by Emma Hart
The look on his face was grim, with his thick, dark brows drawn together. “You sure you wanna go in there?”
“As a rule, no.” I stuck my fingers in the pockets of my denim shorts and half-smiled. “What are they fighting about now?”
“I didn’t get all of it,” he continued, making his way down the steps to me. “But there was something about salsa going missing and sticky fingers. Although Abuelita was speaking English, and it sounded a hell of a lot like shitty fingers.”
“Both fit.” I shrugged.
“Plus, Valentina is here, so my mom is in a worse mood than anybody.”
“Why is she here? I thought she was banned from the house?”
“She wants to talk about Elena’s birthday. She wants to take her away, but Abuelita is having none of it and wants to throw a big party.”
I blinked at him. “Elena’s birthday isn’t for another four months.”
He threw up his arms. “I don’t know, but if I hear another thing about it, I’m going to throw myself off the pier and hope a fucking hungry shark finds me.”
Laughing, I shook my head. “You don’t need to be so drastic. Maybe they’ll calm down if I go in there.”
“You’re still going in there knowing they’re fighting?”
“Well, yeah. Abuelita is gonna kick my ass if I don’t go in there and see her. Birthday or not.”
“That’s right. It’s your birthday.” His eyes sparkled. As if he’d forgotten. “C’mere.”
His long strides had the distance between us closed in seconds, and he reached out, grabbing my wrists and pulling me into his firm body, tightly wrapping his arms around me. He hugged me so hard he lifted me right off the ground, making my legs kick.
I squealed.
He laughed.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him back just as tight. I tried to ignore the warmth that spread through my body and made my cheeks flush, but I couldn’t help it.
He slowly lowered me again, loosening his hold just the tiniest bit. With my feet firmly back on the ground, Luke kissed my forehead. His lips were warm and soft, lingering a little too long. The gentle touch sent a shiver across my skin, one that made me stop and take a deep breath.
My hands slid down over his shoulders to his chest.
“Happy birthday, Aspen,” he said in a low voice, dipping his head so his blue eyes met mine.
I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat, then smiled. “Thanks.”
The front door swung open behind us, and I jerked away from him. He bit back a chuckle as we both looked toward the person standing in the doorway.
His mom.
She was barely three inches taller than Abuelita, but Gabriela Taylor was one of the most beautiful women in existence. It was no lie. I’d put money on it—if she hadn’t gotten married at twenty, she’d have been a beauty queen for years.
She had thick, black hair that hung around and bounced off her shoulders in perfect curls. A mole dotted her skin just beneath her full lower lip—lips that were permanently coated in a dark red that complimented her unfairly smooth olive skin to perfection.
Her eyes were large and dark, surrounded by lashes and framed by brows as thick as the hair on her head.
And those same eyes were currently glittering with amusement as they looked up at me and Luke.
“Did he bite you?” Gabriela looked at me, the lilt of a Mexican accent still tinging her words.
“Pinched me,” I lied.
Damn it. I was hoping neither of them had noticed my little flinch and jump move there.
“Right on the arm,” Luke continued, lying a hell of a lot more smoothly than I had. “Are they done fighting yet?”
Gabriela turned her gaze to him, one eyebrow slowly raising. “What do you think?”
He sighed.
She pulled the door shut behind her and stepped out barefoot onto the top step. “They were almost done arguing about the damn salsa until Valentina got involved.”
“Uh-oh,” I muttered.
“Mm,” she hummed. “Something about why they couldn’t get along, then Mama asked why she couldn’t keep it in her pants.” She sighed, running her fingers through her hair, leaving it unkempt.
Luke turned to me, smirking. “Are you sure you want to go in there?”
“Your house is a permanent war zone.” I tucked my hair behind my ear. “And, as I said, I don’t want Abuelita’s wrath on me. That woman carries anger like ants carry food.”
“Constantly, and with unbelievable strength for such a short person.” Gabriela laughed, nodding.
