“How’s she doing with her eating?” Tina’s dark blond ponytail swayed when she opened a drawer full of bars. I chose peanut butter-chocolate.
“Pretty good, I think.” I unwrapped the bar. “I watched her eat salmon, veggies, and rice a couple weeks ago at a restaurant.”
My nose wrinkled at the bar’s soy-protein smell, but I forced myself to take a bite. Once I chewed and swallowed, I realized how hungry I was. I polished off the bar in about two minutes, swigging water from my bottle between bites.
“So why’d you forget to eat today?” Tina busied herself with arranging the protein bars into neat rows in the drawer, but I knew her eagle eye still assessed me.
“It was stupid. I got caught up doing bio and chem labs.”
She shut the drawer and studied me. “You know, loss of appetite could be a symptom of depression.”
What? “I’m not depressed. I’ve just been busy.”
“Okay.” She patted my knee. “I heard…”
I braced myself.
“I heard you were going through a tough time.” She patted my knee again, and I held my breath. “Breakups can be painful.”
My nose burned. Don’t cry. “Who told you about Jaylon?”
“That doesn’t matter.” She shrugged. “Athletic trainers, we hear things. I know you two dated for a while, so I wondered how you were doing. Want to talk about it?”
I hopped off the table. “No. I’m fine.” I rocketed from the room before yet another person witnessed my breakdown over my breakup. “Thanks, Tina,” I said from the door. Time to stink up the gym some more.
Following a quick shower after practice, I was almost fully clothed when Lucia entered the locker room. She tossed her shoes into her locker as I zipped up my boots. I watched a completely nude Nina saunter to the showers—she’d obviously been hitting the tanning bed. Shaking my head, I grabbed my backpack. “Have a good night, Rez.”
“Wait, don’t leave.” She unlaced her ankle braces. “I wanted to see if you’d come over for dinner. Will you wait for me to get dressed?”
The hopeful look in her eyes made me pause. “I have to write a lab report tonight.”
“Please? Dane’s playing at Ball State…” As the university’s name rolled off her tongue, she started snickering like the freshman she was. “And I don’t have anyone to eat with. No one to, you know, support me at mealtime.” She tilted her head and peered up at me.
What an obvious ploy to get me to come over. We both knew damn well she was recovering like a champ. My eyes narrowed.
“Please, Maddie?”
My dad’s ring tone blasted from my backpack, and I sighed. “Fine. I’ll wait for you in the hallway.”
“¡Gracias, amiga!”
What a manipulator. I jogged to the hallway to the beat of “Superfreak” by Rick James—my dad’s favorite artist—and managed to answer the call before it went to voice mail. “Hey, Dad.”
“Finally I catch you. Have you been avoiding me?”
I grimaced. “Sorry.”
“I thought today’s college students relied too much on their parents—calling them five times a day, asking them to write papers. But you I never hear from.”
My dad taught history at Cuyahoga Community College and often complained about overinvolved parents. “How many calls have you gotten from parents wanting you to change their kid’s grades?”
“Hmm, about five so far. But it’s only February—the semester’s still young. Are you going to tell me what’s been going on?”
“Stop pretending you don’t already know. I’m sure Braxton talked to you.”
He paused. “Well, we both know that boy can’t keep a secret.”
I shook my head, remembering when I was thirteen and got my period. Braxton had overheard me on the phone telling a track teammate about it, and to my horror, he’d ratted me out to Dad. I’d about died. Fortunately, Dad had enlisted Nana’s help. My grandmother had been discreet in her delivery of both the feminine products and the lesson on how to use them.
My dad let the line go silent, and I looked around to make sure the hallway was still empty. I backed up against the wall. “So you know Jaylon broke up with me.”
“Yeah, uh…sorry about that.” Dad’s voice hitched, like he was nervous. “You’ll be, um, you’ll be better off without him.”
Would I? It sure didn’t feel that way.
“You meet any new men yet?”
“Dad.” I exhaled. “You’re not helping. I’m nowhere near ready to date another guy.” Though I had to admit I’d been thinking about Alejandro, or Jandro, as I’d been referring to him in my head. “You can’t make this all go away with the snap of your fingers, you know.”
