“At a friend’s,” Mom said. “She’ll be sorry she missed Mateo, though.”
A silence fell over the deck then, as we all watched the water curling up to cover the sand and then pulling back out to gather strength again. It was hypnotic, and made enough noise to cover the awkward silence, pounding the beach just forty feet from where we sat.
“I guess I should see about dinner,” Mom said.
When she’d gone back in through the slider, Teddy shook his head. “Notice how she says that. It almost makes it sound like she cooks.” He chuckled at his own joke, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Mom directing a couple of white-clad servers in the kitchen.
“Mom does cook,” Mateo said. “Or she used to. She was a good cook.”
“Oh, she can make Mexican food pretty well,” Teddy agreed. There was something about the way he said “Mexican food” that made it sound like he was saying “dog food.” “But she’s better off paying a cook for anything else. You know, anything you’d want to serve company.”
Mateo and I exchanged a glance that seemed to say it wasn’t worth the fight. I couldn’t figure out if it was a compliment that Teddy had referred to us as company.
After a few more minutes, Mom invited us inside and we took seats around a long table set up just in front of the wall of windows. There wasn’t a place in Teddy’s house where the Pacific Ocean wasn’t front and center. It really was impressive, and I couldn’t help but admire the architecture. The place had a Spanish Mission feeling on the outside, but managed a beach cottage feel in the interior, mixing driftwood sculpture and clean lines with blues and greens. It was open and light, but substantial and solid at the same time. The table where we sat was a long, solid slab—a cross-section cut from a single tree and lacquered to a high shine. The edges still held the bark that had covered the tree, making an unusual and asymmetric shape.
Once dinner was on the table, Teddy turned to me again. “So I guess if you go back down to Mexico it won’t matter, but I’ve got a big job coming up, Rob. Could use some help on one of the crews.”
I raised my eyebrows, not sure what to say. Had I asked him for work? “I’ve got a job right now. Thanks, though.”
It was his turn to look surprised. “Oh, Francine didn’t mention it.”
“I didn’t know you were working, Rob. That’s wonderful.” She pushed some salad around on her plate. “What are you doing?”
“Handyman stuff,” I said, hating that it sounded so unimpressive. But it wasn’t like I could announce suddenly that I was a lawyer and have anyone buy that.
“I see,” Teddy said, sniffing. “When you finish up, then. Come work for me? It’s nothing fancy, but I can promise you steady work. Seems like more than you’ve had in a while.”
Mateo was watching us with interest, chewing slowly as his eyes narrowed at Teddy. “Rob’s got a business to run back in Mexico,” he said. “When he’s done at the shop, he’ll come home.”
I shot Mateo a look that suggested he should pipe down, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was locked in a silent battle of wills with Teddy across the table. The tension was palpable.
“Might be overstating things a bit, don’t you think? Enrique is still alive, isn’t he?” Teddy raised an eyebrow.
“Papi’s still alive, yes. But he needs help. Things have changed.” Mateo directed that last part to me.
It was strange, sitting there silently as the people around me debated my future. They seemed to feel justified in doing so, like they were helping me by making my plans, choosing the course of my life. I leaned back in my chair, bitterness flooding my bloodstream. At what point had I become so fucking pathetic that my family had decided I couldn’t forge my own path? Or had I been so absent from my own life since the accident that I hadn’t noticed it happening? I’d stepped away, curled in on myself in a lot of ways. I’d needed time. Had to figure things out. Fuck, I’d basically had to learn how to walk again. And I still couldn’t talk right. But did that mean I was incapable of determining my own future? Was I that fucked up?
These thoughts swirled through my brain as bitterness turned to anger, and the anger flared through my bloodstream until I was filled with a hot rage. I could hear my pulse pounding in my own ears, and it drowned out whatever my mom was saying as her lips moved and her eyes darted in my direction. I didn’t plan what happened next, I just knew I couldn’t sit there any longer with my life splayed open on the table for them to dissect.
