“What?” I sat up straighter.
“Oh my God, you’re right,” Nina said, tilting her face slightly.
“You guys are funny.”
“No, I’m serious,” my sister confirmed. I opened my mouth to ask what it was they saw, but my grandma beat me to it.
“She’s in love!” my grandma announced, and the heat on my face dropped along with my stomach to the floor.
“It’s a little too soon for that, Abuela.”
“Mami.” She shook her head, her hand cupping my face. “Enjoy the journey,” she said, leaving me confused. But before I could talk some sense into any of them, a loud roar sounded out from the street and I didn’t have to look to know it was him.
The low sexy rumble of a motorcycle.
We were going for a motorcycle ride!
“Aye Dios mio, what is that?”
“The better question is who is that?” Nina asked, and just as I was about to close my eyes shut, I saw my grandma move.
My eighty-six-year-old grandma got up and moved to the window quicker than I had ever saw her move in my entire life on this Earth.
“Aye dios mio, Leti,” she whispered, and then, I swear to Buddha, crossed herself.
“Abuela,” I groaned.
“You’ve been keeping big secrets!” she said, glancing in my direction for a second and moving her head back to the sight of Max walking up to the house. So fast I was shocked she didn’t get whiplash.
“He’s cute,” my sister added.
“That man is more than cute!” Macie said, and I rolled my eyes. “That’s a double slice of beefcake with a heavy dollop of whipped cream.”
“That’s one hundred percent fino, mija!” my grandma said, and I couldn’t stop myself. I laughed.
“You’re all ridiculous. You act like you’ve never seen a guy before.”
“We’ve seen guys,” Macie said. “She’s engaged to a Marine.”
“We’ve seen the guys you bring home too, eh Leti,” my grandma added. “That’s not a guy or niño, chula. That is all man.”
“A man’s man,” Nina added.
“An older man!” Macie chimed in.
“You guys!” I huffed and stood when the doorbell rang. “Please, will you just be… normal.”
“No promises,” Macie teased, or I hoped she was teasing, at least.
“I can’t control what she does.” I pointed to my way-too-spirited Abuelita. “But you two, if you guys aren’t not weird, I’m so telling Brandon and Sam,” I threatened. I was pretty sure Brandon wouldn’t care. Nina was wearing his ring and everything, and I wasn’t sure what the hell was going on with Sam and Macie. They had been pretty close in Vegas, but now they seemed to always be together but not together together. But I didn’t care. It was the only card I had on them not humiliating me in front of Max, and I was going to play it. “Porta te bien.” I pointed at my grandma.
“Be good? Pshh... my daddy died a long time ago, thank you very much. Okay, Leti!” The door sounded again, and I sighed. “Leti, answer the door!” she bombarded, excitement radiating off her.
“Abuela—”
“¡Apurate niña! Hurry up!” she cut me off. “This is what is wrong with girls your age! You have a man out there who looks like he could be on a telenovela, and you’re just taking your fancy time. He might leave, and then what are you going to do!” she said, and I looked up at the ceiling in a silent prayer to whatever God was up there to help me out.
“Nina, do you think maybe he’s lost and has the wrong place? I bet she doesn’t even know him.” she added under her breath just as I opened the front door.
“Fuck, I missed you, Spark Plug,” he rasped.
I opened my mouth, ready to let him know I had company, but I didn’t have the chance.
Not one chance.
Not when he pulled me into his arms and kissed me. Not just a soft, sweet hello kind of kiss either. This was one full of passion and need. So much my toes curled in my shoes and everything started to fade away as heat and desire swept over me. There was something about Max and what he could do with his mouth that drove me absolutely crazy.
“Oh, I think he knows her really well,” I faintly heard Macie say, but I was too caught up in the feel and hurricane that was Max for me to care.
“Aye dios mio.” My grandma’s prayer snapped me out of the heated frenzy, and I pushed him away slightly, though my eyes were still closed shut.