“Says you.” Luke patted her on the head, and she responded by standing on her tiptoes and slapping the back of his. He winced, rubbing his ear, and I laughed, following her inside.
“You should know better than that,” I shot in his direction with a wide grin.
He mumbled something under his breath, walking behind me, still rubbing his head.
The arguing was intense. It was a psycho mix of Spanish and English, most of it broken English on Abuelita’s part.
The perfect English? That was Luke’s dad, shouting at the “crazy fucking women” in his house.
It was a good thing they lived a little out of the way and didn’t really have any neighbors. Although, to be honest, this was probably why they lived here.
“Enough!” Gabriela shouted, drawing silence from the others in the room.
Abuelita put her hands on her hips. “You let her here!”
Gabriela pinched the bridge of her nose. “I did not. She walked in, madre.” She said something in Spanish, something I didn’t understand, and then pointed at Valentina who stood in the corner with a scowl on her face.
Much like Gabriela, Valentina was stunningly beautiful, but she was the harder of Abuelita’s two youngest children, and it showed in her features.
Gabriela continued on in fluent Spanish, barely taking a breath as she scolded both her mother and her sister. They shouted back, arms waving as the conversation apparently got heated.
Luke grabbed my arm and steered me out of the kitchen, nodding to his dad. “Ignore those. Abuelita will forgive you if she realizes she was acting like a five-year-old when you came to see her…on your birthday.”
I nudged him as we stepped back through the front door into the front yard. “Talking of my birthday, where’s my present? It’s not like you actually forgot.”
“Your present will be me delivering you to your apartment and pulling your hair back from your face while you vomit.” His tone was dry as we walked to the drive. “What time are we meeting tonight?”
“Stop changing the subject.” I paused at my car. “And that’s not a present, that’s your duty as my best friend. We both know Tom will be doing the same for Blaire.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, lips quirking. “But Tom’s her boyfriend.”
“I don’t have one of those.”
“I’m aware.”
“Which means it’s your job.”
“I don’t know how I get myself in these situations.” He shook his head and pulled his keys from his pocket. “I was going to give you this later, but since you have the patience of a bonfire near a match…”
I held up my hands. “I can be patient. As long as you tell me what it is.”
He shot a look over his shoulder and pulled a small, badly-wrapped present from the backseat. “Here.”
I grinned, taking it from him like an excited child. I couldn’t help it. I loved presents. It was about the only good thing about my birthday, because it sure as hell wasn’t the gift card my parents had tossed into the birthday card they’d mailed…yesterday.
Sitting on the top step, I put the present on my lap and tore into the pink paper. The contents were soft, and as I pulled them out, the black fabric formed into a tank top.
On the front, the graphic read, ‘If sarcasm burned calories, I’d be one skinny bitch.’
I ran my tongue over my top lip, slowly tu
rning my head to face him.
Luke leaned against my car with a shit-eating grin spread across his face. It lit his eyes up to an almost impossible blue, and the laughter that was written all over his face and emphasized with his shaking shoulders was almost contagious.
Almost.
I schooled my features into a poker face and met his eyes. “Are you calling me fat?”
His amusement was wiped clean off his features. His grin disappeared so fast his lips formed a small ‘o’, and his eyes widened like he’d just been caught in headlights—or naked in the town square.
“What?” Luke scratched out, holding out his hands. “No—I just—it’s a joke. Because you’re sarcastic. Plus it’s a small. And—”
I burst into giggles.
“Aspen! Fuck you!”
I laughed even harder, bending over, my stomach hurting from my own stupid prank.
He snatched the paper from my lap, balled it up, and threw it at my head.
Clutching the shirt close to my chest, I got up, running across the dirt drive, past my car, still laughing as I went. Another ball of paper hit me in the back, and it hit me so hard that I almost stumbled over a rock in the drive.
