate, heading back into the kitchen. “More?”

“No, thank you,” Dustin replied, wincing at his own politeness. His mouth stung from the salsa, and he now hankered for something else to fill his void. “Anything sweet back there?”

“Nothing sweeter than me,” Nicholas responded, laughing at his own sarcasm.

Dustin looked up to see his brother already returning with a paper plate of churros and a plastic honey-bear in his hands. Nicholas set the plate down in front of Dustin with a satisfied grunt. “Some things never change,” he muttered.

Dustin grabbed a warm churro and bit into its sugary sweetness, pleased that his brother remembered his sweet tooth. “You bake these?” he asked with his mouth full.

“If by bake you mean I take them out of the freezer and fry the fuckers up in oil, then yeah. They’re fresh, though. Someone called in a takeout but didn’t show. Fuckin’ tweakers, I should know better, right?”

Dustin squeezed honey onto the second churro and kept eating until they were all gone. His fingers were now sticky, but he stopped himself from licking them, remembering his long subway ride. “Can I wash up?”