“Meanwhile, Johana dragged me to court every chance she got. Lawyers and child support? Constant days off work when I had to be in court because, if I didn’t go, it meant I didn’t care about my kid?” He let his hands drop to his lap. “I couldn’t keep up, never mind get ahead. I was never going to be able to be a real parent to him, so I left him in peace.”
Mina felt like she should say something, but this was so out of her depth. She wanted to argue, but she wasn’t really sure with whom. Was Val twisting things to fit his own narrative, or could it really have been as impossible as all that sounded?
In the semi-darkness of the living room, she watched the outline of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed hard. He looked strangely alone then—a million miles away even though he was only on the other end of the couch.
He’d tried. If what he was saying was true, he’d tried so hard to be a father to his son. He’d tried so hard to do the right thing. So many years of his life and nothing at all to show for it. He had such few possessions when he’d moved home.
And what had he returned home to? Cora loved him, sure, but Dante was downright mean to him. Carlito, his baby brother, was superior. And Mina?
Well, right then, Mina was nearly bowled over by how desolate she felt. It was an empathetic response as she tried to wrap her head around the story. What she really wanted to do was wrap her arms around him, but that wasn’t right. They weren’t really friends. Ten minutes ago, she’d barely been able to stand the man.
For a lack of anywhere else to start, Mina stretched her foot out. She poked him with the tip of her socked toe. He grunted but didn’t look at her. She worked her feet under his leg and wiggled her toes.
She was rewarded with a soft chuckle. He scooted first one way, capturing her feet by the ankle in his hands, and then the other. He rested her feet on his leg and, taking her ankle in an iron grip, tickled her sole.
Mina squeaked and kicked, but he held her fast. She giggled and grabbed up one of the couch cushions, beating him with it. “Ssssstop,” she hissed, trying to hold back her laughter as she writhed in his grip. “You’re going to wake them up.”
“You’re going to wake them up.” He laughed quietly but let her leg go. When she straightened up, they were much closer on the couch than they had been before. The air around them was warm. He reached out and tentatively crooked just the tips of his fingers around hers. “So, are you going to tell me what the hell you’re up to?”
Mina sucked in a breath. She’d forgotten what had brought this all on. “No,” she said after a moment.
“Mina—”
“Don’t push it.” She wanted to end tonight on a nice note. For once, she wasn’t angry or irritated at him. He was going to ruin that if he said another word.
He sighed. “Fine. I’m here, though, if you get in too deep. You know that, right?”
Right. Because Val was known for how dependable he was. But Mina wasn’t in the mood to snark at him right then. She knew he meant it. He always meant to follow through on what he promised. He tried. “Sure, Val. I know.”
Chapter 9
“Back again, huh?”
Val looked up as the owner of the restaurant came over to stand by his table. His face was open and friendly, as usual, as he crossed his arms and looked down on him with a smile.
“What can I say? I know a good thing when I see it.”
The man hummed. He hesitated a few beats before he said, “Can I ask a nosey question?”
Val quirked an eyebrow, but he shrugged. “Shoot.”
“I’m Tucker, by the way.” Tucker spun the chair opposite Val around and sat down, leaning one arm across the back and extending his hand. “Tuck. Figure it’s time I introduce myself, if you’re going to hang out all the time.”
Val shook his hand with a firm grip. “Valentin. Val.”
“I’m just curious, not that I don’t appreciate the business, but you always come in here alone. BBQ’s usually a group thing. There are about a hundred coffee shops around here where people go when they’re alone.”
“It’s like I told you already. I know a good thing when I see it. I don’t like coffee or sandwiches as much as I like beer and BBQ. I’ve been away from California for a while, so no friends to hang out with, and a family dinner’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid.”
Tuck laughed and nodded. “You deserve the good food. The family not so much, huh?”
“Ironically, they think it’s the other way around.”
“Don’t they all. Well, that story deserves a good beer, I’d say.” Tuck got to his feet and spun the chair back to the correct position. “On the house.”
Val wasn’t about to say no to that. It was nice to be appreciated for once.
~0~
When he got back to the house, the scent of dinner was heavy in the air, but his mother wasn’t in the kitchen. She was in the living room with Mina. Between them on the couch were several dresses. They were simple dresses suitable for a workplace, and Val could guess what was happening.
“They’re very pretty, Momma Cora,” Mina said, and Val had to hide his smirk at the veiled irritation in her voice.
“They’ll look so good on you.” His mother looked and sounded pleased as punch. She looked up and saw Val. “Hello, mijo.” She looked back to Mina. “You don’t want to try them on?”
“You always get the right size.”
At that, Val couldn’t help but snicker, and both women looked at him. Val grinned at Mina before speaking to his mother. “She doesn’t want to try them on because she knows she’s not going to be wearing them for long.”
Mina’s eyes narrowed at him in a “Don’t you dare” expression, but Val pushed on. “She’s going to keep the dress in the backseat of her car, and only put it on right before she comes home so you’ll see her walk in the door with it. But she’s going to keep wearing her power suits at work. You know why? Because she hates dresses.”
