by Jadyn Chase
Anna waved to me over her shoulder. “Bye, Maya.”
“Bye, Anna.”
She hopped into the back seat and the wing door folded down to block her in. I lost sight of her. I said the same thing about staying friends to lots of patients, but in the back of my mind, I knew I would probably never see her again.
Anna was different. A twinge of regret stabbed my heart when I thought about her leaving my life for good. I really did hope I would see her again, even with the odds stacked against that ever happening.
Roman waited until the door closed before he confronted me. “Look, I’m sorry I made the last few days uncomfortable for you. Let’s just forget it, okay? I want to thank you for taking such good care of my little girl. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You don’t have to,” I told him. “It was my pleasure. Really.”
He shook his head. “It’s my fault things turned sour between us. I never should have asked you out. It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” All of a sudden, it really was okay. I no longer cared about any of that.
Just for a second, I didn’t want him to leave, either. In a few short days, I got attached to him and Anna. I let myself feel something for them, and I didn’t want to lose that.
I held out a parcel wrapped in white paper. “This is her medication. She has to take one pill every morning. That’s all you have to do. That should suppress the seizures, and you can find out a lot more information and even support groups for parents at the American Epilepsy Society website.”
His fingers brushed mine when he took the package. “Thanks.”
I stole a peek up at his tense features. “Are you all right? She really is going to lead a normal life.”
His eyes shot to my face. He opened his mouth like he wanted to say something else, but he stopped himself. He waved the package. “Yeah. Thanks again. See you around.”
Those words meant absolutely nothing. They meant the opposite of See you around. We would never see each other around.
Anybody else would be happy about that. A woman he asked out who didn’t want to have anything to do with him would be relieved that their paths would never cross again. He would go back to the barrio and I would go back to logging hours in the hospital.
He walked toward the car. The door opened from the inside. He put out his hand to climb in when I called out, “Roman?”
What made me do that? I didn’t know. I only knew I wasn’t ready to let him or Anna walk out of my life just yet. This might be the stupidest thing I ever did, but I couldn’t look back on this moment and wonder what might have been.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“If you still want to…. if the offer still stands, I would like to go out sometime.” I swallowed hard and fidgeted from one foot to the other. “If you still want to.”
He blinked at me like he really had to think to remember what I was talking about. Then he nodded like this was the most natural thing in the world.
He ducked into the car and came out with a small square of paper. He marched toward me and thrust it at me. “Here’s my number. Send me a text and we’ll work out the details.”
I burst into nervous giggles. “Thanks.”
He marched away and got behind the wheel. He nodded to me through the windshield, but he didn’t smile again. Did I make another mistake? He didn’t seem all that happy about me belatedly accepting his offer. Maybe he changed his mind, too. Maybe he wasn’t interested anymore.
He said, send him a text. If I really wanted to go out with him, that would be the first step. What he did after that was up to him. If he wasn’t interested, he didn’t have to work out the details. He could just let the whole thing die a silent and unobtrusive death the way it should have in the first place.
I wandered back to the cafeteria. I stared at the square of paper in my hand for a long time. Firm, neat script scrawled the number across it. Should I? Why would I want to complicate my life with a guy like that?
Toward the end of what would become an early lunch break, I got to my feet to head back up to the Pediatrics ward. The paper still clung to my fingers like a barnacle. I had to do something with it. I passed the recycling bin. I should either enter the number in my phone right now or throw it away and forget all about Roman Santiago and Anna and Los Diablos and everything else that happened this week.
I moved my hand toward the recycling bin. The number blazed before my eyes. Why did I say I wanted to go out with him if I was only going to throw his number away? I couldn’t understand my own behavior.
Aw, what the hell. I drew out my phone and punched in the number. I typed out the most inane message imaginable. Roman, this is Maya sending you a text to work out the details. Send.
He probably wouldn’t reach home for an hour anyway. That would give him time to decide if he really wanted to follow through. I tossed the slip of paper in the recycling bin and took off for the stairs.
I hadn’t gone ten paces before my phone buzzed. How about seven o’clock on Saturday?
That was fast. He didn’t hesitate the way I thought he would. I better not be texting with Anna in the car. Then again, he was driving a Tesla. He might be texting on Autopilot.
Sounds good. Send.
So that was it. I accepted a date with him. Now what was I going to do? I couldn’t back out now.
7
Roman
I answered the door to find Dolores Sanchez standing on the step. Before I could get a word out, Anna rocketed past me and flung her arms around Dolores’s waist. “Tía mía!” she exclaimed. “Can we go now?”
Anna ricocheted off Dolores and charged toward a carload of kids parked at the curb. She didn’t even bother to wave.
I waved, though. “Adios, sweetie! Have a good time.”
Dolores laughed at Anna before she checked me. “Are you all right?”
I nodded. “Perfect. Thank you for taking her.”
“It’s my pleasure. You have my number if you need anything.”
“Thanks,” I told her again. “Call me if anything happens—anything at all.”
