“That’s because I already gave blood this morning.”
“Oh,” she said simply then glanced at Ella again as if it just dawned on her that he wasn’t there for himself; he was there keeping Ella company. “You do have your phone on you, right?”
He tapped his pocket but didn’t mention or offer any apologies for having turned it off when he spotted Ella headed his way. He was glad now that he had or his time with Ella might’ve been cut short.
“Okay then,” she said again very simply when it was obvious he wouldn’t be introducing her to Ella.
Not even sure why, he just didn’t want to introduce her. He figured the less time she was there the less likely it was she might say something he didn’t want Ella to hear.
Then she did just that.
“So do I get to see you later tonight?”
She smiled sinfully, lowering her lashes in a way that could only be interpreted in one way—she didn’t mean for business.
“Probably not,” he said a little too loud, feeling his face heat up instantly. “But I’ll call you if I need anything else.”
He gave her a hard look, hoping she’d pick up on the fact that what she’d just done was completely inappropriate and fucking unacceptable. God damn it!
Her smile went flat, and she lifted a brow, glancing down at her phone again. “Okay then, I’m out of here. I’ll try and catch the interview, but I’ll probably miss it because I have a couple of calls I’ll be on in the next few hours. Text or call me and let me know how it went.”
Felix nodded without saying another word because he seriously felt like cussing. He knew it was impossible to think Ella didn’t know about his reputation, that she hadn’t heard about all the trouble he’d been in and about every girl the tabloids had him hooked up with. But she didn’t need firsthand proof of it. If anything, Ella seemed reasonable. If he ever got as far as having to explain, she might just understand that, while he’d had his share of women, he was nowhere near as bad as the media made him out to be.
He turned to Ella as Adelina walked away, almost afraid to see her expression. She wasn’t even looking in Adelina’s direction. She was lifting the small bandage on the inside of her arm.
“That was my publicist,” he said, feeling a little stupid.
Ella looked up in Adelina’s direction. “Oh,” she said with little to no interest but then added with a subtle but very telling lift of her brow, “She’s very pretty.”
Clenching his jaw, he refused to comment on that, so instead he explained, “I would’ve introduced you, but she was in a hurry.”
She shook her head quickly as if he shouldn’t worry about that and stood. “Thanks for keeping me company,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I gotta get back to my class now.”
Before he could think of a single thing to say, she walked away.
“Fuck!” he practically growled under his breath as soon as she was far enough away he knew she wouldn’t hear.
That wasn’t the end of his frustrations. Sunday she hadn’t even come in. Then the rest of the week he’d only been able to talk to her a few times. He couldn’t ask for her exact schedule. He didn’t want anyone wondering about his interest in her because he hadn’t figured that out himself. He was attracted to her and not just physically. That much he knew. But what he should do about it was the big question.
He had so much going on right now, and as soon as the rematch between him and Grecco was announced, things would be getting even crazier. He wouldn’t dare dream of doing something sleazy and meaningless with her. And sleazy and meaningless would be all he’d have time for now. There’d been a few girls in his life he was attracted to that he’d never consider being with like that. Most were relatives of his good friends, though he’d been known to make an exception or two. The others were just girls he thought too sweet for that or came with warnings like the one he’d already gotten from Abel about Ella. But mostly she fell into the too-sweet-to-mess-with category. Still, the more he was around her, the more impossible it felt to not be drawn to her. Drawn to her in a way he couldn’t even begin to explain. The only thing he knew for sure now was running into her at the gym had quickly become the highlight of his day, and it almost scared him how disappointing it was on the days she didn’t show up. It scared him because the build up to the next time he did see her each time was unreal.
Like Hector had already noticed, Felix was certain it was just a matter of time before Ella picked up on his giddiness from being around her. Aside from the cracks Hector had made at the pizza place, the guy had not only been witness to Felix’s behavior around Ella a few times at the gym and ribbed Felix about it, but he’d also caught Felix staring at her a few other times. Of course, Felix had denied feeling anything for Ella other than just admiration for all she’d done and been through. Felix knew Hector wasn’t buying it, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was if Ella began to notice. He certainly didn’t have a poker face, and he hadn’t exactly tried to hide what she did to him. Felix was almost curious to know what she’d say. The problem was even if she did notice he still had no idea what, if anything, he should do about it.
All he knew was he still didn’t know a whole lot about her, yet he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Chapter 8
Ella
All right, Ella had to finally admit it. The past few weeks she’d been a little absentminded. Carmen was right; she did seem to be walking around lately with her head in a cloud. Ella could admit to herself that maybe, just maybe, being around Felix so much and the way he gazed at her—making her insides go absolutely nuts, yet he was still a complete gentleman—had a lot to do with it. She’d thought him amazing looking from the very beginning, but adding to that how sweet he was when he spoke to her and how deeply he looked into her eyes sometimes, she’d been breathless around him more than once now. It was almost embarrassing, but as far as she knew, she’d managed to play it off every time she’d been around him.
