I glanced up at Hassan again; he was going to kill me for this. “I’d like to help you.” Abella listened from the floor, her children still clinging to her. “You’re welcome to stay here for the time being. I… I want you to be able to get back on your feet, with your children, of course.”
Hassan stiffened where he leaned against the threshold. Abella’s eyes grew wide and watery again and she covered her face as she collected herself. “Thank….” trailing off as she hiccoughed a little. “Thank you, I….”
Crouching next to her, I placed my hand again delicately on her shoulder, her head turning to me at the light touch. I wanted to help her. I wanted her to be healthy, happy. I wanted her children to have a good life; they reminded me so much of my own family as a child.
“Mr.—Mr. Reyes, I….” She took a long breath, expression melting into one more burdened.
“Fred,” I insisted. “Fred is just fine.”
“Fred.” When she exhaled, it was as if she were stealing herself against something; making a resolute decision. “I have… I have something else to tell you, I….”
“Of course?”
She turned to her daughter, her son. They seemed just as unsure as Hassan and I. Was it another secret? She kissed the back of Juan’s small hand gingerly, as if it would give her some sense of courage. “Fred, I… I know that… your sister, when you were younger, she went… missing.”
I tensed. My smile fell away instantly. It wasn’t something I allowed myself to think about too often; if I did, the uncertainty would have driven me crazy. I nodded slowly, glancing over at Hassan. His brow was furrowed. He seemed more alert. “Y-yes, I….”
“That’s a matter of public knowledge,” Hassan interrupted, standing straighter. Abella blinked up at him.
“Why… why do you bring that up?” I asked, tentative. Did I want to know?
“Her name was Mariana. Mariana Reyes.” Abella sniffed, a nervousness creeping over her face.
“Yes….”
“I….” She paused, taking a shuddering breath. “I know this is probably going to seem crazy a-and illogical and bizarre, but….” When she looked at me again, it was with familiarity. “I’m Mariana. I’m… your sister.”
It registered first as a joke—because there was no way it could be true—but the pieces started to fall into place slowly. Slowly, then all at once, each little corner connecting to the other. My patient smile was wiped away by the confession. “I….” Swallowing around a lump forming in my throat, I could hear the confusion in my voice as much as I felt it in every fiber of my being. “What?”
“I-it’s true. I’m sorry, I should have said something sooner, but I….” Abella shook her head. “Rehab needed to come first. I’m sorry you had to go through so much trouble.”
I was still reeling. I stood fast, feeling the wetness in my eyes returning and Abella followed me up. I didn’t know whether to pull her closer to me or to push her away. “You’re really her?”
And, it started to make sense: the instant attachment I felt towards her children, and the way her hand felt so familiar in mine. I had held it before, as a child. It was clearer to see now, her face was so much like mine, though a life spent struggling and drinking and working hard had made it thin and tired.
Abella nodded slowly, sniffling again. “I’m sorry, I should have said something sooner—”
Her sentence was cut off instantly, as I brought my arms around her. She was tense in surprise, but melted into it slowly. It felt like a fever dream, having her stand in my living room, knowing Juan and Teresa were her children.
“Did you know?” I asked her, my voice thick with affection and a relief that had been held in suspense for years. “Did you know about this… when you worked for me?”
She nodded slowly. “Of course. There’s only one Frederic Reyes, isn’t there?” Abella pulled back just enough to smile up at me and the truth of it shook me. I didn’t need a test to prove it; somehow I knew it to be true the moment she said it.
I laughed in disbelief. “Yes, I suppose there is. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t think you would believe me. I mean,” and she scoffed, looking away as if embarrassed by this fact, “it seems crazy, doesn’t it? I seem crazy. I would have seemed crazy if I had come up to you and told you the truth while I was working for you.”
“Why now, then?” It was Hassan who asked it, speaking for the first time since she had confessed her identity. I let her slip away from my hold as she turned to Hassan, scooping up Juan in her arms as she spoke.
“I knew he had my children. I am….” She sighed, before smiling down at her son. “I’m healthier now. It felt like it was time to stop lying.”
“You’re only just out of rehab, aren’t you?”
Abella nodded slowly. I could tell Hassan wasn’t as sure as I was, his face pinched and hard to read. He was on high alert; I didn’t blame him, but I wouldn’t let it stop our unexpected reunion.
“Abella,” and I paused for a moment, before asking, “Is that what you go by now? Instead of Mariana?”
“Yes. I think it suits me better….”
“It’s a beautiful name.” I set a hand on her shoulder. “You’re still welcome to stay here, you know. I won’t be turning my family away—especially when you’re still in recovery.” I smiled reassuringly at the children—her children, my niece and nephew who I didn’t know existed until this moment. “You two can still watch as many movies as you’d like.”
“And, can we still go swimming?” Teresa asked, eyes wide. They looked just like her mother’s.
“Of course.”
When I looked at Abella again, she was crying; she wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand, shuddering and Juan carefully touched his mother’s face. “Mama?” he asked, and she put on a smile for him. She looked so much like our mother, under the fatigue, it was astounding. “Why are you crying?”