“Sorry. This…this is probably something your mother would handle better.”
My face flushed. Why’d he have to bring her up? This was precisely the reason I hadn’t called him.
“Sorry,” he said again. “I know you don’t like me talking about her.”
Make it stop. I tried to think of something to distract him. “What did Nana say?”
Dad snorted, and then sounded less anxious. “She said, ‘’Bout time Maddie dumped that dumbass boy.’”
The image of my feisty grandmother made me grin. She’d never thought Jaylon was my intellectual equal, and she’d been right that school wasn’t really his thing. But she’d been wrong about the rest: I hadn’t been the dumper. I’d been the dumpee.
“Jaylon’s not dumb—he just doesn’t care about school. At least he’s managed to keep his GPA above two point oh.” I pictured his muscular body sprawled out on the bed as he frowned at a textbook. But what he lacked academically, he made up for physically. He was one of the best athletes I’d ever known. He was going places. I frowned as I realized again he wouldn’t be taking me with him to said places.
Dad asked another question, but the chime of an incoming text distracted me. I held my phone out from my ear, expecting to see a text alert, but there wasn’t one. Huh? The ding had sounded so close. Was someone nearby?
“Maddie?” Dad asked.
When I crept around the corner, I froze. Jaylon was backing away, his phone in his hand, staring at me with big eyes. Busted.
“You’re eavesdropping?” I hissed.
He squinted. “You’re raggin’ on my GPA?”
My mouth popped open. He had been listening!
Dad spoke again. “Maddie, everything all right?”
I realized I still held my phone to my ear. “Gotta go, Dad—I’ll call you later.” Once I ended the call, I glared at Jaylon. “What’re you doing here?”
His eyes widened even more as he backed away.
“I told you I never wanted to talk to you again! Didn’t you get the message?”
“Got it.” He swallowed, drawing my attention to his Adam’s apple and smooth, solid neck. He wore the braided gold chain I hated—the one that made him look like a thug. “I’ll leave.”
Blood rushed in my ears at the thought of him walking out of my life yet again. “No, don’t.” A line creased his forehead. “How…” I took a shaky breath. “How could you think I didn’t love you?”
“Mads.” His gentle voice made me want to run to him and curl up in his arms. “Don’t put this on me. You didn’t let me in.” He pushed his lips out as he shook his head. “You don’t let anyone in.”
As I tried to make sense of his words, a flash of blond streaked past me.
“Jay Jay!” Nina called as she bounded up to him.
My heart stopped. Nina? He was here to see Nina? No wonder he’d been tucked around the corner, hiding from me. Had he been sneaking around after other practices, too?
“Aw, fuck,” Jaylon muttered.
Nina appraised me. “Thought you’d left already.”
My legs shook. This wasn’t happening—Nina was dating the star quarterback of the football team, right? I reached for the wall to hold me up. “But, but Nina’s with TJ Tinton.”
Her nose wrinkled. “We broke up over a month ago.”
Oh, God. Jaylon cheated on me with my teammate. I splayed my hand out on the wall as my mind raced. I’m not good enough. He doesn’t want me. I’m not good enough to keep him here.
Jaylon looked away, and I studied his profile—his strong nose, the ripple of muscle working at the base of his jaw. I’d believed we might get back together, but now I knew that belief was a delusion. Between panicked breaths, I finally spoke. “You’re with her?” I hated the tremble in my voice, but I hated even more how Jaylon wouldn’t look at me. “You cheated on me with Nina?”
“No, girl!” He whipped his head to look at me. “Don’t you pin that on me.” He took another step back. “We didn’t hook up till you and I ended things.”
Right. No wonder he’d acted so distant. “You cheated on me with a teammate.”
His jaw went slack. “Don’t you listen? I said—”
“Maddie?”
I turned to see Lucia. She inched toward me and clasped my arm, like she knew I was about to collapse. “What’s happening?”