Today she’d totally goofed and had shown up at 5th Street when Carmen and Sonia were scheduled for back-to-back classes. Ella had a couple of hours to spare now. The good thing was that Nellie had approached her with an outline of her ideas for the breast-cancer awareness program. It was several pages long, so it gave Ella something to do to kill time instead of heading back home only to have to come back in a few hours for the class she was actually scheduled for.
She’d been sitting at the juice bar for over an hour, drinking some carrot juice as she read through the pages of the outline very thoroughly. Nellie had some excellent ideas, albeit very ambitious but excellent ideas nonetheless.
“Hey.”
Ella looked up as Felix took the seat across from her, wearing that beautiful smile that would be the end of her. She smiled back, breathing in deeply.
“Are you saving this seat for anyone?” he asked.
“No.” She smiled, leaning over her juice and bringing the straw to her lips as a calming mechanism.
His eyes were instantly on her lips, and that completely warmed her insides. “You on a break?”
She shook her head then rolled her eyes, feeling dumb all over again. “I got here way too early. I mixed up my schedule. The class I’m here for isn’t for almost another hour.”
She lifted the paperwork she was reading and explained what she’d been doing since she’d gotten there to kill time.
“So you’ve been sitting here for over an hour?” he asked, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he almost sounded irritated by this.
“Yeah,” she said, confused by his annoyance.
Felix frowned, looking around. He was definitely annoyed. “I wish I’d known,” he said. “I could’ve kept you company longer.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d made such an in-your-face statement like this. He’d referred to her as a friend a couple of times, too, in the past recent days. Ella reminded herself that this is what he thought she was now—a friend. And that was all he meant by this. As a frie
nd, he could’ve kept her company. It still didn’t stop the storm of butterflies already running amuck in her belly.
She waved the papers at him, trying to avert her panicking insides from giving way to the utter excitement that simple comment from him made her feel. “This has kept me busy. Nellie”—she laughed softly—“she reminds me a little of my mom.”
“How so?” he asked, his eyes full of curiosity now.
The girl behind the counter brought over a juice and placed it in front of Felix. “Here you go, Mr. Sanchez. One large Body Charger.”
“Thank you.” He smiled but brought his attention back to Ella immediately.
Ella glanced at the girl, who didn’t leave right away. If Ella were rude, she’d ask her when they started doing table service. In the two years she’d been there, they called out your order and you picked it up at the counter. As a matter of fact, the girl hadn’t even reached the counter when the other guy behind it was already calling out someone else’s juice. But then not only was Felix one of the owners of this place, he was the Felix Sanchez.
When Ella noticed that Felix was staring at her, she almost forgot what she’d been saying before juice girl came along. Then she remembered.
“My mom,” she said with a smile that filled her heart. “She was an amazing woman. Our family’s been through a lot.” She paused for a moment to reflect on what a loaded statement that was. “Through it all she remained so strong and pulled us all through it so flawlessly it was truly inspiring.”
Felix took a sip of his juice but kept his eyes on her the whole time. “You mentioned you lost your older sister early on. How old were you?”
“I was six. She was ten,” she explained, feeling herself go from heart warmed by the memory of her mother’s strength to somber about the memory of her sister’s death. “We’d been at the park having a good time and were about to get ice cream when there was a gang shootout. When it was all over, my mom held my sister Yesenia’s bloody and lifeless body in her arms. She died even before the paramedics arrived.”
Ella stared straight ahead now, remembering that time in her life. She remembered it not feeling like the huge deal she knew it was now. But she knew it was only because she’d been so young. At the time she was too young to understand how final the events of that day were. That she’d truly never get to see her sister ever again.
“Sadly,” she went on, this time looking into Felix’s dark eyes so full of compassion, “in our neighborhood, it wasn’t that uncommon. It’s gotten better over the years, but back then drive-by shootings and innocent bystanders getting caught up in the mix were actually fairly common.” She smiled and she could tell that surprised Felix. “My mom was probably one of the reasons why the crime in our neighborhood went down significantly. Since moving wasn’t an option for us, instead of falling apart and drowning in despair and depression like so many of the other parents who’d gone through something similar in our neighborhood, she started up the neighborhood watch in our area and the local chapter of M.A.G.I.C.”
Felix’s brow’s raised. “I’ve heard of that. What is it?”
“Mothers Against Gangs In The Community,” she explained proudly. “She always said she’d already lost one child to gangs and she was not losing another. We were surrounded by gangs and kids getting in trouble blaming it on the area they lived in, but Memo and I are living proof of what my mom always said to us. You are who you choose to be. You’re only a victim of your environment if you allow yourself to be. We could’ve easily chosen the same path so many of our friends and neighbors chose, but my mom made sure we didn’t. My dad . . .” She stopped, wondering how much she should share about him and decided to keep it as simple as possible. “He didn’t jump back from the loss of my sister with the same passion my mother did. But my mom kept it together for all of us.”
That warmth in her heart was back, making Ella smile big again, and she was glad. She hadn’t realized when she made the comment about Nellie reminding her of her mother that the conversation would go around full circle to all this. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get all heavy on you.”
