by Marie Harte
“Hey, you got a hot girlfriend. Suck up to her and see if she’ll make you something good.”
Foley frowned. “Yeah, but Cyn can’t do tamales. That takes authentic work, man.” He glanced around. “Don’t tell her I said that. Ever.”
Johnny gave an evil laugh. “What’s it worth to you? Maybe some pizzelles for the gang the next time she makes them? Like tonight?”
Not a bad choice. Lou loved the anise-flavored Italian cookies.
“Blackmail, Johnny?” Foley cringed.
“You know it.”
Foley sighed. “My own fault for forgetting who I’m with.”
“Who’s that?” Sam asked.
“Satan’s minions. And look, our whip-wielding tormenter herself.”
Del paused in step, having just come back from a coffee run. She sipped her drink, frowned, and said, “What?”
“Cracccckkk,” Johnny whispered, and the guys laughed.
She glared, dragged a jagged fingernail across her throat, and barked, “Back to work.” Then she darted into her office.
“Aye, aye, captain,” Foley muttered. “I swear, if she had an eye patch and a parrot, she could be Blackbeard’s evil sister.”
“Say it a little louder, Foley. I don’t think Captain Death heard you,” Sam encouraged, and they all looked to Del’s open office doorway.
No one spoke.
Lou, content with his world at present, got back to work, singing along with Clapton, much to the annoyance of his peers. Ah, life is good.
He made a quick stop at Heller’s after leaving the garage. He noted the metallic-green paint job on a Mazda that had been yellow last week. Nicely done. He checked on the pieces in his bay, realizing the power buffer had done its work. A few more touch-ups, some fine sanding to the driver’s side door, and he’d probably be ready to paint in a few days. Mateo had helped out because the Corvette now needed to be done early. The owner was paying through the nose to have it ready for a car show in California he’d added to his to-do list.
Lou nodded, pleased at the progress. He waved to Smith, leaving through the back, then went to check the main office. He planned to say hi to Heller if the guy was in, which of course he was. Heller had no life. When not working at the shop, he went home or, more recently, could be found tutoring the guys at darts at Ray’s. Poor Foley actually thought he might be able to beat Johnny someday. The sap.
“Yo, you heading home soon?” he asked, frowning when he saw Heller with his head in his hands, staring at his uncluttered desktop. “Heller?” After a pause. “Axel, you okay?”
When Heller glanced up, Lou saw tears in his eyes.
“Shit, man, you okay? What’s wrong?”
Heller blinked, but the glassy shine remained. “You should go home. The car is where it needs to be.”
“Hey, it’s me. What’s up?” Lou asked, his voice quiet.
Heller stared at him, the raw emotion making his dark-blue eyes nearly black. “My mother. She’s gone.”
Lou prayed he was wrong in his assumption. “Gone as in left your father, finally?” he asked, daring to hope.
Heller shook his head. “The cancer. It took the rest of her.”
“Damn. I’m so sorry.” He hadn’t known she had cancer. Lou had only met Heller’s mom once, and she’d been a hell of a woman. Loud, brash, and loving toward her only son. Unlike the guy’s father, Heller’s mom had been a genuinely nice person. “I had no idea she was sick.”
“None of us did.” Heller sighed, wiped his eyes, and stood. “I’m going home.”
“Want some company?” Lou asked, knowing he’d miss Joey, but Heller needed a friend.
“Nein. I have things to do. Plans to make. The funeral…”
“You need anything, I’m here for you, man.”
Heller moved around the desk and grabbed Lou by the shoulders. Then he pulled him in for a bone-crushing hug. “Danke, Lou. Danke.”
“You’re welcome. Look, take some time. Okay? You need anything, call me. Need me to handle the shop for you? No problem. I mean it.”
Heller gave a watery smile, then shoved Lou toward the door. “Leave so I can lock up.”
“Okay. Man, I’m so sorry.”