“Maddie thinks Jaylon cheated with me,” Nina said. When she leaned into him and rubbed her cheek on his shoulder, I wanted to hurl. “But she’s wrong.”
Lucia gasped. “You’re with Jaylon? You don’t waste any time, do you, Nina?”
“This is none of your business.” Her blue eyes narrowed.
“Actually, it’s none of yours,” Lucia said. “Maddie and Jaylon dated for three years. They need time to work this out. Ven acá.” She curled her fingers toward her open palm, beckoning Nina. “Let’s give them some space to talk.”
“Hell, no.” Nina shook her head. “He’s been wanting to leave her for months!” She looked at Jaylon. “Right?”
A sob caught in my throat as I sagged against Lucia’s hold. Had he ever loved me?
Lucia launched into a Spanish diatribe—I had no idea what she was saying but her fury was obvious.
Jaylon didn’t speak the language, but he was savvy enough to know when he was being insulted. Or when his girlfriend—I felt bile in my throat as I thought of Nina that way—was being disrespected.
He took a step toward Lucia. “Listen, freshman, you don’t know jack—”
“Party’s over,” Allison said, appearing at Lucia’s side. I hadn’t even seen her, but of course she was there. “Let’s go, Lucia.” She kept her gaze trained on Jaylon as she pulled Lucia back.
“Not without Maddie!” Lucia tugged my arm. “C’mon. Let me get you out of here.”
Weak and numb, I surrendered to being swept off by Secret Service. As I touched wetness on my cheek, I knew why she’d looked so alarmed.
I was crying. Again.
Chapter Six
I GAZED OUT THE TINTED WINDOW of the SUV. When I saw the Washington Monument, I knew we were close to my parents’ house. This would be my first visit to their new residence, and to prepare myself, I’d studied up on the stats: one hundred thirty-two rooms and thirty-five bathrooms centered on eighteen acres of land. The recent exterior paint job had taken three hundred gallons of paint. White paint.
At a stoplight, a woman crossed the street in front of us. She wore tall, black, high-heeled boots, and her swagger said she knew she commanded men’s attention. But I knew a girl who looked even sexier in tall boots. A girl whose legs went on for days, not even needing heels since she was over six feet tall.
¡Dios! Maddie had consumed my thoughts again. Two weeks since my visit to Highbanks, and I couldn’t get Lucia’s teammate out of my head. Not only did Maddie and I have our college athletic experiences in common, we had our futures in medicine. I knew she could reach her lofty goals. She was that kind of talented.
But what I thought of most was how beautiful she was when she cried. She’d seemed embarrassed by her tears, and I still felt like a total cad that I’d caused them. Still, I couldn’t deny her alluring softness as beads of glass spilled down her smooth, brown skin. The tenderness in her gaze when I’d brushed them away…
Brad’s wolf whistle brought me back to the vehicle. We were still stopped at the light, and I looked to my left to see Miss Long Boots sashay from the crosswalk onto the sidewalk. “Day-um,” Brad said as he watched her walk away. “You can pin me down with that boot any day, sugar. Rub that heel right into my chest.”
I rolled my eyes.
The light changed, and Brad pressed on the accelerator. Next to me in the backseat, China leaned forward. “Gettin’ horny as we approach La Casa, Bradley?”
He laughed. “Sí, mamacita.”
I pursed my lips. I knew La Casa was the agents’ code name for the White House now that my family had moved in. But why would Brad feel horny?
We maneuvered around to the back of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I thought we’d enter through one of two heavily guarded gates, but we rolled past them. Marines were everywhere, and I assumed there were many more I couldn’t see. Their stony expressions made my stomach clench. I hadn’t heard from my buddy Jake in a few weeks; communication was a challenge in Afghanistan. If Jake hadn’t needed a Naval ROTC scholarship to afford college, he could’ve joined me at TCU. But he’d attended Texas A&M and was now a second lieutenant, risking his life overseas.
We rounded the corner of our country’s most notorious house, and I braced my hand against the armrest when it appeared Brad was driving us into a brick wall. But then the “wall” slid to the right, revealing the Secret Service entrance. I glanced at China, who smirked at me. I placed my hand back in my lap.