“Because I’m happy,” and her voice shook with her happiness as she pressed their foreheads together fondly. “I have missed you two so much.”
When the tears had all dried, I introduced Abella to Lorna. Most of the staff had changed since she worked for me, so she knew very few people there.
“You remember where the guest wing is, yes?” I asked as I lead her upstairs.
With her children following her, she grinned. “I used to clean it; of course I remember….”
Initially, I had arranged for her to have a bedroom of her own, right beside her childrens’, but they had missed her so much and she had missed them, so they crammed into the largest guest bed that I had to offer.
Hassan followed, lingering like a shadow on the wall as I bid her good night; it was later, after all and a lot had been spent emotionally. For Abella, I supposed, who had quite literally snuck through the hills and through my backyard with a knife, the day had been physically draining as well.
As I shut the door to their room behind me, I locked eyes with Hassan. He watched me expectantly from the wall, arms crossed. This was the one thing I had been avoiding.
We both spoke at once.
“Fred, you can’t possibly believe this shit—”
“Hassan, I don’t want to hear it.”
We both stopped talking, having heard the other clear enough. I brushed past him, signalling for him to follow; I didn’t want to argue about Abella while standing outside of her bedroom. Dutifully, Hassan followed.
I led him to my office. I wasn’t sure why but it seemed as good a place as any for us to have this discussion; at least it was plenty private enough. Hassan shut the door behind us as I sat myself in my desk chair. We watched one another for a long, tense moment before I waved my hand. “Whatever you’re going to say, say it.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Hassan sounded exasperated; another round of my bullshit.
I shrugged. “I don’t expect you to understand it, Hassan.”
“Fred, I understand an unhealthy relation
ship when I see one.”
“What relationship?” I asked, lips curling into a frown. “I barely know her yet. She’s been out of my life for years—decades even—”
“Exactly.” The words came out hard, firm, as if he was trying to force me to see what he saw. “Fred, you don’t know her. She may be your sister, but that doesn’t make her….” He trailed off in thought; when he spoke again, there was a softness in his voice. It tried to convince me to see something, rather than forcing it. “That doesn’t make her like you. Not everyone is as kind or trusting, Fred. She shows up out of nowhere—”
“Because I had her kids, Hassan—”
“—and you invite her to stay in this mansion. What are her intentions?”
I didn’t have anything to say to that. I wanted to defend her wholeheartedly but the truth was, I couldn't. “It’s about trust,” I told him. “She’s my family. And… and maybe you’re right. Maybe she’s only after money or to use me, or who knows what, but I won’t believe it until she gives me a reason to. I’ll always give someone the benefit of the doubt.”
Hassan kicked off the door, making his way over to me. He grabbed a nearby chair, bringing it over with ease so he could sit by my side. “Fred….”
He hesitated, eventually taking my hand in both of his. The gesture was unusually tender. I held myself still, not wanting to interrupt and have it end so soon.
“I was… I never told you this, but I was in a really….” He licked his lips as he searched for the right words. “A destructive relationship.”
I held my breath. It was a side of Hassan I hadn’t yet seen. It was hard to imagine him in a relationship with another person, let alone one that he felt was so bad it could be described as destructive.
“The person I was with was… unhealthy. There was a lot of baggage and paranoia. Our relationship was damaged as soon as it started, but we kept pushing it. I felt….” Hassan ran a hand through his short hair and I gave the hand that rested in mine a reassuring squeeze. “I felt obligated to stay. To try and save him, y’know. Fix him.”
“Hassan, I… had no idea.”
“Yeah.” The corner of his mouth pulled up as he looked at me; a bittersweet smile. “It isn’t something I like to talk about.”
I could understand; while it wasn’t the same situation, I never liked to talk about my sister, until tonight I suppose. Everyone had their own baggage, but Hassan had always seemed so strong, like nothing could touch or truly bother him.
“What I’m trying to say, Fred, is that… it’s one thing to reach out and help someone when they truly need it. But it’s easy to get caught up in something destructive. I can understand better than most people wanting to stay by someone’s side but… there’s always the chance of it destroying you in the process. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
I watched him a long time and he did the same, waiting for me to say something. He seemed heavy with the weight of the story he’d told, of the relationship he’d experienced. It still seemed like it was tethered to him somehow, pulling him down.
“I think you’re still in one,” I murmured, the words coming out quietly. “I don’t mean that you’re seeing this person still, but… they have a hold on you. I can feel it.” I ran my thumb over the back of his hand, feeling each knuckle. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, you know. You’re a hard ass Hassan, but you’re still capable of caring.”
His smile was small, mirroring mine.
“I can see you holding on to it.”
“Yeah.” Hassan’s cold eyes flickered away in thought. Perhaps he was remembering this other person. “Maybe I still am.”
He was only drawn back by the fingers that touched his face, my hand cupping his cheek gently; he leaned hesitantly into the touch, as if it was something he had to contemplate deserving.
“Hassan….” I kissed him slowly; it wasn’t to convince him to forget this other person, because clearly they were still important, but to remind him that it wasn’t all just pain and regret. Whatever heartache I felt, I could feel reflected in Hassan. We were so different in so many ways, but this we had in common. It was a strangely validating connection to have.