“Sorry, Spark Plug, I lost my head,” he breathed, resting his forehead against mine.
“Hi.” I smiled, opening my eyes and melting into his stare. With a deep breath, I pulled away from him and pointed behind me.
“Max, I’d like you to meet my sister, her friend, and my grandmother.” His eyes moved over my shoulder, and he smiled warmly. I wasn’t sure how he was able to do things without letting things fluster him, but he did.
Whereas I would have been blushing furiously and stuttering if I had been in his shoes, he walked into my place with all the confidence in the world. His feet taking him boldly and bravely right to my grandmother, whose eyes had grown wide and then serious. He leaned in low and close to accommodate her short stature and whispered something in her ear while holding her hand, and I held my breath. I didn’t know what he was saying, not a clue, but I knew my abuela. Nothing took her by surprise.
The surprise on her face faded and dissolved into something soft and warm.
I’d seen a lot of expressions on my abuela’s face throughout my life, but nothing like the one she was wearing by the time he pulled away and met her gaze head on. I was expecting her to say something, probably something inappropriate, but she didn’t say a word.
Not one peep.
She simply hugged him.
Hugged him!
When she pulled away, she patted his cheek and winked.
“You are a charmer!” His deep laughter filled my place, and I looked over at my sister, who just shrugged back at me with misty eyes. “I like you for her! I knew Diosito had made someone like you for her. I’m just glad you found her before I died.” I fought from rolling my eyes. My grandmother had been saying her death was close since I’d turned eight.
“Abuela,” Nina scolded softly, and now Grams was the one who rolled her eyes.
“What?” She rested a hand at her cocked hip. “At my age, a small fall over a sidewalk could kill me,” she said with attitude, and I pressed my lips together to stop myself from laughing. Not at her or her talking about death, but about the whole situation.
My grandma was an amazing woman, one of the best ever made, but she was a tough cookie. Especially when it came to the guys we brought home.
Yet she was basically giving her blessing to Max, a man she had literally just met seconds ago.
Max stepped away and shook Macie and Nina’s hands, introducing himself as Max, Leti’s man.
Leti’s man.
Holy crap! Hearing that pasted a smile on my face so big it hurt. Leti’s man. That was pretty serious, if I said so myself.
“Okay, pues, Nina, I need you and Macie to take me home,” my abuelita announced, and now I was the one who was left surprised.
“Home?” I asked. I would have bet serious money she would have stayed until Max left in an attempt to chaperone me and make sure my virtue wasn’t compromised.
“Yes. Max, take care of my niña, okay?”
“With my life.”
“Asi me gusta.” That’s what I like to hear, she beamed, excitement bouncing off her as she turned to look at Macie, Nina, and me. “Come on, pues, shake off the lead! We have a lot to do.” She waved, and Macie and Nina looked at each other completely confused.
“I guess we are leaving. Nice to meet you, Max,” Macie said politely, taking my grandma’s hand.
“We should have you two over for dinner soon,” Nina added.
“That sounds great.” He nodded.
“Okay, enough talking, muchachas! We gotta go. Young love waits for no one. Ha
ve fun on your date, chula!” She hugged me before waving and making her way to the front door.
The three of them all but poofed into thin air, the door closing behind them, and I looked at him.
“What?” he asked, a gorgeous smile as he looked at me.
“How did you do that?” The wonder was crystal clear in my voice.
“Do what?” he chuckled, but I just stared at him.
“You’re like magic, you know that?”
“That’s where we will agree to disagree, baby.” He pulled me in close, his face dropping so his lips hovered right over mine. “If one of the two of us was magic, it’d be all you, Spark Plug.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t. I moved up on the tips of my toes and kissed him.
Max
It took all my will and good intentions to pull away from the sweet kiss my girl had initiated, but I had plans for us tonight.
Big plans.
The week had been crazy. A busy start to the relationship we were kicking off, and I knew it was only going to get busier when school started for Leti, but I we could make it work. We would. There was no other option in my mind.