I recovered just in time to set my footing right, but I stopped running, still holding the shirt close. Turning, I held out a hand, wheezing laughter. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Luke pointed at me. “You’re a little shit!”
I grinned. “We’ve been friends for twenty years. Did you just realize that?”
“No, I knew it when we were eight, and you told Maisie Cooper I had cooties because you knew I liked her and you hated her!”
“Hey, now, she was a bitch!” I held both hands up now.
“We were eight!”
“You think a woman’s bitch radar has an age limit? Boy, sit down. I could recognize bitches before I could take a shit on a toilet.”
His lips twitched with laughter. “That’s not the point!”
“That’s totally the point. She was a bitch. Don’t try telling me your next revelation will be that I’m a bitch.”
“I can’t say that. It’s your birthday.”
“Damn right you can’t. Tell me you love me instead.”
“Over my dead body.”
I shrugged. “I watch enough of the Investigation Discovery channel. That could be arranged.”
“Ah.” He put his hands in his ass pockets and shrugged, looking way hotter than he had any right to. “But, if you kill me, who’ll hold your hair back when you vomit tonight?”
Holding out my right arm, I flicked the black band on my wrist. “Fuck diamonds. I’ve got a girl’s best friend right here. A hair tie.”
“Your hair tie is your best friend?”
“Yes. It ties back my hair. It’s there in emergencies. It can fix bras in a pinch if you know how to. And you know what? My hair tie has never judged me.”
“I’ve seen you tell them to fuck off when they’ve broken on you.”
“Yeah, well some of those are bitches, too. It’s not my fault I have thick hair. I didn’t ask for this.” I sniffed, lowering my arms to my waist. “Thank you for my shirt. I’m wearing it tonight.”
He smirked. “Blaire is gonna kill you.”
“It’s my birthday. I do what I want. If I want to show up in sweatpants and slippers, I will.”
“Have you told her that?”
“No. I like to surprise her.” Grinning, I walked past him toward my car. I was just opening my mouth to tell him I’d see him later when the front door to his house swung open.
Abuelita ran out of the house, waving her arms. “Aspen! Aspen! You no go! I make tacos!”
“Did she just say tacos?” I asked Luke.
He nodded. “She made three kinds. Just for you.”
“You stay!” Abuelita said, her scarlet-red skirt flailing as she shuffled over to me. “You stay for tacos!”
I held a hand to my heart. “Tacos? Do you think I’m crazy? You know the way to my heart, Abuelita. Let’s go.”
Luke’s smile was wide and warm as the tiny woman clutched onto my hand like I was going to disappear. She all but dragged me into the house, babbling about the tacos and salsa and guac she’d made fresh this morning for my birthday.
Tacos.
Abuelita’s way of giving you a birthday cake.
I was here for it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN – ASPEN
Tequila Tequila, Shakira Shakira
“You have boyfriend?” Abuelita said, eyeing me over the top of her coffee cup.
I wiped my mouth after taking a bite of my hard taco. It was crispy and flavorsome, the shredded chicken inside it seasoned to perfection. “Actually, I—”
“You no lie,” she said, barely batting an eyelid as she blew on the hot liquid.
“Am single,” I continued, setting the taco down in the fancy holder she had and reaching for my water.
She nodded slowly. “You know Sebastian? He single. Handsome. Good job.”
Luke eyed me. “Junior doctor.”
I shot him a look that said I wanted to cut off his balls before I turned back to Abuelita. “I do know him, but I—”
“And Pedro—he single now. More handsome than Sebastian.” Abuelita didn’t stop to listen to me. “Emmanuel just graduated.”
“Emmanuel is a little young for me,” I said diplomatically, picking my taco back up.
“Ivan single. He like you. You pretty. He handsome. He good job,” Abuelita rambled on, taking a spoonful of sugar and putting it in her coffee.
“Ivan is very nice,” I replied. “But—I”
“You no like Ivan? Manuel. Manuel is perfect! He is handsome.”