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Dolores replied. “She hasn’t had a seizure in a week, right?”
“Right. She’s on medication now.”
“No problem.” She waved and went back to her car. “See you tomorrow.”
I lingered in the doorway and watched the car out of sight. Part of me felt guilty for doing this when Anna just got out of the hospital, but Dolores was right. Anna had been perfectly normal ever since she went on that medication. She never had any seizures or any other side effects. She bounced back like the seizure ever happened.
I shut the door. Now I came face to face with the bald-faced truth. The seizure happened and tonight I was going on a date with Maya. I never let myself switch into adult mode until Anna left. Now I just had to count down the minutes until seven o’clock.
I sauntered back to my room and laid out my best suit. I took a shower and combed my hair—what little of it there was. I changed and put on my shoes and buckled my belt. I slipped my watch over my wrist and put my keys and my phone and my wallet in my pockets. It was six fifty-two and I was all ready to go.
At the stroke of seven, she knocked on the door. Her eyes boggled open when she saw me. Her jaw dropped. I figured I looked different dressed like that, but I didn’t realize how different until I saw it writ large on her face.
“Good evening,” I said. “You’re just in time.”
She opened her mouth and closed it again before she managed a reply. She swallowed. “Good evening. I’m sorry. You took me by surprise.”
I smoothed down my jacket front. “Do I really look that different?”
“I hardly recognized you. You look nothing like….” She broke off.
I shrugged inside the jacket. “I feel different, too. I feel like a different version of myself. You know those TV shows where the starship travels to a parallel universe and th
e crew has to deal with alternate versions of themselves? That’s what I feel like. I feel like this is who I could have been in another dimension.” She burst out laughing. I frowned. “What? What’s so funny about that?”
She waved that away, but her eyes twinkled with suppressed mirth. “Nothing. It makes sense. You just surprised me. You do look like a different version of yourself. I guess that’s what I wasn’t expecting. I’m used to the you that I met at the hospital, not……” She gestured up and down in front of me. “Not this.”
I glared at her. Was she trying to mock me? “Are you ready to go?”
“Of course.” I stepped out of the house and shut the door. When I slipped the key into the lock, she eased close to me and laced her hand through my arm. “I wasn’t laughing at you. I’m just nervous.”
I glanced down into her radiant golden face. She was right. All the tension and reserve vanished from her features. She looked up at me with an open countenance that held nothing back. Neither of us had to worry about Anna or the hospital or anyone else now. It was just the two of us tonight.
For the first time in…. well, in forever, I got a glimpse of what my life would have been like if I never joined Los Diablos. I could have been born into a normal family and grown up in a normal neighborhood in East LA. I could have gone to school and maybe college and gotten a job. I never would have known what it would be like to live with Los Diablos all these years.
If I had done any of that, I wouldn’t be walking her toward the Tesla right now and I sure as shit wouldn’t be wearing this suit. I never could have afforded either if I wasn’t The Boss of the most powerful motorcycle club on the West Coast.
Maya stopped in her tracks and stared at the car. She gulped again.
“What’s wrong now?” I demanded. “What did you think—that I would take you out to dinner on the back of my hog?”
She blinked at the car. Then she shook her bangs out of her eyes. “I…. I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t really believe that was your car. I thought…. I don’t know what I thought.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You thought I borrowed it. You thought I must be too poor to afford a car like that, or else you thought I bought it with drug money or something. Didn’t you? Admit it. That’s what you thought.”
She lowered her eyes to the ground, and my guts wrenched with sudden guilt. Why did I have to shove it in her face like that? I asked her out. Why couldn’t we just enjoy our date like normal people—like the people we would have been in that alternate universe?
“You’re right,” she murmured. “I did think that. I thought all of that, and I thought a lot of other not-nice stuff about you, too. I was surprised that you live in such a nice house in such a nice neighborhood. I thought you would live in a slum. I’m sorry. Maybe this was a bad idea, but I can’t ignore what you are. You look really handsome in that suit and it’s a beautiful car. It’s very impressive that you can afford all that, but I can’t forget what you really are. You’re in a motorcycle gang. What clothes you wear doesn’t change that.”
“I don’t want to change it,” I told her. “It’s what I am. If you can’t accept that, you shouldn’t go out with me.”
“I do accept it. I don’t want to ignore it or pretend that you’re not. I agreed to go out with you because of who I met at the hospital, not because of this.” She waved toward the car again.
I scowled at her. Why was I so mad at her all of a sudden? I really did want to be someone else. I was the one who didn’t accept it. I wanted to be someone else to make myself more palatable to her. I wanted her to see me as someone else because I thought I wasn’t good enough.
She cast another sidelong glance at the car. “So….do you want to go?”
“Do you?” I returned. “Are you sure you want to go through with this? You can back out with no hard feelings.”
She raised her beautiful face to meet my gaze. “I want to. I want to go out with you, Roman Santiago. I don’t want someone from another dimension.”
