I let out this moan at his words, shaking my head.
“Diana,” he said in that sensitive tone that seemed so foreign on his scratchy vocal chords. “I’ve seen you with them enough. You don’t… it doesn’t look like they’re not yours. It’s clear as day to me that those boys love you like you’re more than their aunt. A blind man could see that. They wouldn’t love you if you weren’t doing shit right. That’s gotta mean something, bullshit or not. You got this job to do and nothing is going to take it away from you. At least you’re killing it. I don’t know your brother, but if he’s somewhere looking down right now, at least he knows he made the right choice leaving them to you. You can’t hide what you have with them.”
There was something in his words and tone that eased just a little of the pain cracking my heart open. Just a little. I sniffled and thought about that undying loyalty the three of us shared with each other. Maybe the situation that brought us together sucked, but I loved them more than I’d ever loved anything doubled and tripled. “They really do love me. But they always have.”
His shrug made it seem like he’d just solved some great mystery. “I don’t got any kids, but I got a lot of friends who do, and if it makes you feel better, I don’t think any of them have a fucking clue what they’re doing half the time anyway. My mom sure as hell didn’t.”
I wasn’t sure I really believed that, but I didn’t feel like arguing.
“Your brother left them to you in his will?”
I nodded and slowly leaned forward to wrap my arms around my shins, my chin going to my knees. I’d accepted that trying to keep my face dry was pointless. “Yeah. It was in his and his wife’s will. If anything ever happened to the both of them, I’d be their guardian, not my parents or the other set of grandparents. Me. Those idiots. I never even had a dog before them.” Thinking back on the months after Rodrigo passed weren’t something I liked reminiscing on, especially not when I thought about Mandy, too. What had started off with me taking the boys for a little while because she’d been out of her mind had become the last permanent thing the boys had.
He nodded, still watching me with those curious eyes that weren’t filled with hesitation for once. What happened to their mom? I could sense him asking me with his silence.
I answered him back with my own silence. There are some things you couldn’t say with words.
He stared at me for a minute before something inside of him said I get it. “I think that says it all right there,” he finally chimed in. “If you’re telling me he loved his kids enough to give you the ax if he could have, he wouldn’t have left them to you if he didn’t think you could handle it.”
No, it was Mandy who should have had them, not me. But it did end up being me, and like he’d said, there was nothing I could do to change what was already done. “Well yeah. No one’s going to love them like I do. I’m the best of the worst.” I could say that. It was the truth. I’d pulled myself out of the hole I’d been in for them when other people hadn’t been able to, and it had only been because of that love for those two boys who had stolen my heart before they’d even been born, that I’d managed.
His jaw moved and he asked, “They have more family, don’t they? I thought I’d seen their grandparents too.”
“They have another aunt, who’s great, but…” I thought of their aunt and shook my head. “I probably would have taken her to court if she’d gotten them. Knowing the boys, they would have run away to come live with me. I’m their favorite.” Saying the words out loud, this truth that I knew to the root of who I was, it made me feel better. Because it wasn’t a lie. It was something I believed and had always believed, even if I forgot about it sometimes. Who the hell else would do a better job than me? Their other aunt? In her fucking dreams. The Larsens were the best, but couldn’t handle them all the time. They were in their early seventies; they’d had their girls late in life. And my parents… they were everything good parents should be, even with their strict shit, but they’d never been the same after Rodrigo’s death. That was something I’d never admitted to anyone, not even my best friend, and chances were I never would.
My neighbor made a small sound that could have meant a dozen different things. What I noticed was that this hard, rough man seemed to lose the tightness that lived at his shoulders. He met my gaze and I didn’t move it.
I smiled at him, probably the ugliest smile in the history of smiles, and he returned it faintly.
“Thank you for saying those things and making me feel better,” I sniffled.
He shrugged like what he’d done was no big deal.
“I appreciate it.”
“All I did was sit here.” Dallas raised those shoulders again. Easy. “We all go through shit for our family that we wouldn’t do for anybody else.”
“That’s for damn sure,” I mumbled, catching on to the hook he’d thrown out and holding on because I’m nosey like that and knew little to nothing about this man who was a male figure in Josh’s life. “You let your brother live with you. I’m sure you know.” His brother seemed like an asshole.
Dallas shook his head and turned his attention on something across the street, the muscles in his shoulders and along his neck bunching. “My brother’s been a stupid piece of shit for so long he doesn’t remember how not to be one. The only reason I haven’t kicked him out is because I’m the only one he’s got left. Our mom’s had it with him. Nana’s had it with him. If I give up on him too….” He cleared his throat and glanced at me over his shoulder. His eyes were so full of some kind of imaginary weight, only I, who had the same burden, could see it. I felt like I understood. “I won’t. It doesn’t matter.”
Goose bumps rose along my arms. Family was family, and maybe this man had been an idiot before, but we understood that heavy burden. “I haven’t seen him in a while, here or at practice.”
“Me neither.”
I glanced at him. “You think he’s okay?”
“Yeah. He’s pissed off at me, nothing unusual.”
And I thought my brother had been an asshole. I hesitated and wiped at my face again with the back of my hand. “Can I ask you something?”