His mother frowned at him, patting the dresses. “What are you talking about? She loves dresses.”
“No. You love seeing her in dresses. Mina hasn’t liked dresses at least since she was six.” Val risked a wink at Mina who was giving him an exasperated look. He smirked back in response.
“Bah.” His mother waved her hands at Val, dismissing him. “Who asked you, anyway? She looks good in dresses, and they’re professional. Right, mija?”
Mina put on a patient smile. “They’re very nice, and I love them,” she lied.
Val chuckled. Mina was a good girl. She’d put on a charade, if only to make his parents happy. She’d been like that since she was small.
“Here,” Val said, striding forward and offering her his box of leftovers. “You’ll like this, even if you can’t dismantle it. A pre-dinner appetizer for you.”
With that, he hurried upstairs to change for work.
When he came back down a few minutes later and went to the kitchen to say goodnight to his mother, he had to laugh. Despite his prediction, Mina had succeeded in turning his leftovers into something else entirely. She’d cut the corn from the cob and mixed that and the coleslaw with lettuce and colorful bell peppers. She’s shredded the meat from the ribs and was in the process of mixing the remnants of the BBQ sauce with balsamic vinegar and a few drops of olive oil.
She grinned at him as he stuck the tip of his pinky in the sauce. “A side salad with BBQ vinaigrette,” she announced triumphantly.
“Mmm…” Val licked the remnants of the dressing off his finger. “That’s not bad.” He tried to get a second taste, but she smacked his hand. She had such a pretty smile… and such nice lips when they were pursed like that.
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to stick your fingers in other people’s food?” she scolded, her voice soft enough that Val found himself leaning in closer, tilting his head toward hers.
“I taught you both better,” his mother said, and Val straightened up. He leaned with his
back against the counter as his mother shook a spoon at him. “He always had to have his tastes.”
“I do it for you,” Val said, feigning innocence. “What if it’s poisoned? I could save your life one day, Mom. In fact…” He took the spoon from her hand, dipped it in the bubbling sauce, and took a taste. “Yep. See? Now you know this is safe for everyone else. I saved the whole family.”
Cora shook her head, but her smile was fond. Val leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Have a good night, Mamacita.”
She patted his arm, taking her spoon back. “Take care of yourself, hijo.”
On impulse, when Val turned to see Mina drizzling her concoction over the salad she’d made, he leaned in and kissed her cheek too. Her breath caught, and Val felt a jolt of electricity on his lips. “Goodnight, Mia,” he said near her ear.
As he headed for the door, he heard his mother turn her attention back to the dresses. “If you liked the two I brought, maybe we can go shopping tomorrow. The sale will still be on, and we can get you enough dresses to last a whole week at work. A woman your age should have more than one dress.”
Val rolled his eyes as he walked out the door. Some things never changed. Though the circumstances behind Mina coming to live with them were horrible, Dante and his mother had been thrilled to be able to adopt her. They had always wanted a little girl to spoil with pretty dresses and frilly things. The trouble was they’d never stopped to realize that Mina wasn’t the “pretty pink and frilly things” type of girl. He’d been trying to get that through their heads since she was a child, but as always, Mina preferred to let them hold on to the picture they wanted.
She was more than old enough to fight her own battles with them. Sometimes he wondered why she didn’t.
~0~
When Val got home, he found Mina in the kitchen fixing her coffee before work. He grinned when he saw she was indeed in a pantsuit. “Breaking Momma’s heart, huh?”
Mina rolled her eyes. “I hate dresses,” she muttered.
“That was the first thing you ever said to me.” Val smiled as he went to the fridge and handed her the flavored creamer from the door. “Remember?”
Their fingertips brushed when she took the creamer from him. She took down a cup and poured some creamer into it and then into the carafe she was taking to work. “Those were the first words I said in about a year.”
“I remember.” Val poured coffee into the cup she’d taken down for him and then filled her carafe. “I remember when I got out of prison and Mom brought me home.” He shook his head. “You looked so miserable. You were so still, not like a child at all.”
“My mom had died,” she replied with a shrug.
“Yeah, but I knew that wasn’t all. I could tell.”
She snorted. “Yeah, you always could.” She sat across from him at the table and stole his cup of coffee, sipping from it before she pushed it back at him. “Momma Cora and Dante… They always had so many damn questions.”
“They were worried.”
“I know.” She smiled fondly. “I loved them for it. I always loved them. I remember how all the words were so tangled in my head, and they had too many questions.”
“You were scared they wouldn’t want you if they knew some of the things in your head.”
Mina laughed. “You were so different. You didn’t talk to me at all. You just sat with me for a long time.” She raised an eyebrow. “Days?”
“A couple of weeks. I sat with you in the quiet wherever you were. You were peaceful. No one else was.”
“That’s how I felt, I think. You were peaceful. No expectations.”
“Then, one day, they finally left you alone with me.” Val rolled his eyes. Dante had insisted he couldn’t be trusted alone with Mina, but they’d been desperate. Besides, as his mother pointed out, he was good with the little girl. She always gravitated toward him. “You looked like you wanted to cry, but you were so brave, holding back those tears. I asked you what was wrong.”