As our lips broke apart, Hassan sighed, our foreheads touching together in a shallow unwillingness to be apart just yet. I liked the closeness; I could feel the heat of his body and his breath skating over my cheek.
“Hassan, she’s family,” I murmured. It wasn’t something up for discussion.
“I know.”
“She belongs here.” I knew there was a chance to be taken, but I also knew that if anyone was going to have my back should anything go wrong, it was Hassan. He didn’t need to say so for me to be sure of it. “I can’t abandon my family.”
When I opened my eyes, Hassan’s smile was warm. I committed each line of his face, the warm glow of the lamp on his skin, to memory. “For once,” he hummed, tilting his head in for another kiss, “I agree with you, Reyes.”
18
Hassan
Maybe it was irresponsible to take a day off and go to the beach, but it was starting to get harder to say no to Fred.
It didn’t help that there were more bodies to contend with. After hearing the word beach, Teresa and Juan were practically jumping at the thought of seeing the ocean and their begging was enough to make Fred insist we go. My team was no help, telling me I needed a day or two off after quite literally being blown up. I’d been working too hard, they said and deserved to blow work off for a day.
So… the beach.
We woke up early, loading our things into the back of one of the cars. Well, I did most of the loading. Fred wandered around with his criminal bedhead and a mug of coffee, grumbling about how he was rarely awake this early even for shoots. When no one was looking, I ruffled my hand through his curls, telling him to get his ass in the car.
Abella sat in the back with a child on either side. I drove and Fred navigated. The day was bright and cloudless and hot, and though I could feel the tension of all that was going on in our lives lingering in the back of my mind, it was admittedly… nice.
There was always a part of me waiting for something bad to happen—another car slamming into our side, another booby trap someplace. But it never came, the day rolling on as if we were normal people.
Fred took us on a tour of an older pier, littered with carnival rides and booths, rigged games that the kids tried and failed at. Abella gave it a whirl, throwing softballs at stacked milk containers. We came up to a Strong Man Test and laughed as Fred tried his hand with the mallet, only sending the ball halfway up the track with an okay attempt.
With a sparkle in his eye, he noticed me laughing and held out the mallet. “Alright, Mr. Bodyguard,” he teased. “You give it a try.”
And I did. It was easy as taking candy from a baby—or I guess as easy as hitting something with a cartoonishly-sized mallet. The bell rang overhead. I won a prize for Juan and then again a prize for Teresa, each of them walking away from the booth with small stuffed animals.
After we had exhausted the pier and eaten our body weights in hotdogs and lemonade, we wandered down the sandy dunes, the smell of saltwater heavy on the wind. I had never really appreciated the ocean much before, but it was something I was warming up to. The kids beelined for the water, Abella watching them carefully as she and Fred struggled to lay out their towels in the whipping wind. I planted an umbrella in the sand behind them.
“Hassan, you can sit on my towel if you’d like,” Fred shouted, peeling his shirt off his body and letting it flutter into the sand before he was off, running through the shallow water with the kids.
I settled onto his towel, Abella sitting quietly next to me. She reminded me of a cat; pretty, but frail, and skittish. There was little for us to talk about, but the silence we sat in wasn’t uncomfortable like I thought it might be. We both watched Fred and Teresa and Juan splash around; he picked Juan up by the arms everytime a particularly large wave threatened to knock the
poor boy over and he gasped animatedly at the shells Teresa plucked out of the sand, no matter how ugly or unimpressive they were.
It wasn’t the quality of them that mattered. It was keeping the kids happy.
Fred would make a good father….
I was struck with the thought, embarrassed of how it had come up on its own, despite the truth of it. Where the hell had it come from anyway? I pulled the sunglasses on my forehead down, as if the dark veneer would put some distance between me and whatever weird shit I was thinking.
I watched as Fred pulled Juan high on his shoulders as he and Teresa ventured out further, bobbing up and down in the swell of the ocean’s water. His body glistened as salt water splashed up his back and wet his curls. He looked completely at peace, as if this very minute was the only place he was truly meant to be.
“He’s so good with them.” Abella smiled to herself, turning to me. “Isn’t he?”
“Yeah.” I nodded at her, and as we both stared out at the trio playing in the water, my chest felt like it was filling, a panic-stricken balloon expanding like when you realize something for the first time.
You love him.
Shit.
No, it couldn’t be true. I mean, I was attracted to Fred sure, but love was a strong and serious feeling; it wasn’t something I had felt for anyone since Henry. I pushed the thought of him away, the feelings attached to him complicated because maybe Fred was right. Maybe I still hadn’t completely detached myself from Henry, from the feelings I’d had.
I thought of going through the same thing with Fred. It was prospectively terrifying.
But Fred wasn’t Henry. I had to remind myself of that. Fred was kind and thoughtful and bullheaded, all things Henry wasn’t. Fred was naive of the horrors of war, untouched by the kinds of violence Henry and I had both seen while serving. He was a lightness I was easily drawn to. Henry was a darkness that clung to me, even now, after years of not speaking.
Dr. Perfect: A Contemporary Romance Bundle Page 78