“You ready?” I asked huskily, cupping her face and stealing one more tender kiss.
“Are we taking your bike?”
“You ever been on one?”
“Never.” She shook her head, her eyes glittering with glee.
“You saying I’ll be your first and only?”
“First for sure. Only? Time will tell,” she teased. The little minx. I reached down and squeezed her pretty ass.
“That so?” I growled and pulled her in. She gasped the moment she felt exactly how much she fucking affected me.
“Already?” Her eyes twinkled.
“When it comes to you, I think all you gotta do is breathe and I’m in a state.”
“Such a dirty man.”
“You like it,” I mumbled against her mouth and saw something in her eyes before it dissolved. “You ready?”
“For a ride on your bike? Yes!” She laughed. She grabbed her denim jacket from her couch, and we walked out.
She held on close as I took us on a ride. I loved the way her excitement radiated off her, teaching me something new about Leti Montenegro. She was fearless when it came to experiencing something new. Her joy was contagious. I could see a lifetime of adventures laid out ahead of us. Each one beautiful and great. And I couldn’t flipping wait. My bike vibrated and roared beneath us as I carefully took every curve as I drove us up to Lake Arrowhead. I slowed as I reached the small-town center and pulled into a parking spot in Lake Arrowhead Village.
“That was amazing, Max!” she beamed, shaking her hair out of the helmet covering her head. I turned to look at her and thought she was freaking gorgeous. The prettiest thing I had ever seen, and she was mine.
My girl. My spark plug. My everything.
“You liked that?” I asked, laughing, taking my own helmet off.
“Yes! It’s… that was… Thank you.” She kissed me, and I laughed, my hand on her shoulder making sure she wouldn’t fall off.
“Come on, our adventure is just starting,” I said. We got off my bike, and I grabbed her hand.
“I’ve never been here.”
“It’s a cute spot. Nice ride back home, and the weather is still good for us to be outside.”
“Do you think it snows here, like, around Christmas?”
“I don’t know. Probably. How about we come back around then to see?” Her eyes sparkled, and I knew she got what I was saying. We would be together in a couple of months.
“I would like that,” she whispered, leaning her head against my shoulder as we walked.
Chapter Nine
Leti
THE DAY HAD been incredible. We checked out cool shops and an art gallery. Then we picked up soft serve ice cream cones and took a boat ride around the lake. The entire time was fun and easy. I was no one else but myself with him, and he seemed to like that. A lot.
There was a moment as we stood by a dock, his large frame behind me, his head resting on my shoulder, when I knew my grandma hadn’t been wrong. I was in love. He was such an incredible man.
“Look that way. The sun is about to set,” he said into my ear, and I looked at him.
“Take a selfie with me.”
“Yeah? Okay.” His lips twitched, and we turned to get the lake and sunset behind us.
“Say cheese!” I said, and we grinned like crazy people as I clicked away, but I couldn’t get too much of the background in our snapshots.
“Here, let me get us a little better. My arms are longer, short stack,” he joked, and I rolled my eyes.
He snapped a couple more, his lips on my cheeks as I smiled big, and then I did the same. He turned to kiss me when something came over me. This incredible need to be honest and vulnerable. Completely last minute and unplanned, but I couldn’t hold back the words.
“I love you, Max.” I heard the shutter of the cell stop, and warmth flooded his gaze.
“I love you, Leti. I love you so much,” he whispered, and his free hand tangled with the hair on the side of my head as he kissed me.
It was dominating and rough and so damn beautiful I knew I would remember that kiss until the day I died. We separated breathlessly and both turned to look toward the sky. The beautiful colors that filled the sky matched what I felt in my heart when it came to Max.
His arms wrapped around my shoulder and pulled me in. I rested my head on his bicep and sighed. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere but where I was with him.