“I remember right after Mom died, Momma Cora going through my clothes and saying how I didn’t have any dresses for the funeral. Afterward, to make me feel better, she said she took me shopping and bought a whole bunch of dresses. I remember screaming the words in my head. There was a reason my mother had never bought me dresses. When you asked me, I guess I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I yelled it, remember?”
Val chortled into his hand. “Shocked the hell out of me. And once you started, you didn’t stop. You went on a tirade. You hated dresses and the fact they’d painted your room pink.”
“And that frilly canopy bed you ‘accidentally’ ripped?” Mina shook her head. “That was the worst. I didn’t want to be a princess.”
“You said that too. Right when I thought you were going to be a quiet little thing forever.”
“You wish.”
“Naw. Baby Mina made me laugh.”
“How about now?”
“You still make me laugh, but mostly because your face is funny-looking.” He winked at her.
“Hey!’ Mina stood and crossed to him. She mussed his hair. “Who you calling funny-looking, huh? Have you seen this mess?”
He tickled her sides, and she yelped, jumping backward a step. “I just got off work. What do you want my hair to look like?”
“Hmm.” Mina stepped back to his side and combed her fingers through his hair. A shiver went down Val’s spine, and an unwelcome instinct coiled low at his center. “I like your hair long. Have I ever told you that?”
When she was little, she’d sit on his lap and curl her fingers in his hair. Even as a teenager, before she got so angry at him, she still touched him that way. Why it felt different now, Val didn’t know. His throat had gone dry, and hunger stirred. His fingers rested at her waist, itching to touch. “You told me a time or two. Been a while, though.”
Mina met his eyes, and awareness flickered in them. She dropped her hands, stepping back as if she remembered they weren’t so familiar anymore. On instinct, Val reached out and caught one of her hands, holding it in his, though he didn’t know what he wanted to say. His thoughts had grown heavy and muddled.
It was early, and he was tired. That was all this was. His half-conscious mind had trouble separating the fact she was a beautiful woman, here with him in an intimate space, and that she was also Mina. Little Mina. Not a sister, but…
Mina.
He gave her fingers a squeeze and let her go, putting on a smirk. “So are you going to take one of the dresses Mom gave you to work?”
At that, she grinned and nodded her head. “Of course. You’re the only one who ever figured out I’m not a princess. It’s not so much skin off my back to let them think I’m a lady.”
Val chuckled. “Have a good day at work.”
Mina picked up her carafe of coffee. “Have a good sleep, Valentin.”
Chapter 10
Mina wasn’t a total idiot. At least, that was what she kept telling herself each and every time she said yes to Celeste.
It wasn’t as though she was doing anything wrong. She had a side job. A lot of people had side jobs. Being a cocktail waitress for private parties was a respectable gig. Nothing illegal about that.
The guy who’d hired her and Celeste, on the other hand, was all about doing illegal things for a living. The parties themselves were illegal—high-stakes gambling. “Because why should the reservations have all the fun?”
For his part, Frank “Just Frank” was a pretty good boss. He didn’t hide the fact he hired women like Mina and Celeste because they were nice to look at, but he’d taken the time to assure Mina personally that she’d never be in any danger. He or one of his guests occasionally pulled her onto their laps, but they didn’t touch her much more than to give her a playful squeeze.
“Any of them gives you any trouble, you come see me,” Frank had said.
Mina wanted to like the man. The problem was Mina had come to the conclusion he was a literal boss
. Like, a mafia boss or a mafia-esque boss, at least.
Even thinking the words made her feel ridiculous. Still, all signs pointed to the fact the man was a crime lord. If he wasn’t, he was sure making a good impression. Aside from the gambling, she’d caught pieces of conversations about shipments of some kind of cargo. And she’d seen several people put a discreet finger to their noses and snort something she couldn’t quite see. It was all an odd mixture of shady and high class.
Yeah. When she realized exactly what kind of business Frank was in, Mina knew damn well she shouldn’t go back.
“But at this rate, you’ll pay off your student loans in a year,” Celeste replied. That was how she’d gotten Mina to agree in the first place. She threw her arm around Mina’s shoulder and tilted her head in, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Besides, you know you like it.”
“Oh, sure. Who doesn’t like a little danger now and then?” Mina muttered under her breath. She didn’t want to admit she did like it. She couldn’t deny the thrill that went down her spine when she heard snippets of clandestine conversations. It was like being in a Bond movie. “Are you sure we’re not in over our heads?” she asked, eyeing Celeste.
As per usual, her friend could be trusted to take everything in stride. “Nothing to be in over our heads with. It’s not like we’re running drugs across international lines. This isn’t Orange is the New Black.”
“Good, because I don’t want to kiss you.” Mina reached over and snatched one of Celeste’s lipsticks.
“Don’t lie.” Celeste hip-checked her, and they both laughed.
Two hours later, Mina was exhausted. Her arms ached. Her feet ached. Her bra was digging into her skin. She was sure to keep her smile plastered on, though. One more hour, maybe two. It wasn’t like the bar closed promptly, after all.
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