I pushed back from the table, my chair flying onto its side behind me with a crash.
Every eye turned, trained on me.
“That’s enough,” I said, trying to reign in my raging emotions, flexing my hands open and closed as if I could somehow pump the adrenaline out of my system. As it was, the rush of emotions—the anger, the shame—it made it almost impossible to pull together a thought, to explain myself. I stared at my mother, her eyes wide and pleading, and then shook my head. “Thanks,” I muttered. I righted the chair with a whispered “sorry,” and turned for the door. When I’d gotten to the driveway, I remembered that Mateo had driven. I stood in the concrete circle in front of the house under a darkening indigo sky, and waited. The island was still and silent as dusk settled. Except for the scream of a seagull somewhere overhead and the distant crash of the unrelenting ocean, it was quiet. My blood slowly cooled, rationality coming back and allowing my thoughts to organize themselves again. I’d been an asshole. As usual. But there was no way I was going back inside to apologize. I leaned my forehead against the sun-warmed metal of Mateo’s car and waited.
After a few minutes, I heard the front door open again. Mom and Mateo came out and I watched them approach, shame settling over me.
“I guess we’ll be heading out,” Mateo said, grinning at me. “Sure know how to make an exit, bro.” He slapped me on the back and gave my mother a big hug. “It was good to see you, Mama. Come visit sometime.” He walked around to the driver’s side, leaving me to face my mother.
I shook my head slowly. “I’m sorry, Ma…”
She pulled me into her arms and I felt her frail bones as she squeezed me tight. “It will be okay, Roberto. You’ll see. All of this will settle. It will be okay.” She released me and stepped back, a sad smile on her face and her eyes shining with unshed tears. “I just want you to be happy.”
I glanced past her, dreading the moment when Teddy appeared again, but he seemed content to stay in the house. Small blessings. “Thanks.” I kissed her cheek and turned, climbing into the big car and pulling the door closed behind me.
Mateo didn’t speak until we were crossing the bridge, San Diego’s lit-up skyline filling the window as we descended the span toward the mainland. “I don’t get it, man,” he said, running a hand across the back of his neck.
I stared at him, waiting for him to continue.
“I mean, you’ve got it all laid out. Come home. You’ve got one-third of a successful business, a place to live, meaningful work, family around you. What else do you want?”
I watched the freeway rising to meet us as we headed north again, bracing my hands against the dashboard as my mind churned. What did I want? “I don’t know.”
“It’d be so easy, Rob. And we need you, man.” Mateo glanced at me.
I couldn’t find the words to explain how I was feeling. That I was tempted, but maybe I needed to make my own future, find my own way out of the darkness that had chased me for a year now. “It’s not the right time,” I managed.
“Fuck you, Rob. Someone hands you everything you ever wanted on a silver platter…you don’t ask him to hold on to it so you can go grab a quick snack. You take it.”
Apologies were becoming my go-to response. “Sorry.” I was sorry, but he was right. And I wanted him to stay there, keep holding out this offer for as long as he was willing, just in case.
“You’re sorry, eh?” He bit his lip as his hands flexed on the wheel. “This is about the girl.”
“Maybe.” I didn’
t know. I didn’t want to admit how big a part Dani played in my reluctance to leave, but I couldn’t deny it, either. There was something there, and if I left now I’d spend the rest of my life wondering what might have happened if I’d stayed.
“How much longer will she need you, man? It doesn’t take that long to build shelves. Another week? Two? And then what? You’ll go do menial labor on one of Teddy’s crews so he can treat you like a fucking undocumented migrant farm worker?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then what? What’s your big plan?”
His questions were hard to hear. But answers were even harder to come by. “Don’t know yet.”
We rode the rest of the way in silence, and I was grateful that my little brother seemed to have given up in his efforts to force me to come home immediately. I’d think about it, just as I’d told him I would. It would be easy, he was right about that. Life, on a platter, just like he said. But it didn’t feel right. At least not at first blush. Maybe it would, once I’d had time to mull it over.