Heller nodded. Lou left, his step a lot heavier than when he’d arrived. As he drove to his mom’s for a midweek meal, he thought about how he’d feel if she passed away. As much as he’d had some real problems with her growing up, he loved the hell out of Renata Cortez. She was by no means perfect, but she was his mom. No matter how many bad choices she made in men or how many siblings she ended up giving him—and, God willing, Rosie was the last—he had a soft spot for the beautiful, naive, too-giving woman who’d raised him.
At fifty-five, his mother should be thinking about retirement, not more children. At least his aunts had tapered off on the kids, mostly. Except for Tía Chavela, who wanted a boy after two girls. Crazy woman. Didn’t she have enough proof that the Cortez family only made girls? He and Javier were anomalies, the only boys in a family of a bazillion women.
Sadly, not one of his aunts had found a lasting love. Two had husbands they’d loved who had died. Three, counting Mama, because she’d loved Rosie’s daddy, and he’d been a decent guy. The rest of her sisters had grown up with Abuela in Cuernavaca, outside of Mexico City. Moving to the States thirty years ago, they’d forged new lives for themselves. But he could count on one hand the number of stand-up men in their lives since his grandfather had died.
Hell, Lou had been his own role model growing up. After that small stint in a juvenile correctional facility and an even more interminable sentence passed by the women in his family, he’d found the straight and narrow.
Now he spent his time caring for his sisters, trying to make sure they found happiness and stability. Carla and Maria were the most centered. Both had educations and happy social lives. Stella needed help, so he kept an eye on her. Lucia, she remained a mystery. But she liked it that way. Of all his sisters, he worried about her the least. Then Rosie, the youngest, his baby girl. The closest thing he’d ever get to a daughter.
Lou had spent his lifetime raising children. He wanted freedom from that responsibility. Time for romance, no one woman but a bevy of monogamous lovers. Lou liked his women one at a time, focusing his attention on just one.
Like Joey.
He parked along the street in front of his mother’s house and sat there.
Joey. What to do about her? Unlike all the others, and Lou admitted there had been many women in his life who weren’t family, Joey Reeves absorbed all his attention. She had his dick in a knot for sure, but she tampered with his emotions without meaning to.
They’d texted back and forth throughout the week, little things about their days or something that struck them as funny. Yet for all their communication, there remained a wall between them. Normally Lou encouraged such distance, wanting fun and not much else by way of a one-to-one sexual commitment. But with Joey, he wanted more.
He’d actually thought about inviting her tonight, to a family meal. Lou didn’t do that. His sisters occasionally met a girlfriend if they all went out, and that had happened maybe half a dozen times. Ever. But he never brought anyone home to Abuela or Mama. And sure as shit not to Rosie.
He’d grown up watching a carousel of men swing past his door while they romanced his pretty mom. No way. No how. Family was life, and he would do nothing to fuck that up. Not when he’d spent his childhood, adolescence, and every waking moment patching up the holes left by a loving, if at times thoughtless, mother.
With a sigh, he left the car and joined everyone in the house. As usual, he left money on the fridge. Tonight, everyone had gathered upstairs, not in the basement. He saw his sisters, Javier and Javier’s mom, Tía Guadalupe, and her two girls as well. “Hey, Abuela.” He gave his frail grandma a kiss, and she smacked him. “Ow.
What’s that for?”
As they went to sit in the dining room around his mother’s giant table, she answered in Spanish, and he switched channels in his brain automatically, realizing the entire household had gone off-English. “What?”
Abuela moved down the table to sit by her daughters while the others brought in tostadas, mole, refried beans, and more homemade goodness and set them in the center of the table. The youngest, Rosie and Stella, set places and handed out silverware. Then everyone sat to eat.
He was still rubbing his arm when his grandmother asked, “Where is this flower girl? I want to meet her.”
Well, shit.
Chapter 13
Lou blinked. “What?” Despite having mentioned Joey the last time everyone had gathered, he’d thought they would have forgotten her by now. Lou had lots of girlfriends. No biggie.
“Stella.” His grandma pointed to his smirking sister, drinking lemonade next to Lucia farther down the table. “She tells us all about how you are sick in the heart for this woman.”