“Officers Jansen and Halloway,” Brad told the marine who stopped us.
The guard checked his computer. “Who’re you transporting, Jansen?”
“Fernando.”
“Proceed.” The marine gestured to his left.
But Brad didn’t move the vehicle. “I expect my fifty bucks before we leave, Richards.”
“Fucking Jets.” The marine scowled. “You got lucky this time, jackoff.” Then he glanced at me in the backseat, and straightened, resuming his stiff expression. “Sir.”
Brad cackled as he rolled up the window and drove us down the ramp to an underground garage. “Can’t believe he thought his lame-ass Cowboys would beat my Jets.”
Neither team had made the NFL playoffs this year, so Brad must have bet him back in December. “Richards cheers for Dallas?” I asked.
Brad nodded.
“Is he from Texas?”
“Yeah.” Brad turned to face me after parking the car. “Why?”
I shrugged. Sometimes I felt homesick for the Lone Star State, especially on a chilly February day in DC.
As we headed into the building, I asked, “Why am I called Fernando?”
“That’s on a need-to-know basis,” China said.
“Well, I need to know.”
“And we need you not to know.” Her gelled brown hair didn’t move an inch as she shook her head.
Oh, China. She lived to antagonize. I understood why Dane had made a break for it last fall. Anything to get away from her for a few hours.
Brad punched in a code for the elevator, which we rode up to the ground floor from deep underground. “Mr. Ramirez.” China smiled at me during our ascent, which gave me pause. “We’re stopping first at our supervisor’s office. She wants to be sure we’re taking good care of you.”
That’s why she was smiling. She didn’t want me to complain about her.
Brad was less subtle. “I’m sure you’ll put in a good word for us, Fernando.” He thumped my shoulder as we stepped out of the elevator and walked down a busy hallway. Several staffers tried to hide their stares when I passed, but they did a piss-poor job of it. The public scrutiny was already getting old, less than one month into my father’s presidency.
My agents came to attention on either side of me once we made it to their supervisor’s office. When the woman stood and rounded the desk, she was solidly built, though not as muscular as bodybuilder China. “I’m Senior Officer West.” She
shook my hand. “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Ramirez.”
Did I have a choice in the matter? I nodded.
“How have officers Halloway and Jansen been treating you, sir?”
China seemed to stiffen next to me, but Brad appeared calm. “It’s an adjustment to have protection around the clock, but they’ve been fine. Thank you for protecting my family. I’d like to see them now, if I could?”
“Of course. I’ll leave you to it.” She smiled. “Officer Halloway will escort you upstairs. Officer Jansen, please stay.” Her eyelids lowered a fraction and something shifted in her smile. “I want to review your performance.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Brad’s voice held a hint of excitement.
I tilted my head on our way out. Brad and his boss weren’t about to get it on, were they? I glanced at China, who moved with efficiency as she scanned the hallway. If I asked her about it, I’d likely get another lecture on what I didn’t need to know.
We climbed the stairs to the first level and entered an ornate sitting room with mint green walls, fuchsia chairs, and a gleaming chandelier. China dipped her shoulder and opened her palm with a flourish. “May I present the Green Room, sir.”
The stiff introduction by a modern bodybuilder in the antiquated setting jarred me. “Knock it off, China. Where’s my mom?”
“I heard you were here!” My mother entered with her arms extended, and I walked into her hug. I noticed a male agent coming in behind her.
“Mamá.” As I patted her back, I felt my shoulders relax for the first time since we’d left my condo in Baltimore. The White House felt strange and formal, but Sylvia Ramirez could turn any house into a home.
She let go and studied me. “Have you been eating enough?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want to have to worry about you like I do with Lucia.”
“You don’t have to. And Lucy’s doing fine.” Except for falling into moral turpitude. I glanced at China. She stood near the wall next to the male agent, but she looked straight ahead.
“Have you been praying? Have you gone to confession?”
I groaned. Mom was always on me about church. “I thought this little interrogation you’re conducting would suffice for confession.”
Aced (Blocked Book 2) Page 6