“It was good to see you,” I told him as he pulled up outside Trent’s townhouse to let me out.
He nodded, still working his lip with his teeth. “You too, big bro.” The anger had left his voice. “Offer stands, man. Come home when you’re ready.”
I stepped out of the car and turned around in the open door. “Thanks. I’ll think about it.” I was about to close the door and let him go, when a thought occurred to me. “Do me a favor?”
His eyes narrowed. “Depends.”
“There still old wine barrels in the barn?”
“Those old ones Papi quit using? Yeah, they’re just gathering dust. I keep telling him we could sell them.”
“Bring them? Next time you come?”
“Why do you want dirty old barrels?” he asked.
“Just do it.”
“All right, bro.” He shook his head and smiled a thin smile. “This man-of-few-words thing makes you pretty fucking mysterious, you know that?”
A smile surfaced through all the doubt and confusion I’d felt that night, and I heard myself laugh. “Yeah,” I agreed.
I watched the SUV drive off, Mateo’s taillights fading to red dots. And then I opened the door and braced myself for the onslaught of paws and tongue that followed the sound of one-hundred-thirty pounds of dog bounding down the stairs.
“Hey buddy,” I crooned as I greeted my best friend. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay.” And despite everything that had happened that evening, and in the year leading up to it, I was beginning to have a feeling it might be.
Chapter Fourteen
Dani
Since I’d worked in restaurants my whole life, I’d never really had weekends off and it didn’t feel strange to be in the shop early on a Saturday. Evidently firefighters didn’t count on weekends off, either, because Rob had made it clear that he’d be coming in until we were finished, regardless of the day. I was glad. I hoped to get the shop open in two weeks.
The sun had been climbing lazily over the hills east of the city as I’d driven to Ocean Beach, and the light glowing through the front windows of the shop at that early hour had a gauzy quality that made me want to be quiet and calm so I didn’t disturb the solemn atmosphere. Newport Avenue was still, no surf rats wandering its sidewalks yet, though I could see them dotting the waves as I parked, dark spots floating like little rafts of neoprene flotsam. I carried shopping bags with me into the shop—I had plans to test out the kitchen this morning. Nan had taught me to bake when I was still small. She’d tried to teach us both, but Amy didn’t have the patience for it. I took to it immediately, finding solace in the precision of measuring ingredients, and comfort in the knowledge that the sweetest things were worth a wait.
By the time the bell on the door jingled, the smell of warm cinnamon drifted through the air, and the light out front had become bright and yellow. I leaned around the doorjamb to see Rob standing in the doorway, Sampson settling himself outside the front window.
“Hey,” I said, trying to ignore the way my stomach flipped every time I looked at Rob, how my nerves seemed to come to life when he was around, buzzing and dancing beneath my skin.
“Hey,” he returned, lifting his nose. “Cinnamon?” He followed the scent toward me, his face intent as he sniffed at the air.
“Nan’s cinnamon rolls,” I told him. “You have incredible timing; I’m just about to pull them out.”
Rob’s eyes lit up as he smiled and leaned against the door separating the front and back of the shop. “Surprised you can actually cook back here.”
The kitchen was tiny. But the small range and stove against the far wall were perfectly functional, and the old-fashioned refrigerator next to it seemed to be working well. There was a tiny bit of counter space next to the sink, and a high window on the back wall that let in enough light to make the space less claustrophobic. I’d have to change the fact that the walls were a medicinal green, but otherwise it was all exactly what I needed. I smiled as my eyes found Rob’s, about to make some comment about the kitchen. But as soon as his bright green eyes lasered into mine, I lost the ability to speak. My heart sounded loud in my ears and I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened the last time we were in this kitchen, the way his hands had felt on my body, his mouth on my neck.
The buzzer on the oven sounded and I jumped.
Rob took an audible breath and a step back as I pulled the oven mitts from the hook on the wall.
