“No, he didn’t,” Felipe snapped, waving a hand in emphasis. “But he did back out of the invite to Thanksgiving dinner. I was wondering what the hell happened, and then Mariana mentioned that you two met and had hush-hush words.”
“He’s not coming?” His dad nodded in thought at Felipe’s glare. “Probably for the best. Your lolo would not have stood for him being there.”
“Lolo would deal,” Felipe said from between clenched teeth. He and his grandfather did not get along most of the time. They saw the world through completely different viewpoints, and nothing would ever change that. Lolo could not wrap his head around Felipe, and he wasn’t about to tone himself down for the man’s comfort. “Sorry, Mom, but it’s true.”
“I’m staying out of this one.” Ratree held up her hands, curled her legs up on the couch, and reached for a book. “Just don’t start cursing at each other. I won’t put up with that.”
Felipe was keeping a hold of his mouth through a pure effort of will.
“I’m not your grandfather. I don’t care if you bring a boyfriend to a family dinner. But this Trask is something different. He looks like he’s a step away from retirement. I don’t understand why you can’t meet men your own age,” his dad continued.
“I do meet plenty of men my own age and they’re all immature assholes.” Felipe shot his mom a guilty look as she gave him a reproving frown. She was even smaller than Mariana and twice as intimidating as his dad when her temper got worked up. “Well, they are. I like Trask. We share many of the same interests. We have amazing conversations. He’s thoughtful and responsible and a good guy if you’d give him half a chance.”
His dad tapped his fingers together, giving a Felipe a measuring look. “Did you know he is an ex-convict?”
“Oh, Felipe.” His mom looked up from her book, her expression worried. “You can’t expose Mariana to someone like that.”
Felipe clenched his jaw again, his temper rising as a headache began to form. He’d suspected that might be the case, but he’d wanted Trask to tell him his story in his own time. There were obviously lots of painful bits in his past, and he was getting it slowly as Trask grew more comfortable with him. He treasured those times that Trask shared because it showed his trust, and to have his dad digging around pissed him the fuck off. “He’s not dangerous, Mom. He’s not.”
Someone who was dangerous did not treat puppies the way Trask did. The man was capable of a great deal of love and loyalty. You just had to look beneath his quiet surface. Felipe considered himself a good judge of other people, and what he’d seen of Trask, what he’d heard between the man’s words just drew him in.
“He got awfully defensive with me,” his dad said with that stubborn tilt to his chin that Felipe had seen too many times. There was no talking to him right now. He had to let him stew it out before he would be able to get his dad to look at it from a different angle.
“Wouldn’t you have? Christ, Dad.” Felipe threw up his hands.
“Felipe Suero!” His mom leveled a finger at him, her mouth tight. “Do not bring that language to my house.”
Felipe took Mariana’s advice and took a deep breath before trying again. “You judge him on his age, his past, without really knowing his past. Knowing you, you probably told him to break up with me or something equally asinine, and I bet he refused and that just pissed you off even more, and he probably picked up on that.”
His voice was rising and he knew it was rising, and he could tell from his mom’s flinty expression that she was about to tell him off hard core for his language. “But you never bothered to ask me how he treats me, did you? You never thought to ask me how I felt about him. This is me, dammit.” Felipe tapped a finger against his chest, his eyes stinging. “Can you honestly see me staying with anyone who’s not going to treat me how I deserve? Screw that. And on that note, I’m out of here.”
He bit his lip hard before he could tell his dad to fuck off, but dammit, it was there ready to fall from his lips, and he knew if he stayed around, the fight would only escalate. Felipe didn’t want to say anything he would sincerely regret later, and he’d only learned through painful lessons that leaving until he calmed down was the best action to take.
He turned around and stormed out of there before his mom could call him back. She always tried to play the peacemaker after his dad and he argued. It just pissed him the fuck off. How could his dad sit there so calm when he was screwing with Felipe’s life? His dad wasn’t the one sleeping with Trask. He had to live his own goddamned life and stay the hell out of trying to make Felipe’s decisions for him.
