by Emma Hart
The worst part? I didn’t even have anyone to talk to about this. Blaire was definitely off the table—no matter that she could actually keep a secret, she’d never keep this from Aspen, and I’d never ask her to.
If I told Tom, he’d tell Blaire, who’d tell Aspen.
This was the problem with small towns. There was always a trail.
With a sigh, I pushed open the door to my parents’ house.
“Luke? Is that you?” Dad appeared in the hallway. “Thank God. You have to help me, son. They’re planning your cousin’s quinceanera, and they want my help.”
I frowned, closing the door behind me. “Elena’s? But she’s not fifteen until next November.”
“Exactly.” He pinched the top of his nose and shook his head, eyes briefly closed. “Your grandmother is pitching a fit that there isn’t a venue booked yet.”
“She did this with Maria and Teresa. She knows we can’t book the venue until a year out.”
“Will you tell her that?”
“Hell no.” I snorted and walked into the kitchen. “She’s Mom’s mom. She can do that.”
“Madre!” Mom shouted from the living room, followed by a long string of Spanish.
I paused at the fridge, looking back at Dad. “Has she been shouting in Spanish long?”
“Yes, but they started off singing Despacito. The ‘proper’ version, not that one with the little blond boy in it.”
“Justin Bieber.”
“I don’t care what his name is, son. I was just happy when they let the cats back out into the alley.” He bustled over to the coffee machine. “Then, your aunt called and mentioned about Elena’s birthday and wanting to take her away for the weekend—”
I winced.
“—Which set off your grandmother.”
On cue, Abuelita’s thick accent broke through the walls as she let off a huge stream of Spanish.
I tilted my head to the side. “Did she just tell Mom that she isn’t too old for la chancla?”
Dad snorted. “That’s the third time she’s threatened it, and her flip-flop has stayed firmly in the closet.”
“That’s some shit,” I replied. “I never even used to get threatened. Just hit.”
“Yes, but your mother hasn’t been mooning the old people in the bingo hall.”
“No, she just skinny-dipped on her twenty-first birthday and never told Abuelita,” I muttered.
Dad laughed. “That was a fun night.”
“So was my birthday.”
He nodded his head. “Point taken. But your mistake was letting your grandmother find out about it.”
“Letting her find out about anything is a mistake.” I sat on the wooden stool at the island and paused as she and Mom went back and forth in the living room. “How can one party be so much hard work for them? And why is Mom having this argument and not Aunt Val?”
“Valentina is too busy with her new boyfriend, which also set off your grandmother,” Dad said dryly. “In fact, I don’t think your mom spoke to her except to answer the phone.”
Ah, yes, good old Aunt Val who divorced her nice, Mexican husband and was now dating a younger Canadian man.
We didn’t know what pissed Abuelita off more. The fact she’d gotten divorced, or that she was dating a Canadian. After all, the woman hated just about anyone who wasn’t one: Mexican, or two: my dad, Aspen, or Blaire.
Even then, I think she tolerated my dad most days. He tolerated her every day, though, so it worked out.
“Luke!” Abuelita chose then to make her grand entrance, sweeping me into a huge bear hug that would have crushed me had I been a few pounds less of muscle.
Abuelita was everything anyone could imagine an old Mexican lady to be—except her clothing style. That was decidedly gypsy.
Not that we’d ever say it out loud.
Standing at a tiny five-foot-tall, she had dark hair that was permanently pulled back into a twist at the nape of her neck. She almost always wore a bandana over her head like she lived in the desert, and her round, wrinkled face was never to be seen without her favorite mascara lining her tiny, dark eyes, and light pink lipstick on thin lips.
Her green skirt swished around her legs as she let go of me. Speaking in Spanish, as always, she said, “Where is Aspen?”
I sighed and replied in English. “At work, Abuelita.”
“Why don’t you bring her to see me?”
“She’s at work. She can’t just stop to come and see you.”
“No. You no bring her. You ring her. I cook for her.” She’d made a rare switch to English, accompanying it with a jab to her chest. “She like my food.”
Every word came out like there was a full stop between them.
She. Like. My. Food.
That only meant one thing.
She was annoyed at me.
That wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence.
Unlike my mother who switched to Spanish when she was angry, Abuelita switched to English, like the thought she had to put into each broken sentence made her sound angrier.
If I didn’t know the damage she could do with a flip-flop, I’d laugh.
“You’re absolutely right,” I said, placating her. “I’ll tell her to stop by when I see her next. She told me to tell you thank you for the food, by the way.”
“You call. Now.” She pointed at me, the bracelets on her wrist jingling when she wiggled her arm.
Jesus. Sometimes managing her was like managing a basket of kittens in the rain.
“I can’t call her, Abuelita. She’s at work. The bar was getting busy when I left.”
“You call!”
“For the love of—Maria!” Dad’s spoon clattered against the counter. “The girl is at work. She can’t drop everything on your whim.”
Abuelita turned to him, her tiny eyes getting even smaller as she narrowed them. If it was possible, her already-thin lips spread even thinner, and she leaned forward just a tiny amount.
I knew that look.
