Oh my god, does everyone know? How are we supposed to keep this a secret if everyone knows?I should have thought this whole plan through more.
“Elias, make sure my daughter returns home to me safely. Don’t corrupt her while she’s there,” my mom says.
“Aunt Charlotte, I would never corrupt Frankie. I can’t say the same for Emilio, though.” Elias chuckles. “I’ll keep an eye on them both. Don’t worry. Scout’s honor.”
“Why do your kids have a thing with mentioning the scouts? They were never scouts, Evie,” Mom says.
“Who knows why these boys do anything they do? Sweetheart, if you need something, let me know.” Aunt Evie walks out of the room while rambling on to my mom.
Elias stares at me in a way that makes me really uncomfortable. I imagine this is the look he gives his victims right before he guts them.
“What?”
“Don’t fuck my brother around,” he says, his tone harder than I’ve heard him talk to me. “If you hurt him, you hurt all of us. Remember that.”
“Why would I hurt him?” I fire back.
“Because you’ve been doing it since you were sixteen. You have no idea the things he’s done for you, Frankie. If you’re not really in this with him on the level he’s in it, then go home,” Elias says.
“What do you mean? What has he done for me?” I choose to ignore the part about me being in this with him. That’s between me and Emilio, not anyone else.
“Hey, what’s going on?” Emilio stands at the door.
“Just giving our guest the famous Lopez hospitality. See you around, Frankie.” Elias turns and walks past his brother.
“What the fuck did he say to you?” Emilio grunts, his jaw tight.
“Nothing. Just that he missed me and I’m his favorite cousin,” I lie.
“No, he didn’t.” Emilio shakes his head. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Don’t,” I say. “This is what I was afraid of, Emilio. I don’t want to cause problems with family. Not yours and not mine. And why the hell do they all know about us already?”
“They don’t know anything you don’t tell them. They just know that I’ve wanted there to be anusfor a long time.” He shrugs.
“They really are protective over you. Your siblings. That’s a good thing.”
“We all protect each other. It’s the only way to survive in this lifestyle.”
“Elias mentioned something about you doing things for me that I don’t know about. What did he mean?”
“Nothing much, a little murder here and there. If it was anything you needed to know, you would know,” Emilio says.
A little murder here and there, as if murdering people is like baking a cake.
“I wish I didn’t ask.” I fall onto the end of the bed.
Emilio closes the door and walks over, kneeling in front of me. “I told you not to ask questions you didn’t really want to know the answers to. I don’t lie to you, Frankie. You know this.”
“I know,” I tell him. “It’s a lot, Emilio. Both our families think we’re together and our mothers are off planning our wedding.”
“Let them think whatever they want to think. The only people who are in this relationship are me and you. No one else,” he says.
I laugh. “Have you not met either of our families? That’s not how this is going to work.”
“Well, they can assume. It’s still up to us what we do. Not anyone else.”
“What happens if we don’t work? What happens if you decide I’m a lousy lay or I really am a bitch, which I am by the way. And then we end up never wanting to talk to each other again and every Christmas will be awkward.”