Handsome was becoming a theme of this conversation.
“He looking for a good wife like you. You cook?”
“I can cook,” I said hesitantly.
“You clean?”
“Until the animals take a cue from Disney, I clean.”
“You have children?”
“Abuelita,” Luke interjected. “She’s being polite. Can’t you see that?”
Her eyebrows shot up, and she looked from me to him, before answering in Spanish I didn’t understand.
“No,” Luke replied in English. “She doesn’t want to date Sebastian, or Pedro, or Emmanuel, or Ivan, or Manuel.”
She clasped a hand to her chest and looked at me with wide eyes. “You do not?”
Thanks, Luke.
“Not really,” I said apologetically. “Honestly, Abuelita, I’m happy to be single.”
“I marry at your age,” she shot back.
“Yeah, but, someone needs to look after Luke.”
She sighed, dropping her hand to cradle her mug. “He need good girl. You marry him.”
“No,” Luke and I said simultaneously. “We’re okay,” he continued.
Abuelita sniffed, pushing back on the chair. It squeaked against the wooden floor as she got up and took her coffee into the next room without another word.
Luke shrugged. “Old people. They’re weird.”
“Yeah, right, that’s a good generalization,” I said, picking my taco up again. “It’s not just that she’s fucking crazy.”
“Oh, she’s fucking crazy.” He met my eyes. “Us getting married? As if.”
“It’s enough with you as my best friend.” The snort left me without another thought.
His laugh echoed mine. “Exactly.” He got up and kissed the top of my head. “Finish your tacos, Miss Piggy, and I’ll see you later.”
Flipping him the bird, I shoved the last bite of the taco in my mouth and reached for another.
***
“I don’t care what Shakira says,” I said, throwing the skirt across my room. “Hips do fucking lie.”
Blaire rolled her eyes, tossing me a pair of skinny jeans from my dresser. “Luke told me you ate six tacos at his place earlier.”
I had. I had eaten six tacos, and I didn’t regret it one bit.
&n
bsp; “Don’t judge me,” I said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “It’s not the tacos fault I’m fat.”
“Yeah, you’re so fat you could go to Sea World, and they’d want to put you on exhibit,” she drawled. “Try saying that when you’re not putting on a size six pair of jeans.”
I checked the label. “These are an eight.”
“Don’t be an ass.”
“I would, but I am an ass.” I hauled the jeans up over my butt and successfully buttoned them. “Ah-ha! My love of tacos will live another day.”
Blaire looked pointedly at the button. “But probably not much longer than that.”
I grabbed a cushion from my bed and threw it at her head. “It’s my birthday. Isn’t there a rule to put your bitch back in its box for today?”
“Yeah, but I think I got bored of that after I texted you this morning.” She shrugged, opening my underwear drawer. Pulling out the bra that made my boobs look good, she threw it at me. “Change your bra. This makes the girls look like they want to be there.”
“Are you trying to get me laid tonight?”
“Well, one of us has to. My period showed up yesterday, so if I can’t…”
“I’m not going to get laid.”
“Are you on your period, too?”
“Not anymore, but that’s not the point.” I changed my bra while her back was turned and she was rifling through my shirts in the closet.
“So, get laid,” she replied.
“I don’t want to get laid. It didn’t work out so well last time, did it?”
At that, she paused before she turned around and looked at me. “You’re right. Tom will bring you home tonight in case you get your slut bucket out again.”
“My slut bucket?”
“Your vagina,” she said without blinking. “Your slut bucket.”
“I have never had my vagina referred to as a slut bucket in my life,” I replied. “And I don’t think I ever want it to be again.”
She shrugged. “Keep ‘em shut, then. Like my heart.”
“Like your heart my left tit. You’re head over heels for Tom, and you have been since you laid eyes on him when we were fourteen. Shut up.” I took the shirt from her and tossed it on the bed. “I’m wearing this one.”