I’d last seen it right before she’d whipped her flip-flop around the back of my head.
Three times.
“La chancla,” she warned him menacingly, waving an imaginary shoe in the air.
She held her hard gaze on him for one more second, then opened the nearest cupboard. A bag of chips landed on the island in front of me, and in silence, she went to the fridge, pulled out a jar, and emptied it into a small glass bowl, then gave me that too.
Salsa.
“You eat. You skinny,” she said firmly, looking at me like I’d be the next on the end of her la chancla threat if I didn’t agree.
I was smart.
I nodded and opened the chips.
“Jesus, Maria! He’s one-hundred-ninety pounds of solid muscle! I’ve seen gym rats skinnier than him!” Dad threw his hands up in the air.
Abuelita turned on him, and I could have sworn she was going for his mug. Instead, she waved her hand through the air. “Pah!” was the punctuation for her movement, and she snapped a few words in Spanish as she left.
I dipped a chip in salsa and shoved it in my mouth.
“What did she just call me?” Dad asked.
“Stupid American bastard,” I replied without batting an eyelid.
Dad put his coffee on the island and leaned in the direction of the door. “Stupid ancient hag!”
“She’ll get la chancla,” I warned him around another mouthful of chips and salsa.
“Yeah, well, if she weren’t such a damn good cook I’d have la chancla’d her obnoxious ass to the grave ten years ago,” he muttered, dipping his chip into the bowl of salsa.
“On the bright side, that’ll be Mom in twenty years.”
“You call that a bright side?” Dad stuck his hand in the chip packet. “I call that damn bad luck.”
He probably wasn’t wrong.
***
“At least she didn’t ask if I was dating anyone yet,” Aspen said, looking at the menu like she didn’t know what she wa
s going to get.
Blaire snorted. “Yeah, but now you’ve agreed to go see her tomorrow on your birthday, and she’s going to drill you then.”
“Oh no.” She looked at me, eyes wide. “Get me out of it.”
“Nope.” I laughed and grabbed my Coke. “You agreed. You know what she’s like. Dad called me this morning and said she’s still ignoring him, but every time she sees him, she’s waving her hand with an imaginary shoe.”
Blaire shuddered. “That’s the thing of nightmares.”
“She’s five-foot-tall.”
“The last time I watched her get that thing out to you, you shrieked,” she said flatly. “She’s terrifying, and you know it.”
“I didn’t shriek,” I said. “I swore.”
“You shrieked,” Aspen said, grinning. “It was the best day of my life.”
“I’m glad my pain brings you amusement.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but Blaire’s phone rang. She pulled it out of her luggage-sized purse. “Ugh, it’s my boss. I’ll be right back.”
She left the table, and I stared at her leaving.
“How the hell does she find anything in that purse?” I asked, turning my attention back to Aspen.
She shrugged. “She’s like Hermione without the magic.”
“Yeah, well, if she’s got a fucking tent in there, I want some new friends.”
“If she’s got a tent in there, she needs a therapist.” She put the menu down. “Should we wait for Blaire to get back before we order?”
“We can, but we both know that when her boss calls, it’s because she needs to leave because the printer stopped working or something.”
Aspen laughed.
Blaire’s boss was an aging lawyer who couldn’t understand the majority of modern-day technology. At this point, he was little more than the guy who ran the law firm while the younger lawyers who could use a laptop without electrocuting themselves did the work. He was also a stickler for not asking for help unless your name was Blaire.
“Do you remember that time we were having dinner with her and Tom when they’d just started dating and he called her? We’d finished eating an hour before—”
The memory made me laugh. “And you and her were well into your second bottle of wine, and he needed an urgent email sent to one of the other lawyers. Didn’t she assure him she’d do it, then when he called the next day made up some excuse?”
Aspen nodded, pulling her Coke toward her. “She said her email had been playing up and the message was stuck in her outbox. Not that he knew what the outbox was.”
“That probably worked in her favor.”
“That and one of the other secretaries promised not to tell him she’d been out drinking if she introduced her to you.”
A chill ran down my spine, making me shudder. “What was her name again?”
She shrugged. “How would I know? You’re the one who went on a date with her.”
“Blaire blackmailed me into a date. She still owes me that hundred bucks.”
“And I will pay you as soon as I remember,” Blaire said, coming back. She tossed her phone into her purse and pulled out her wallet.
“People in the Arctic can smell your bullshit,” I replied.
“Yeah, well, it stinks. What can I say?” She grinned. “Sorry. Gotta go. William’s phone stopped working again.”
“Did he plug it in?” Aspen asked, raising an eyebrow.
“He says it’s connected, so probably not.” She put five bucks down on the table to cover her drink, waved, and left.
Aspen waved over the server. “We may as well order.”
We did just that, both of us ordering our usual burgers.
“So,” she said. “You never did tell me how that date went with the nameless girl.”
“Blaire’s colleague?”
“Yup.”
“It was the worst date of my life.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “And you went out with Roxanne Carter in high school.”
“Again, Blaire still owes me money for that, too,” I said dryly. “I only took her to the movies because Blaire wanted to go out with her boyfriend.”