An oppressive weight lifted off my shoulders. She really did want this. She wanted me, not some cardboard cut-out. I pressed the button on my key fob to open the passenger door and I guided her around the car to help her in. She settled herself in the seat and I slid behind the wheel.
Only when I sat down next to her did I let myself take in the majesty of her. A sleek blue dress hugged every delectable curve. I never got a decent look at that body in her scrubs. Now the dress shimmered under the dome light. It set off the glistening highlights in her loose golden hair and her dazzling green eyes. The seat cradled that body and made it a thousand times more inviting than before.
I never let myself imagine her body. All my fantasies revolved around the person she was, her face and eyes and voice soothing me in my hour of need. Now I envied that chair for shaping itself to her curves, for stroking her through her dress the way I wanted to.
I faced the dashboard to take my mind off her. I put the car into Drive and headed for the highway. I probably would have driven the whole way to the restaurant in silence if she hadn’t spoken up first. “How’s Anna doing?”
“She’s fine,” I replied. “She’s spending the night with some school friends.”
“How is the medication working out?” she asked. “I guess it must be working since she hasn’t come back to the hospital.”
“It’s working out perfectly,” I told her. “She’s never been better.”
Quiet enveloped the car once again until she ventured, “I’m sorry for bringing her up. I shouldn’t have.”
“Why not?” I asked. “She’s practically the only thing we have to talk about.”
She blushed. “Let’s change that.”
“What would you like to talk about?”
She peered at me in the dashboard’s eerie glow. “I’m not sure. I can’t really talk to you about your work.”
“Not really, but I could tell you some things unsolicited.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “Really? Like what?”
“Like the fact that I didn’t get the money for this car and that house and this suit from drugs. Things like that.”
She swiveled around to stare at me. “You didn’t? Where did you get it from then—guns?”
“No, from real estate. Los Diablos owns several rental properties and apartment buildings in this part of town. I should probably say Los Diablos owns a lot of rental properties and apartment buildings in this part of town. We make our money from renting them out and from buying them, fixing them up, and selling them off. That’s our primary business.”
She gasped out loud. “Really? Why do you…..” She broke off.
I shot her a sidelong glance. Already the realization dawned in her eyes. The more she found out, the more she started to form an accurate picture of who and what I really was. That could only be a good thing.
“We operate as a motorcycle club to combat our enemies. The Longtails would steal our territory in a heartbeat if we showed the slightest weakness. Los Diablos has been responsible for protecting the people of this part of town for generations—not only by offering decent housing for them to live in but by stopping the Longtails and others from taking over. They would turn our neighborhoods into slums. They would milk our people for every cent they could get. They do it all over town. We’ve seen it before and we can’t let them do it here. We take that responsibility very seriously.”
“Do you….?” She hesitated before she made up her mind to say it. “Do you operate as a motorcycle club to stop the…..?
I waited for her to come up with the word on her own. “The humans, you mean?”
She colored and looked away. “Yeah. That’s what I meant.”
“What you mean is, do we operate as a motorcycle club to stop the humans from realizing what we’re doing, and the answer is yes, we do. The humans only found out about dragons a few years ago. Los Diablos have been living in and around this city for hundreds of years and we existed further south
in Mexico for centuries before that. Dragons have lived all over the world since the dawn of time. When we migrated to this country, we had to invent a way to trick the humans into ignoring us, so we came up with this. It lets us keep up a hostile stance against the Longtails and any other dragon group that moves in on our territory without law enforcement getting wise. They see us fighting and they think, ‘Oh, well, that’s just the gangs fighting again. No big deal’.”
She turned her attention the city lights gliding past the window, but her body sank into the seat with a more relaxed posture. “I guess that anonymity is all gone, now that the world knows about you being dragons.”
“They don’t know all of it. They don’t know about the real estate. Those reporters didn’t look too deep into our finances. They saw warring gangs and left it at that, exactly the way we hoped they would. No one knows the whole truth. They never will.”
I parked the car in front of the restaurant, but when I stuck out my finger to unlatch her door, she spun around and stopped me. “Wait a minute, Roman. Why are you telling me all this? If you want to hide your real position from the world, why tell me? You could have let me believe you were nothing but a gang lord. I agreed to go out with you as that. You didn’t have to tell me.”
I cocked my head to study her. Why did I tell her? If our secret was so important to our survival, why did I reveal it to her on our first date—maybe our last date?
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I told you. I guess when it all comes down to it, I want you to know the real me. I’m not trying to impress you or anything. I just want you to know. It’s the same as when I told you about Laura, Anna’s mother, and when I told you I was a dragon. If I’m going to take you out, I don’t want you coming to me later and saying, ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ I want you to have all the facts out front before you decide what you’re going to do with me.”
“Will you get in trouble for telling me?” She cracked a grin. “I know you’re The Boss and all, but won’t the other guys get bent out of shape if they find out you’re telling the club’s secrets to an outsider—a human, I mean?”