Lou glared at his sneaky sister. “No, Abuela. Joey is nice, but—”
“Are you embarrassed of us? Is that it?”
He shook his head. “Of course not, I just—”
“So why isn’t she here? We should be looking her over, seeing if she is good enough to go out with my handsome grandson.” She handed a bowl of chilaquiles to Guadalupe, then everyone followed, passing the food around.
Lucia cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone. “And good enough for my wonderful brother,” she said loudly. Like he couldn’t hear her from where he sat. Jesus, what a pain.
“My Guapo,” Maria said, batting her eyelashes at him. “Whom I love sooo much.”
“Laying it on a bit thick, eh?” he grumbled.
“And my lovely nephew,” Tía Guadalupe had to say. She nudged Javier. “Right, Son?”
Lou smirked at his cousin, the poor kid. “Yeah, J. Listen to Tía Guadalupe.”
J. grimaced and gave Lou a pained shrug. “Ah, sure, Mama. Whatever you say.”
Lou drew on his patience as he scooped beans and rice onto his plate before passing the bowls. “Look, if I bring her here, you’ll scare her away. Besides, we’re new. Sure, everything now is fun and exciting. But that stuff fades. You know how it is. We’ll go our separate ways in a while. We’ll probably stay friends, but that’s it.”
What he couldn’t say was that she’d been different from the beginning. And friendship had never been the end-all he wanted from her. What he did want he couldn’t quantify, not yet.
“Bring her to meet me then,” his mother said. “Just me. I won’t scare her off.”
“Well, I’ll see,” was all he’d commit to, though he had no intention of bringing Joey to meet anyone. Or did he?
To his chagrin, the thought of having his family close, and Joey closer, tempted him. She would fit in with a Wednesday night Cortez meal. She had a sweetness to her that would call to his mother’s, grandmother’s, and aunts’ protective instincts. Plus, Joey was kind. Rosie would take to her right off, he knew. And Rosie could be particular when it came to friendships.
And why the hell am I trying to fit Joey into my family? He wanted to pull his hair out, especially when they stared at him pushing the food around on his plate. At his grandmother’s raised brow, he lied. “I ate earlier.” He hadn’t eaten since the banana Del had forced on him midmorning.
“Hmm.” Abuela grinned at him. She whispered something to Guadalupe that had the older woman laughing her head off, which got his mother involved, then Lucia. The group talked about him in low whispers, as if he couldn’t see them pointing, staring, and laughing at him.
“I’m right here,” he growled.
Rosie giggled.
Near enough to hear them, J. grimaced and said to Lou, “You don’t want to know.”
Lou sighed. “Why me?”
Dinner passed swiftly enough, mostly with the ladies making fun of him and teasing Javier about a new girl at school. Feeling for the boy, he took the fourteen-year-old aside after dinner, and they went out to look at Guadalupe’s car.
“The engine keeps pinging, and Mama’s filling up the tank too much. I think maybe the timing is off,” J. said.
“Could be.” Not bad for the little mechanic-in-training. “Want to come down to the garage with me next week to work on it?”
J. lit up. “Yeah, man. That’d be cool, primo.”
“Not guapo? Just primo?” Frankly, Lou preferred handsome over the pedestrian cousin.
J. gagged. “You ain’t that pretty to me.”
Lou grinned. “You trying to talk smack, J.? Man, ain’t you cute.”
“Shit. You might be big, but me and my boys could tear you up if we wanted to. Not that I’d let them, since you’re family and all,” J. teased.
At mention of his “boys,” Lou knew the time had come for a little talk. He stared J. down.
J. flushed. “Kidding, man. Geez, Lou. Take a joke, why don’t you.”
“Yeah? I think you’re funny. Until I hear you’re hanging with some bad-news guys.” He’d had a quick discussion with Guadalupe earlier when she’d cornered him on his way out of the bathroom. “Stay away from Paul Lasko and Diego Suarez.”
J. blinked. “How do you know about them?” He groaned. “Mama told you.”
“You think those punks own your high school?” Lou snorted. “Try again. They work for Toto.”
“That’s what they said, but I doubt it.”
