Exhaling, I take half a step away. She got me. She got me good.
“I had no interest in that guy,” she said. “He was nice but not my type, so thanks for saving me.”
Our buzzer goes off, our table must be ready early.
“You’re so fucking dramatic,” I tell her, wearing a half-smirk. If I knew her better, I’d give her ass a good pinch right now. Instead, I shamelessly let my gaze drop as I follow behind her, considering this her atonement, her penance.
“It’s in my blood,” she says. “Literally.”
A moment later, we’re seated in a cozy corner booth and given two menus printed on linen paper. It’s broad daylight outside, but in here it’s dark and intimate, candles everywhere. And while this is the furthest thing from a date and getting attached to this woman is the last thing I need to be doing, the smallest—and I mean the most minuscule—part of me finds myself wishing I wasn’t leaving next week, that I could stick around and get to know her a little better.
Something tells me I could like her.
And that’s saying a lot because truly, I don’t like anyone.
“What did you do today, Isaiah?” Mom asks as she settles behind a TV tray that night and reaches for her remote.
“Just palled around.”
She glances at me. She might be tired and her brain might be foggy every now and then, but she knows me.
“Don’t get smart with me,” she says, chin tucked against her chest. “What’d you do?”
“Went to the Pier.”
Ma mutes the TV, lips pressed flat. Some days she doesn’t remember much, but she surely remembers the pier.
“Alone?” she asks.
Taking a seat on the edge of her bed, I shake my head. “With a friend.”
“Which friend?”
Drawing in a heavy breath, I rise. “It’s hot in here. You want the fan on?”
“No. Sit.” She waves for me to return to my post. “Which friend?”
“Just … this girl I met a few days ago.”
Ma’s face doesn’t light. She knows I’m not one for commitment and I haven’t brought a girl home in almost a decade, so anytime I merely mention hanging out with a woman, she assumes I’m referring to some piece I picked up at the local sports bar.
“She’s nice,” I say, only to reassure her. “You’d like her. She’s funny.”
My mother’s face softens. “Can I meet her?”
“Nope.”
Her head tilts and she crosses her legs, angling her body toward me, examining me. “You like her? This girl?”
“Ma, your food’s getting cold.” I point to the Styrofoam container she hasn’t touched since I delivered it to her five minutes ago. “You know steak’s not good when you microwave it.”
Sitting up, she reaches for a knife and a fork and begins sawing her meat, muttering in Portuguese under her breath.
“She’s a good girl,” I say. “Respectable. But we’re just friends.”
If you can even call us that …
“You enjoy spending time with her?” Ma asks.
“I do.”
She takes a tiny bite, chewing, contemplating. “All I want for you is to have a nice girl to spend time with. Someone who puts a smile on your face. My dying wish, Isaiah.”
“Ma, don’t talk like that.”
“What?”
“Don’t talk about dying wishes,” I say. “You’re not dying.”
Ma’s mouth curls into a bittersweet smile. “Meu amor, you live in the land of denial and you have for quite some time. If you deny death, you’re denying life. Just promise me you’ll never deny your feelings.”
Rising from her bed once more, I offer a humoring chuff before bending to kiss the top of her forehead. “I’ll be in the next room if you need me.”
Chapter Seven
Maritza
Saturday #3
“Let me get this straight.” My cousin-slash-best friend-slash roommate, Melrose, leans against my bathroom doorway as I get ready to meet up with Isaiah. “I’m on location for three days and I come back and you’re spending a week with a complete stranger?”
Her jaw hangs as she gathers her messy blonde waves into an even messier top knot, gazing at her reflection via my mirror.
“You’re crazy,” she says. “Not that you didn’t already know this. Do your parents know?”
“Nope.”
“Does Gram?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“Good God, Maritza, what if something happened to you? And no one would’ve known who you were hanging out with?” She clucks her tongue. If Isaiah thinks I’m dramatic, wait until he meets her.
If he ever meets her.
Which he probably won’t.
“He’s in the army,” I tell her, as if that automatically makes him safe.
“Lots of people are in the army.”
“He’s a good person,” I add, because anyone who’s willing to sacrifice their life for complete strangers qualifies as “good” in my book even if they’re not exactly the warm, personable type.
“And you know this because you’ve known him for a hot minute?” She pushes past me, taking a seat on my toilet lid and resting her elbow against my vanity. “I thought you were insane when you fostered those stray dogs last year. And then I thought you were even crazier when you changed your major to Gender Whatever Studies because up until then, you’d never so much as expressed a single interest in that topic, but this … this takes the cake, my love.”