She frowned, then realization washed over her face. “Right, Liam Daniels. Blaire was kind of a bitch.”
“She’s still kind of a bitch,” I said. “But, to be fair, so was Roxanne. She knew Blaire was on a date with Liam and they cheated on each other all the time.”
“Did she—wait, no, I don’t want to know.” She shook her head, her wavy hair flicking over her shoulders.
I laughed.
“Why did you never take anyone out for me?” she asked.
“Because,” I said, my tone dry, “I was usually taking you out so you didn’t have to go places alone.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it. “You enjoyed that.”
“Oh, yeah. As a teenage boy, there was nothing I wanted to do more than take out my best friend instead of potentially getting laid.”
“Hey, I offered you sex if you took me to prom.” She held up her hands. “It’s not my fault if you were a gentleman.”
“Aspen, we left prom, got drunk on the beach, and you passed out on the way home.”
“That’s not the point. The offer was there.”
Yeah, and when I’d taken her up on it… I shook off the thought.
“What? It was.”
I frowned, then stopped. She thought I was shaking my head at her.
Good. The last thing she needed to know was that I was actually thinking about having sex with her.
“What kind of mood is Abuelita going to be in tomorrow?”
“As a rule, a terrible one,” I replied, leaning back in the booth and linking my fingers behind my head. I gave her a quick rundown of what had happened last night, starting with Aunt Val calling.
Aspen winced. “Great. They’re still not talking to her?”
I unlinked my fingers and held my hands out. “She divorced a Mexican, is dating a Canadian, and my mom is the one who has to take Abuelita’s shit for it all. Of course they’re not talking.”
“Is it just those two not talking to her?”
“Right now, but she’ll probably do something sooner or later and get my dad out of Abuelita’s bad books.”
“Yeah, right.” She laughed. “The day your dad gets out of her bad books depends on who dies first.”
I sighed. “That is a sad but incredibly valid point. You’d think, by now, they’d get along.”
“Luke, this is your grandmother we’re talking about. She barely gets on with herself, never mind anyone else.”
“Again, another sad but really fucking valid point.”
She smiled wryly, but there was laughter in her eyes, making them brighter than usual. “So, I can expect endless questions about why I’m not married yet, being fed until my stomach pops, and numbers for at least two of your cousins and a friend’s grandson.”
I paused for a second. “Based upon past experiences… Just run. Now. Go to Mexico. She’ll never look for you there.”
She laughed, burying her face in her hands. “I’ll take her ice-cream.”
“She’ll only have the toffee one from Betty’s, you know that.”
“God, she’s like an ancient child.”
Given that I’d had a similar thought last night, I simply grinned and took another sip of my Coke. “For the record, my current single cousins Abuelita hasn’t yet tried to hook you up with are Sebastian, Emmanuel, Ivan, Manuel, and Pedro.”
“For the record, your family needs to get some condoms.”
I burst out laughing, snorting my soda up my nose. It burned, and I pinched my nose, squeezing my eyes shut tight until it stopped.
“Again,” I said quietly, “Valid point. I’ll make a note to buy everyone some for Christmas.”
“Order online,” she muttered, meeting my eyes. “Or you’re gonna get a whole lot of funny looks at Target.”
I pointed at her, agreeing, right
as our food was brought out.
Thank God I was better looking at my single cousins.
CHAPTER TEN – ASPEN
It’s Never A Bad Time For Tacos
I loved Luke’s family.
That needed to be said. His grandmother cooked for me, his mom cut my hair, and his dad once saved me from a handsy guy at the bar.
Not to mention all the cookies I’d stolen while they were on cooling racks through the years.
They were the best kind of family. They were all close, they loved each other, and they were always there for someone when something went wrong.
Except for Luke’s aunt.
Valentina had brought that on herself.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that they were batshit fucking crazy.
Especially Abuelita.
Her obsession with marrying me off to one of her “nice Mexican grandsons” had begun the day I turned eighteen and could legally get married. It was forever an annoyance of hers that I’d rejected every single option she’d thrown my way.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Luke’s cousins. No, the entire family was genetically blessed, like they’d stepped right out of a fucking Disney movie or something. It was just like I didn’t click with his cousins the way I clicked with Luke.
It was probably because they were forced on me. Kind of like when my dad used to rub our old dog’s nose in her poo if she went inside the house.
That was what dating set-ups were like. Being a puppy and getting your nose rubbed in your own shit.
Honestly, for my part, if Abuelita wasn’t able to sniff out a lie from a mile away, I’d tell her I’d met someone.
The damn old woman was basically a human bloodhound.
I put my car into park outside Luke’s house, blocking in his truck and his dad’s at the end of the dirt driveway, and looked at the house. The wooden-brick façade was warmer than the argument I could already hear raging inside.
They had no windows open.
Neither did I.
That’s right. They were fighting that loud.
And, as I got out of the car, I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that it was Abuelita and Luke’s dad.
It was always Abuelita and Luke’s dad.
I locked my car and headed toward the front door. Luke opened it before I had a chance to get within a couple feet of the door.