“Don’t be,” he said instantly. “I was actually curious but not sure if asking flat-out would be rude.”
Ella lifted a shoulder and took a sip of her juice. “It’s just that even in her death my mom continues to be such an influence and inspiration for me. Even when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, she put up such a brave front. She promised she wouldn’t go down without a fight and she didn’t. She beat it at first, and after she’d recovered from the chemo, she went on an awareness mission, putting together the first ever breast-cancer-awareness walk in our neighborhood.”
Felix was looking at her again as he did so often. The same way he’d looked at her that first night he’d walked into her class with Hector, Charlee, and Drew. She’d call it a proud parent look, but there was more behind it. She was caught in his eyes for a moment until he finally said something that broke the spell.
“So your starting the self-defense classes in response to your brother’s girlfriend getting raped was a tribute to your mother.”
It could’ve been a question, but the way he said it Felix sounded as if he knew for a fact that’s exactly why she’d done so. Ella had never thought of it that way. All she knew was at the time she wasn’t just going to sit around and wait for something like that to happen again. Much like her mom hadn’t waited around for gangs or cancer to come and disrupt their lives so easily.
Not without a fight.
“It’s what she would’ve done,” Ella said softly.
Felix slid his hand across the table slowly and touched hers gently. “She’d be proud.”
Under normal circumstances, the fact that his hand was on hers might’ve excited her; instead, she choked up so fast it caught her off guard.
“I’m sorry,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head and blinking away the tears that had begun to fill her eyes. “It’s just . . .” She smiled again. “Yes, I know she would be.”
Glancing down at his hand still on hers, Ella decided to keep to herself how often she still spoke with her mom and how so many of those conversations lately had been about him. Just thinking of that made her smirk and she felt her face warm. When she looked up at him, he was staring at her again. The alarm she’d seen in his eyes just moments ago when he realized he’d hit a nerve with his comment about her mom, was replaced now with a sort of curious look.
“You do that a lot,” he said.
His hand slid down from over her hand to under it and played with her fingers. Now feeling his touch did what she’d expected it would. Her insides were instantly out of control. Was he really playing with her fingers? A million other questions flashed through her head as she attempted to remain as collected as possible.
“Do what?” she asked very calmly as he continued to gaze at her, but her mind was racing as her heart pounded away, and she was certain he could hear it—everyone in the juice bar probably could. It pounded so hard.
Was he flirting with her? Or was this his way of making up for nearly making her cry? Was this still him just being sweet, or was there more to the way he looked at her as she’d begun to think these past few weeks. But most importantly, what did she do a lot? All this time she’d thought she’d played the calm-and-collected part so well.
“The way you switch moods. What were you thinking just now?” he asked. “When you went from nearly crying to smiling to”—he smiled, and as if her heart wasn’t already out of control, he laced his fingers through hers—“blushing?”
She gulped as once again she was caught in those piercing dark eyes of his. “I, uh . . .” She cleared her throat, determined not to blow this—not to look away. He was just being playful. That’s all this was. “I don’t—”
“Yo, Felix.”
They turned to see a grinning Hector coming their way. Felix didn’t jerk his hand away from
hers, but it was obvious he hadn’t wanted Hector to see them holding hands because he slid his hand back to his side of the table. Despite his efforts, Ella was certain Hector had seen them holding hands. It was what made him doing so that much more nerve-wracking. He’d taken her hand in his so candidly right there in the middle of the juice bar for everyone to see.
Ella may have her preconceptions of Felix being a ladies’ man—a flirt. But from what she’d seen so far, he hadn’t behaved that way. Since he’d started his daily pre-training here at 5th Street, she’d never seen him flirt or even engage in conversation with any other girls as much as he did with her. It was what made his seeking her out today and being annoyed that he could’ve spent more time with her dangerously thrilling. She was still refusing to jump to any ridiculous assumptions.
“What are you doing?” Hector asked as he neared them. “Noah’s been looking for you.”
Ella watched as the same irritation she’d seen earlier on his face bathed over Felix once again. “I was having some juice. Tell him I’ll be in there in a minute.”
Hector grinned as he said hello to Ella then turned back to Felix. “Yeah, I’ll let him know.”
Ella glanced down at her phone and saw that it was just fifteen minutes until her class started. “I gotta go anyway. My class starts in fifteen minutes.”
She stood up. The continued annoyance on Felix’s face about the interruption as he stood up with her was somehow even more thrilling now. Ella needed to get out of there fast. Having a moment in one of the stalls in the ladies’ room where she could finally hyperventilate, like she thought she might for a moment there, couldn’t come fast enough.
“Thanks for keeping me company,” she said to Felix then smiled at a still-grinning Hector. “I’ll see you guys later.”
As she hurried to the ladies’ room, she played back what had just happened and all the other conversations she’d had with him lately.
“You are not jumping to any conclusions,” she muttered under her breath. “So he’s a flirt. This shouldn’t surprise you.”
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