He took the stairs two at a time and forced himself to pause and take a breath before he flung open the door and demanded Mariana leave. It would only make everything worse, and he’d be riddled with guilt later on. Taking his anger out on Mariana was like picking on a sweet puppy, a totally sweet puppy that just wanted to love you and be loved in return. Poke her enough and she nipped back, and those nips hurt. Felipe didn’t want to deal with that any more than he did the hurt feelings.
Felipe looked down at Lady, who was waiting patiently by the door. He just wanted to take off as he had so many times as a teenager. Go for a drive along the county roads. Or go to Morris’s place and whine. But he had adulting things to do. Fuck adulting. With a sigh, Felipe opened the door and composed his expression.
Mariana gave him a sympathetic look. “I don’t know how you manage to project your voice all the way up here, but you did.”
“It’s the vents.” Felipe threw himself down on his couch and waited for Mariana to call him out on his bullshit.
“I think you should invite him to Thanksgiving anyway.” She rested her chin on her hand as she eyed her brother. “He was really polite to me, and Sophie seems so happy. She wouldn’t be happy if he was a secret jerk.”
Felipe stared at his screen, waiting for Abby to log on. “At this point, I think it’s going to take an excavation truck to extract him from Richmond.” He had some new messages on his site from that dumbass cosplayer. The man’s buddies were getting bored with the harassment, but not dickwad yet.
“He didn’t seem like a coward to me,” Mariana said with a sniff. “He could’ve ignored us. Instead, he walked on up, introduced himself, and shook Dad’s hand.”
That ought to have scored some points with his dad. He was normally a sucker for shit like that. “I’ll talk with him when I see him this weekend. You finished your homework?”
“I have my outline done, so I can take a short break.” Mariana set aside her laptop and gave him a pleading look. “Does this mean you’re going to boot me out?”
“No, I’m not going to make you leave, but I have a business meeting. So it might get boring.” Felipe went through and took a perverse delight out of deleting each message. The idiot was just repeating himself, and Felipe already had his fun out-sassing him. Besides, the deleting seemed to be pissing him off more than the sassing did. There were times when Felipe could be a petty man, and he didn’t give a fuck who thought it.
Excitement lit up Mariana’s dark eyes. “Are you making a new costume for someone? I heard a bunch of messages coming in. Everyone loved the homecoming dress you made for me. Would you make my prom dress?”
“Slow your roll there, sis.” Felipe held up his hand. “Senior prom’s a big deal. Mom would pretty much buy you whatever you want. Something special.”
“It’s special if you make it,” Mariana argued. “Then I have a one-of-a-kind Felipe Suero dress, and I know you’ll make it better than anything I can get at the store.”
Pleasure softened the anger that still lingered. Damn, his sister knew just how to make him feel better. “Okay, but it can’t be black. You look too good in bold colors. You have to make a splash for your senior prom. And you can’t promise any of your friends that I’ll design dresses for them too. This is for you and you alone. Got it?”
Mariana beamed and blew him a kiss. “Got it. How about a ruby red or something
like a garnet? I can borrow that necklace Dad got for Mom for their anniversary.”
Felipe eyeballed his sister as he mentally went through colors and styles. “I think I can work with that.”
Chapter Twenty
TRASK’S HEART wasn’t entirely in the game, and it all had to do with a pair of subdued dark eyes. Subdued and Felipe did not go together. At least no one else in the group seemed affected, and the game rolled out with drama limited to characters. The only other one who noticed was Morris, who kept giving Felipe occasional glances and nudges. Best friends. You couldn’t hide a damn thing from them. Ryan, who eventually chalked his broodiness up to holiday blues, had hounded Trask a few times himself.
Trask painted the new scene for the motley crew of troublemakers, on a deserted outstation on one of the fringe planets, with a dead contact and an Imperial ship on the way. “Well, folks, what do you do?”
“I examine the body to be sure they’re dead. Carbon-based beings are so fragile. I don’t know how they work with those bodies,” Lincoln said with a doleful air.
“Of course she’s dead, you metallic moron. Spines don’t twist that way, and look at all that purple blood,” Dakota replied, shaking his head.