“I don’t know,” was his immediate response, making me sit up a little straighter.
“You don’t know what?”
“I don’t know what the hell he got into a fight over that day you helped him. He wouldn’t tell me. A couple of the guys in the club—”
Was he talking about the motorcycle club Trip was in?
“—said they heard he was fooling around with a married woman, but he wouldn’t tell me what it was about, just that it was over and that that shit wouldn’t happen again,” he explained, back to that cool voice I’d heard come out of him before tonight.
“Oh.” Well. That wasn’t where I thought that explanation was going. Over this conversation about his brother and my brother, I laid my cheek on my knee and told him, “I’m sorry about your dad, by the way. I see how much Josh and Louie hurt from it, and it’s nothing any kid should ever have to go through. I can barely get through it.”
“He’d been sick for a while,” he said almost clinically, calmly, like he’d had years to deal with it and could somehow say those words without losing his shit. “My dad’s best friend and some uncles were there for me a lot after his death. It made a huge difference in my life. I got through it because of them and my mom. As long as you’re there for them, they’ll be fine. Believe me.”
We both just sat there in silence for a while, caught up in the night, in the absence of bugs and the close semblance of quiet that was possible in a neighborhood in a major city. Slowly my grief for my brother went back to that low-level hum that never completely left but became manageable.
“Thanks for putting Josh on the team,” I finally got out for the first time.
Dallas sat forward, that lean, muscular upper body curling over his knees as his gaze cut to my direction. “I didn’t put him on the team. He earned it,” he explained.
<
br /> I eyed my neighbor as I wiped the last traces of tears from my face and sniffed. “He was the best one who tried out.”
Dallas look at me for a moment, his hand going up to the back of his neck as he did it, and with a twist of his mouth, he smiled for the second time, closed-mouth and everything. He didn’t agree or disagree. Wuss.
“It’s the truth.”
His smile curved and grew, and I would swear on my life, his cheeks went a little pink. It made me grin even as my eyes felt bloated from crying so much. I hated pity parties; I didn’t know how to deal with them.
“You know it. I know it. It’s fine. You’re trying not to play favorites. I get it.” This deep chuckle, so perfect for his voice, finally sprung out of him, and it made me sniffle one last time. Before I could stop myself, I said what I’d wanted to say to him for a while now. “You know it’s bullshit you suspended me from going to a practice.”
The chuckle grew into a laugh. “You’re still hung up on that?”
Somewhere in my conscience, I noted again that he had a really good laugh. Deep from his chest. Honest. He was still a prick for what he’d done before our truce, despite how nice he’d been to me today, but I could see myself forgiving him for it a lot faster than I would have without.
“You instigated it, and I can’t play favorites. You said it.” He chuckled for a moment before lowering his voice. “I haven’t seen that car from the other day again, by the way.”
The other…? Oh. Anita. Shit. “Me neither. I don’t think she’ll show up again. She’s probably the reason why I got a migraine today to begin with. Thanks for keeping an eye out though.”
“Sure.” With that, he stood, brushing the back of his shorts with his palms. I made myself keep my eyes on his face. “You’re gonna be fine.”
“I’m gonna be fine,” I confirmed and then used his words on him. “Thanks for… everything.” I wondered if he’d remember that term we’d used when we met for the second time.
He must have because a smile grew out of his laugh. “Yeah, you got it.” His hands went to his pockets suddenly. “I came over to see if I’d left my wallet. Mind if I take a look?”
Chapter Thirteen
“I don’t think you bought enough beer,” my dad commented in Spanish.
I shot him a look over my shoulder as I poured another two bags of ice over the bottles. “Pa, it’s Josh’s birthday. Nobody needs to be getting drunk. Come on. I bought like half the sodas, waters, and juice boxes that the grocery store carried. Everyone can get Capri Sun wasted if they want.”
He shot me back an expression that I had no doubt resembled mine all too well. “Uy. You could have bought some more, or told me and I would have.”
Only in my family did adults come to a children’s party expecting beer.
My dad had already paid for all the meat being grilled. He should have known better than to say something like that. Plus, I’d spent a horrifying chunk of my checking account balance on everything else for the party, and that was considering I’d gotten a discount from a client who owned party rental stuff for the moonwalk, tables and chairs. Luckily, I’d already owned the Slip-N-Slide.
I kept telling myself the only person whose happiness mattered today was Josh’s. And Louie’s. Everyone else could go eat a big pile of monkey shit if there wasn’t enough beer to drink, damn it. What did they think I was made of? Money?
Dear God, I was turning into my mom.
“It’ll be fine,” I mumbled to him, slapping him on the back as I headed back into the house to grab the midnight blue tablecloth I’d been reusing for the boys’ birthdays the last couple of years. Inside, my mom was hustling around the kitchen, preparing trays of vegetables and other easy finger foods I’d picked up the night before. She shot me that tight, distressed smile she always had on her face when people were going to come over.
