“Not speaking to him, though, are ya? I’ve seen those texts you’re ignoring.”
“Stop looking at my phone.”
“No.” Rubi drained his mug and set it on the floor. Alexei wasn’t a fan of furniture, apparently. “I’m the one who’s gotta talk to him when you won’t, and it’s fucking killing him.”
I sighed. “This how you want to spend your birthday, brother? Getting in my face about things I can’t change?”
“Pick up the phone. Bob’s your uncle. Changed.” Rubi spread his hands as if that was it.
I disagreed. When I closed my eyes at night, I still heard myself screaming in Mateo’s face, him snarling in mine, and guilt twisted my insides.
“Em. Please. I love you.”
So much pain. So much love.
And all I’d given him in return was anger.
“I can’t hear his voice if I can’t touch him, see him, fuckingsmellhim. Not when things are so weird between us.” An errant thought I hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but understanding warmed Rubi’s gaze.
“I get that, bro. But silence is toxic. It plays with your head. Sooner or later you’ll start hearing shit he never said.Thinkingshit you don’t believe. Life’s too short for that, believe me—oh, hey, Mama.”
Juana stepped into the room, her short dark curls wet from the shower, a dark green robe wrapped around her body.
Her belly had popped in recent days, her baby bump showing through her clothes. She never talked about it, or her dead lover, but the sadness in her eyes sucked the air from the room.
I stood and gestured for her to sit.
She shook her head. “Can we talk, Embry? Alone?”
Rubi started to get up.
Juana stayed him with a raised hand. “In the kitchen. I’m going to make dinner .”
I’d spent all day in the kitchen, watching the surveillance footage on Alexei’s laptop. The corridors, the front door, the lobby downstairs, and the underground car park, taking a shower my only reprieve. If I never heard the hum of the swanky fridge again in my whole life, it’d be too soon. But talking was my job, for my brothers, for my family, and Juana was family now.
She led me to the kitchen. It was bigger than the poky galley Cam cooked in at the clubhouse, more burners on the hob and a fancy extractor fan, but it was cold and sterile, even with the lives of four people scattered on the marble countertops.
I hated it. “What are you going to cook?”
“Tortilla.” Juana opened the fridge and pulled out chicken, spinach, and eggs, the only groceries Alexei regularly had delivered.
“If anyone checks the bags before they reach you, what’s inside must be nothing out of the ordinary.”
Lucky us.
I watched Juana cook, wishing she was Mateo. Was it weird that recalling him mashing a pot of potatoes made my dick jump?
Probably. I pushed the memory aside, but all I got in its place was more heat in my blood. I didn’t think about him fucking me. I thought about him kissing me, holding my face, and exploring my mouth with his silky tongue. About his warm palms on my skin and the skate of his calloused fingers against my scarred belly.
I thought about him loving me and, mother of Christ, how selfish I’d been, in the face of fucking death, not to tell him I loved him too.
You might not get the chance now. If Esteban comes for him.
Juana sidled up to me. “Can I show you something?”
“Of course.” I buried the bone-grating fear and smiled at her. “What is it?”
She thrust a thick paper book into my hands. “It’s Lili and Mateo’s sketch pad. They’ve been working on this one for the last four years.”