Once the rolls were cooling on the range top, there was nothing to focus on besides the huge handsome man still lingering in the doorway. I was nervous and giddy as I turned back to him. Part of me enjoyed the excitement, but a larger part of me worried. I was worried that becoming too fond of Rob would only leave me with a broken heart—or at least a very bruised one—in the end. I was sure he’d realize that taking Mateo up on the offer to go home made far too much sense to turn down, and I worried how I’d feel when he was gone. Most of all, as my nipples jerked to attention and my heart rate increased, I worried about the way I seemed incapable of controlling my reactions to him.
He inclined his head toward the rolls on the stove. “Just decoration?”
When he smiled at me, I literally went weak in the knees. “They’re hot,” I managed. “They need time to cool.”
“I’ll risk it,” he said, stepping forward.
I rolled my eyes at him and pulled a plate down, wedging one roll out with the spatula and setting it on the counter. “I haven’t even put the icing on yet,” I said in mock-annoyance.
Rob glanced toward the icing waiting in a bowl on the end of the counter. He raised his eyebrows at me.
I smeared some of the sugary glaze on top of his roll and let out a dramatic sigh, but part of me was pleased to feed him. What the hell was that? Was the desire to feed men somehow tied into our crazy evolutionary desire to be protected, to have big strong men around to fend off predators? And to do other things, of course…
“Amazing,” Rob said around a mouthful of cinnamon roll.
I couldn’t help that his praise made me smile. “Nan’s rolls are the best,” I agreed, swiping a finger of glaze from the bowl.
“You going to sell these?” His mouth was still full and there was something charming about the way he asked, the irregular rhythm of his words not seeming to bother him while he was distracted by frosting and sugar.
I nodded. “That’s the plan. A few different sweets. I know it’s a little weird with a wine bar, but I’ll have coffee, too, and I want people to feel comfortable just coming in to hang out, even if they don’t want a glass of wine.”
Rob nodded, finishing up the roll and licking his fingers. His eyes moved to the rest of the rolls still cooling on top of the oven.
“Don’t even think about it. We have shelves to build today,” I said playfully. “You can have one at lunchtime if you work hard.” I was teasing him, the tone lilting my voice before I could even consider what I was doing.
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He grinned, his full dark lips revealing perfect white teeth, and nearly causing me to propel myself into his arms. Instead, I frosted the rest of the buns quickly and then rinsed out the bowl.
We stepped into the main room of the shop, and I explained my vision to Rob. Where the bookcases would go, how the wine shelves would line the walls around the edges of the shop, where the couch and comfy chairs would sit. I told him about my thoughts for the sales counter, the glass front next to it where I could keep the cookies and other sweets.
Rob listened intently, and then stepped into the back again, returning with a pad of paper and a pencil. He lifted his eyes to mine. “Give me a minute?”
I nodded, curious, but figured he’d do some calculations. We needed to buy lumber.
Several minutes later, Rob held up the pad for me to inspect. He’d covered several pages with sketches, showing two different kinds of wine shelves in extreme detail from several angles. Considering the time he’d spent drawing it and the complexity of his drafting, it was impressive. He’d even drawn the glass front counter I’d mentioned, and each sketch had measurements jotted beside it, arrows showing the measurements of each edge.
“My turn to be impressed,” I told him. “I can’t believe you just whipped this up.”
“Like your cinnamon rolls,” he said.
“But you didn’t even measure anything.”
“I took measurements when we tiled,” he said. “I’ll check heights, but I remember the wall lengths.” Rob pulled a tape measure from his pocket and slid the free end up the wall, measuring the vertical height. “We’re good,” he said. “Ready?” He put the tape measure back in his pocket and looked at me expectantly.
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure exactly what we were ready for.
“Let’s go.”
I followed Rob from the shop, locking the door behind us, and we climbed into a huge red truck that he’d parked at the curb. Sampson jumped into the cab ahead of me, making himself comfortable on the bench seat between us. As Rob backed the truck out, the huge dog curled into a circle, dropping his massive head on my thigh.
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