“Are you sure you intercepted that transmission right?” Morris asked with a frown, staring at the layout on the table map.
“Pretty sure,” Brett replied. “They’ll be here within an hour, and it’s a sure bet they’ll have a lot more manpower than we do. If we don’t find the information she hid, they will.”
“I’m searching the body for credsticks.” Felipe scooped up his dice. “Do I find anything?”
“Hey, man, have some respect.” Jackie pushed her miniature over to confront Felipe’s.
“Look, I’m a smuggler. I’m not some high-minded Senator like him.” Felipe pointed to Morris and then turned his finger on Brett. “I don’t have any loyalties to the Rebels like him. And I sure as hell don’t think your Force mumbo jumbo gives a damn whether or not the credstick rots with this woman’s corpse or helps me out. I have bills, you know. We have bills since you’d partnered with me to buy this damned ship.”
“Welp, I found the gal you wanted me to find.” Dakota smirked at Morris. “You can pay me now and I’ll be on my way.”
“The contact is no good to me dead,” Morris protested.
“Her status was not specified in the contract. Isn’t that right, Y-X8?” Dakota looked at Lincoln.
“Correct, sir. The contract was to locate this poor woman and to bring Senator Venau and his friends to her,” Lincoln intoned. “However, I do believe that we—”
“Save me the lecture.” Dakota flapped his hand at Lincoln and turned toward Morris. “But just because I’m a bounty hunter doesn’t mean I’m completely amoral like that smuggler. Let’s say another 15 percent and I’ll locate that information for you before the Imperials get here.”
“I’m not risking my ship by sticking around,” Felipe insisted.
“Don’t you think we should find out who did this to her?” Jackie argued. “Search the body for clues, not profit? We’ll find another way to pay our bill.”
It was so much fun to sit back and listen to good characters argue a situation out. Trask started a timer on his phone. If it went on long enough it might be a moot point, and he’d love to see what they’d do if that Imperial ship showed up before they came to an agreement.
He caught Felipe’s eye and gave him a faint smile. He’d missed him in the last couple of weeks. It had been hectic, more hectic than he’d been expecting as sales picked up both online and in the store for the upcoming holidays. It seemed he’d never had time to chat as much as Trask wanted or work out his moodiness. He had no damn reason to be moody, and it was time to get over it. One man’s opinion should not bug him. Even if that one was the father of the man Trask was falling for.
Felipe raised a brow and did not smile back. The imp was upset about something. Trask should’ve known when he decided not to come early, as he had last time. Trask hoped he still wasn’t mad over the canceled Thanksgiving plans. The decision to go had been up in the air, so it wasn’t like he had confirmed and then backed out on him. Trask could understand how Felipe would get his feelings hurt over that, given his history.
The argument between the players went on for more than twenty minutes, growing more heated until Morris threw up his hands. “Fine! Another 15 percent. Freaking mercenaries. And don’t worry about your ship. I paid for the repairs last time, didn’t I?”
“Only after we threatened to shove you out an airlock.” Felipe shot Morris a glare. “Don’t make me threaten that again. I know you have more creds than you claim.”
Trask glanced at his timer. That ate away almost half their time before Imperial arrival, and it was getting late in reality. Seemed like a good place to end it and leave everyone on tenterhooks until the next time. One thing he’d learned was to always leave the party wanting more.
“Glad you came to an agreement.” Trask folded up his game screen. “And on that note, I think that’s where we’ll leave it for tonight.”
“Nooo! Are you kidding me!” Brett jumped up and ran around the table as his wife looked on in amusement at his antics.
Sophie rose from her dog bed, watched Brett with a cocked head and lifted ears. She glanced at Trask, and he patted his leg. “It’s okay, girl.”
“Chill out.” Daphne shook her head. “It’s almost eleven. And if you think you don’t want to stop now, think how you’d feel if it had been midbattle. We do have a babysitter waiting for us.”
“There are going to be no battles, got it?” Jackie said with a stern stare around the table. “Felipe and I just got the ship running again.”