When Drigo and I were kids and the holidays would come around, we’d hide. My mom, who was normally a very clean, very meticulous and tough-loving human being with a pretty good temper—as long as you didn’t say something she didn’t like or do something that embarrassed her—turned into a walking human nightmare. Not being around when she needed help wasn’t very nice, but the crap that came out of her mouth when she was trying to be perfect was a lot more “not nice.” A few times, Rodrigo had texted me RUN if he’d gotten wrangled into one of her moods.
And in this case, even though this was my house and it was only a bunch of kids, family members, and the nearest neighbors coming… I wasn’t expecting any differently. She’d complained about my lack of baseboard cleaning as soon as she had shown up, and then proceeded to walk around the house with a wet towel cleaning them, before going in my bathroom and the one the boys shared and making sure they didn’t have pee and poo stains all over the walls or something.
So I wasn’t ashamed of saying I had smiled at her and got the hell out of the house and her way as quickly as I could, busying myself with other things outside.
The box of decorations was right where I’d left it earlier in the living room, and I could hear the boys fighting from Josh’s room, more than likely playing video games until everyone showed up.
“Guys, will you help me decorate as soon as you get a break, please?” I called out to them, pausing in the living room with my hands holding the box to listen to their response of “Five minutes!”
I knew better. “Five minutes” was open to interpretation.
“I’m serious! Right when you’re done! The faster you help me, the faster you can get back to playing.”
They might have groaned, but they might have not. I wasn’t positive. All I heard was “Okay!” yelled back distractedly.
A girl could dream.
My mom’s back was to me in the kitchen, and I speed walked as fast as possible through it and back out the door so she wouldn’t catch me. She didn’t. Thankfully.
Surprisingly, only a few minutes later, the boys came outside. Louie immediately asked with a frown, “What’s wrong with Abuelita?”
To which I responded, “She’s a little cuckoo during parties, Goo.” The expression he shot over his shoulder as he glared at the door that led inside the kitchen made me crack up. He looked deceived and surprised. The kid had no idea my mom was crazy beneath the surface.
Between the three of us, we set up the rest of the decorations, the moonwalk looming over the yard, calling all three of our names, but somehow we focused and finished organizing everything about fifteen minutes before the time on the invitations stated the party was set to start.
“Diana, did you invite your neighbors?” my dad asked from his spot at the grill.
“Yes,” I confirmed with him for the second time. My thinking was, if I invited them, they hopefully wouldn’t complain when my visitors parked in front of their houses. Just two days ago, Louie and Josh had walked around, leaving invitations on doorsteps as I waited on the deck with Mac. I’d made them address the envelopes and almost died when I saw how Louie had spelled Dallas’s name.
“Hello!” a female voice shouted from over the other side of the fence.
All of us—my dad, Josh, Louie, and me—all turned to look in the direction we’d heard the speaker.
And sure enough, four different people peeked over the chest-high fence. Three of them were smiling; the fourth one not so much, but they were all well-known and loved faces. At the front, the taller of the two women in the group, was the face I’d just seen on television a month or two ago. Pretty, a hair older than me, and at one point, someone I resented a lot because she was so awesome and magnificent, and I was… not.
But that had only been when we’d been little kids. My cousin was nothing short of amazing, especially because she didn’t think or act like she was too cool for school. Nobody likes a stuck-up, snobby bitch, and she was nowhere even close to that. I was probably more of a stuck-up, snobby bitch than she was.
“Sal!” I yelled, waving. “Come in!”
She beamed
at me, swinging her arm over the top of the fence to undo the latch and push the door open. She filed in first, followed by her mom who was my aunt, and her dad who was my dad’s brother, and all the way at the end was her husband. I didn’t think I would ever get used to calling that man her husband. Out of the handful of times I’d met the retired soccer player, I’d probably only been able to look him in the eye twice.
Sal smiled as she walked over, her arms extended forward like she hadn’t seen me in years. Which was true, it had been almost two years since I’d last seen her in person. Living in Europe most of the year didn’t leave her with a whole bunch of time to come back home. “I’m sorry for crashing the party without RSVPing—”
“Shut up,” I mumbled, taking her in a hug. “I didn’t even know you were in town.”
“We flew in yesterday. I wanted to surprise my parents,” she explained, squeezing me. Pulling back, she grinned and I grinned back at her. Despite being two inches taller than me, we’d each inherited our dads’ eyes and leaner frames. Where hers was a work of lean, muscular art, mine was more a masterpiece of Pop-Tarts and good genes. Average: the story of my life. Slightly lighter skinned, which she got from her mom, and way more freckle-faced, the family resemblance was still there between my cousin and I. Our parents used to say that, when we were really young, we would tell everyone we were sisters. “Rey!” she called out over her shoulder.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my uncle and aunt talking to my dad, giving him hugs, and Reiner—I had a hard time not calling him by the name half the world knew him by—standing off to the side by them. At the call of his name, he said something to my dad and came over to us, all long and lean and too good-looking.
By some miracle, I managed to keep my face even. He was my favorite cousin’s promised one after all. The love of her life, for real. I wouldn’t hold it past her to cut someone if they put the moves on him. She might be well-off now, but she hadn’t always been. You could take the girl out of the hood, but you could never take the hood out of the girl.
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