“Last-minute good luck charm,” I murmured and felt his lips at the top of my head. “Thank you for coming to my rescue that night in Vegas,” I said as the sky darkened and filled with the brightest diamond-like stars I had ever seen. Or maybe love had a way of making you feel like you were seeing things you took for granted for the first time ever.
“Best night of my life, meeting you.”
“Do you think we would have met anyhow?”
“With you as Lee’s new bestie? Hell yeah,” he said, the smile in his voice completely evident.
“I’m glad we didn’t have to wait too long.”
“Me too,” he agreed. “Ready for dinner?” he asked, pulling away a little so he could meet my eyes.
“If it’s with you, I’m ready for anything!” And that was the God’s honest truth.
Epilogue
Max
I WAS STANDING at the front door of Leti’s childhood home, and my hands were fucking sweating.
“Come in, Max,” Leti’s father called out just as I raised my hand to knock on the metal screen door. I rubbed the back of my neck before cleaning my feet on the doormat at the front door and entering his home.
Gerardo Montenegro was a man’s man. One who had fathered two beautiful daughters— one who was now married and had just announced was expecting his first grandchild, another who had just graduated.
“Hey, Mr. Montenegro.” I waved. He studied me, and his lips quirked upward before he looked up at the ceiling and shook his head.
“How many times do I gotta tell you,” he said, looking at me, “Call me Gerardo, yeah?”
“I’m, shit…” I had no reason to be as nervous as I was. Gerardo liked me. Respected me. He was a man’s man, but he was also a dad who had never had sons, and he was very clear about how he felt about the men in his daughters’ lives. He liked how happy and loved Leti was with me.
“You know,” he started as he walked through his living room, waving at me to follow him. We walked through the house towards the garage, which he had made his space. “When I first met you, I thought this day would have come a lot quicker,” he said over his shoulder before relaxing into his recliner. The space was decorated in baseball paraphernalia. Los Angeles Dodgers shit all over the place, and it was the epitome of a man cave.
“You owe me twenty bucks, Max.”
“How?”
“I lost a bet
with my mother. I bet you would show up a year ago.”
He and I both.
But I had to make sure I was doing things right for Leti. Instead of proposing a month after making things official like I would have preferred, I’d waited. I’d waited for her to declare a major and graduate. I knew how important her diploma was to her, and it wasn’t like she had been far from me. We had moved in together shortly after her sister’s wedding. We had been solid all this time, but it was time to make it even more so.
“Mr. Montenegro,” I cleared my throat, and his deep laughter made my eyes snap up to his.
“Son, sit down, will you? You look like you’re about to pass out or puke.” He pointed to the loveseat across from the recliner he’d chosen, and I nodded and took a seat. “I know why you’re here, Max.”
“Sir—” He put a hand up and silently asked for me to let him talk, so I did.
“I know why it took you this long to get here,” he said and sighed, rubbing his face before leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his eyes meeting mine. “I thank you for it,” he shared, and emotion knotted in my throat.
“It was something she wanted to do.”
“I know.” He nodded. “Nina was easy. Calm. Leti though…”—he smiled and shook his head—“Between us, Leti reminded me a little too much of myself when I was her age. Wild. Untamable. Going where the wind blew, seeking adventures like her next breath depended on it. Then my mom came home talking about you and the man Leti had found, I gotta tell you kid, I was worried. Freaked the hell out. Not only were you older than her, but your life was settled in a way she wasn’t ready for. I was afraid you were going to dim that light for adventure she has.” He swallowed, and I opened my mouth to say something, but he shook his head, putting his hand out to give him a minute. “Meeting you for the first time, I knew I would be fucking lucky to call you my son one day, Max.”
My eyes stung. My dad had passed away when I’d been a punk kid at seventeen. But I knew right then and there my dad was looking down with pride at the man I’d become.
“Seeing Leti not only thrive but you help feed and nurturing that side of her, putting her needs above yours, not just any man could do that.”
Last Minute (Timeless Series Book 3) Page 7