“Good luck believing that.” Dakota stood up, grabbed his miniature, and stowed it in its case. “There’s going to be a battle.”
“Maybe I can talk our way out of it.” Morris tucked his character sheet away.
“Yeah, that went soooo well last time.” Felipe rolled his eyes. He was the only one not preparing to leave, and Trask took that as a good sign. He wanted a chance to talk to Felipe alone, and he hadn’t had the opportunity all day. He didn’t think it would take much to get Felipe to tell him what was bothering him. Then they could move on to catching up. Trask had missed him.
One by one, their friends left, taking what was left of the foodstuffs they brought. Trask had been prepared this time and cleaned off the sideboard so they could have room for the Crock-Pot and trays. Boy, had they delivered too. Trask hadn’t eaten that well in a while. He’d have to get the recipe for Jackie’s mac-n-cheese.
And he was letting his thoughts wander because Felipe was sitting there silent, boring holes into him as Trask felt increasingly awkward while he tidied. He hated dealing with this kind of relationship issues because he never knew which foot to stand on. But he figured confronting Felipe head-on was better than letting him stew.
“You’re mad,” Trask finally said as the quiet grew taut.
“No shit, Sherlock.” Felipe’s eyes flashed with unreleased anger.
Trask scratched his head, trying to think of what he could’ve done. The last time he’d seen Felipe, he was yelling about marriage. A word Trask did not want to even think about. Their conversations on the phone hadn’t seemed off, but it was hard to judge because Trask wasn’t a fan of the phone much and tended to keep calls short and sweet. “Is it because of Thanksgiving? I thought that was up in the air, not the invite, but whether I could… would go or not.”
“I guess it depends on why you’re not coming.” Felipe crossed his arms on the table and stared Trask down. “If it’s because of my dad, yeah, I’m really going to be pissed. And I’m a little more than irritated that you had a confrontation with him and never once mentioned it to me. Didn’t you think I should know?”
“Is that what he called it? A confrontation?” Trask laid his hands on his hips as anger sparked. Well, dammit, he hadn’t figured on Mr. Suero a
s a man to tell tales. He’d suspected that a situation like that would upset Felipe, which was why he hadn’t said anything. Fights with his own old man were most likely to end in ugliness, and he hadn’t wanted to be the cause of one between Felipe and his dad.
“I didn’t think of it as that at all,” Trask continued. “We had a conversation. He expressed his concerns, rightly so I guess about my age, and he questioned my past. He wouldn’t be the first man to do that. There was definitely some measuring up. But it didn’t come down to raised voices or name-calling. He made his point and I made mine. That’s not a confrontation.”
Felipe stood up. “Did the conversation piss you off?”
Well, Trask could hardly deny that. “A bit,” he admitted. “I don’t like being judged, but that has more to do with people in my past than your dad. I don’t have much experience with dads who are protective, so I’m thinking it could’ve gone a whole lot worse. I think we both got each other’s message.” That he was still irritated was his own damn issue and went back to his inability to let things go.
Trask gave Felipe a wary look. “Why, what did he say to you?”
“That you got defensive.” Felipe walked toward him like a damn cat stalking through the grass, and it made Trask nervous. Felipe was unpredictable at best, and Trask just could not figure out what he was going to do next.
“I’m ashamed to admit that’s true. I let him get my back up, but that’s more on me than him.” Trask tensed as Felipe stopped in front of him. Oh man, there was pure fire in Felipe’s eyes. It had never occurred to him that Mr. Suero would’ve said anything to Felipe, but now all those questions Felipe had been flinging at him over the last week made sense. “Did he mention that I did jail time once?”
“He did,” Felipe replied evenly.
Trask kept waiting for the explosion to happen, and the fact that it hadn’t worried him. He fully expected that bomb. All of Felipe’s pent-up energy had to go somewhere. He searched Felipe’s face, but there was no judgment there. Not like there had been on his father’s. “It was for a DUI, and since it hadn’t been my first offense, I got a year. Ended up serving the whole time on account of not behaving myself.”
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