“Don’t. Toto has a hand in a lot of schools. And I know for a fact anyone who associates or talks about associating with him is in for a world of hurt. Right now, the Righteous are ready to move on his house.”
“No way.” A white-power gang had it in for the Mexican stronghold on drugs in the city schools around their area. “Dang.”
“So if your friends think they can run shit for Toto and talk big about it? Those two are headed for trouble. Especially because word has it the feds are soon going to be up Toto’s ass right after they put the Righteous away. You don’t want to be near any of it when it goes down.”
J. frowned. “How do you know all this?” He gasped. “You a narc?”
“Please.” Lou laughed at the thought of ever cooperating with the cops. Not that he didn’t respect the law, but you only lived so long as people trusted you. And in his line of work—completely legal now, of course—a lot of his customers tended to have strained relationships with the law. “I have a lot of friends, and I work on a lot of cars, the kind with rich owners. Not all of them got rich from stock options on Wall Street. These businessmen, they hear things. You get me?”
J. nodded, looking relieved.
“So keep your distance from Lasko and Suarez.”
“I hear you.” J. was a smart kid. He’d do the right thing.
Or Lou would hand him his balls one by one, yank him out of that school, and straight-up send him to the military academy his aunt had been thinking about.
J. kicked a rock around. “I’ll stay away, but… They might not like it.”
“You have any problems at all, you mention my name. Then you tell them anyone who fucks with you fucks with the guy working on Mantego’s wheels. And that unlucky guy is gonna have to answer to me first, Mantego second.”
J. swallowed. “No problem.”
Mantego ran the streets in many parts of Seattle. He’d been rumored to have been involved in the House, where Sam used to do his illegal fights before the place had been shut down. Mantego owned a bunch of clubs around town, and he policed his own. Even the cops gave the gunrunner a wide berth. Personally, Lou had no problem with the guy. He was funny and had a head for numbers. Lou liked him.
Lou grabbed J. close and shook him. “You mess around with those assholes, and I’ll be forced to take action. The kind that gets
you jail time. Think about this: I go, who takes care of all our women? You?”
J. paled.
“That’s right. We have responsibilities to our family. Family is first. Family is everything. Not some punk drug-dealer wannabes. Keep your nose clean, and the only thing we have to talk about are the car and your new girlfriend. What’s her name again?”
J. flushed. “Angela. But she’s not my girlfriend yet.”
Lou studied his cousin, seeing the same good looks that kept his entire family in trouble with the opposite sex. And in his cousin Salome’s case, the same sex. “Nah, you got this. Remember to be charming, not just good-looking, and you’ll do fine.”
“I’m a stud.” J. laughed. “So hard being so sexy, eh, Guapo?”
“Shut it, little man.” He shoved the kid in a playful way, satisfied Javier would be okay.
“Hey, at least I’m honest. You think you’re seriously hiding anything from the family? They all know about the flower chick and—”
“Her name is Joey.”
“—that you’re in love with her. Stella told them.” J. burst into gales of laughter as Lou tickled and mock-wrestled him before dragging him back to the house in a headlock. “Help, Mama,” J. said, half laughing, half semistrangling on Lou’s biceps. “Primo is being mean to me.”
Guadalupe and Lou’s mother ignored him. His grandmother rolled her eyes. “Eh. Boys.”
Stella sighed. “Poor J. We should help him.”
“I’m not dealing with all that,” Carla said and stepped back, munching on chips.
Rosie barreled into them and dragged J. away. “I’ll save you, Guapo.”
“There’s my favorite sister.” He shot his other sisters dirty looks.
J. stared at her. “Save him? I’m the one getting beaten up.”
“Yeah, but if you hurt Guapo, the flower lady might not come over, and I really want to meet her. Lou’s in love.”
J. laughed at Lou’s expression. So did the others.
Lou glared. “Stella…”
“Hey, I’m single and pinning all my hopes on you. I need to see a real relationship succeed before I’m scarred for life.” She sounded way too smug to be sad, to his way of thinking. “Besides, I like her. I told everyone about her.”