He didn’t.
In what would probably be one of the last times I was capable of, I picked Josh up in a cradle hold while he screamed, “No! No! You better not!”
I laughed, noting subconsciously how heavy he was.
He shook his head as he thrashed in my arms. “No!”
Obviously, I ignored him even though he was inches from my face. “Louie, he’s saying yes, right?”
“Uh-huh,” the little traitor agreed, his hands over his mouth as he giggled.
Eyeing the biggest pile of leaves, I walked over to it, struggling more than just a little with Josh’s weight as he yelled, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it!”
“Do it? You want me to drop you in the leaves?”
And as he kept yelling for me to have a heart, I dropped him like a sack of potatoes. He’d live. My dad had done it to me enough times as a kid in piles smaller than this one. A couple of bruises weren’t going to kill him.
And sure enough, he acted like he’d gotten shot.
I wasn’t sure how it happened, but somehow I ended up on the ground, too. Before I knew it, Louie went flying squirrel on us and dove on top of his older brother. At some point, I noticed my shoes had been thrown across the yard. It wasn’t until they were both draped on top of me, trapping me on the ground and pressing an elbow down on my crotch while a forearm squished my boob, that I started smacking the palm of my hand down on the grass. “I give up. Jesus—”
“Abuelita said you’re not supposed to be saying that,” Lou corrected me from his spot the furthest away from my face.
“I know what Abuelita says,” I groaned as the elbow over my pubic bone pressed down on it again, making me cringe and try to buck Josh off. “But you know what else Abuelita says? Don’t be a snitch.”
“She doesn’t say that,” Josh argued, crushing my mams.
“Yeah, she does. Ask her next time.” They wouldn’t ask, and I’d bet my mom didn’t know what a snitch was anyway. I hoped.
Mac was howling in the background from the yard, fully aware he was missing out on playtime and losing his mind.
Josh hopped up to his feet, giving my poor chi-chis a break, and then held out a hand to help me up—which filled me with a stupid amount of pride. It wasn’t until I was standing that I looked around the yard and saw the mess we made. Fuck. “Shi—oot.”
“Ugh,” was his response.
“Let me grab the rakes so I can help you get this all together.” I sighed again, tiptoeing over to pick up my shoes and put them back on.
“I got it,” Louie said, already running toward the gate that led to the backyard.
I wasn’t thinking, otherwise I would have remembered that Mac was going to barrel right through him once the door was opened. Just as I yelled, “Wait, Lou,” the big, shaggy, white beast did just what I had expected. He knocked Lou to the side as he sprinted across the front yard, zig-zagging in excitement like he’d been imprisoned for the last decade.
And like the paranoid, worrywart I was, I immediately envisioned him running onto the street and getting hit by an imaginary car.
“Try to grab him,” I instructed the two youngest Casillas in our family, as I shoved my feet into my shoes.
Yeah, it didn’t work. Mac was too fast and too strong and too nuts.
When he darted across the street, I yelled his name like a crazy person. I felt my heart drop to my feet until he made it to the other side.
“Wait for me here while I go get him, okay?” I called out to the boys. They nodded, my eyes immediately going to Louie who was wringing his little hands. “I’ll be right back.”
Not bothering to close the gate in case I could get Mac back by simply calling his name—a girl could dream—I looked up and down the street, trying to spot the biggest Casillas in the house. He was such a good dog… until he got loose. He always had been. I could remember like it was yesterday, Rodrigo bringing him by my apartment, so excited. “You’re dead,” I had told him even as I’d picked up the Irish Wolfhound puppy and cradled him to me, one of the few and rare times before he’d gotten too big. Now…
Well, now he was my oversized monster.
“Mac!” I hollered.
Nothing.
“Mac!” I yelled again, holding my hand up to shade my eyes as I glanced down the other side of the street.
Sasquatch’s cousin was a lot of things, but he wasn’t an idiot. He usually didn’t go anywhere further than ten feet away from the boys or me, but every once in a while, especially since we were in a brand-new neighborhood with brand-new smells… he liked to go exploring.
“Mac! I’m not playing with you! Come on!” I yelled again, just as something moved in my peripheral vision.
Sure enough, to my right, the very tip of a white tail peeked out from behind the top of a trash can that had been pulled onto the curb. Relieved out of my mind, I jogged across the street heading to the house squished between Miss Pearl’s and Dallas’s. It was nearly identical in size and style to the homes on either side of it, blocked off by a chain-link fence similar to the one in my backyard. From the highest point of the roof, an American flag hung loosely thanks to the absence of wind.
“Mac,” I groaned loudly enough for him to hear me as I approached the wagging tail on the other side of the trash can. “Mackavelli, come on, man,” I called him again.
His tail just waved in the air more aggressively.
Of course he would ignore me.
He’d been spoiled rotten since he was a puppy, and I hadn’t treated him any worse. Hell, he slept in my bed on the nights he didn’t hog Josh’s. I knew for a fact Mandy had never let him on the couch back when he’d lived with them, but I hadn’t upheld that in two years.
“Mac Daddy, now, come on,” I called out just as I walked around the trash cans to find the tall, long-limbed, grayish-white Wolfhound with his nose to the ground, his butt in the air, and that nearly three-foot long whip-like tail still wagging.
He raised his head and seemed to give me that face that said he was completely innocent of whatever I was assuming he’d been doing. “Come on,” I muttered, slipping my fingers underneath his leather collar, his wiry long hair brushing against the backs of my fingers.
I’d barely begun to tug him back in the direction of the house when a voice called out, “I hope he’s not taking a shit.”
I turned around quickly, caught off guard by how much I hadn’t been paying attention to not notice someone approaching. Sure enough, at the edge of the driveway between this house and Dallas’s was the same man who I’d helped weeks ago. The one who had gotten jumped. The brother. Jack, Jackson, Jackass, whatever his name was; it hadn’t been included on the team’s website.
The yellow discoloring over half his face confirmed it was him even if his features weren’t too familiar to me. He was just as tall as I remembered, and finally seeing him without blood covering his face, I could see he was better looking than the man who was my real neighbor, his brother.
I shook my head, a little uncertainly. Did he have an attitude or was I imagining it? “No. He’s smelling the trash can.” Why did I feel like I’d gotten caught doing something bad?
The man frowned, his gaze darting to Mac, who at the sound of a stranger’s voice had straightened his head and cocked his ears back, his lean body turned in the stranger’s direction. All his attention was focused on the person who was on the verge of standing too close to me. Or maybe he didn’t like the sound of his voice. Knowing Mac, it could be either or.
“I hope you’re watching him. Nobody needs to be stepping into dog shit,” the man grumbled.
I’d put my neck on the line for this asshole? His brother had been the one to come thank me—not that I had needed or wanted a thank you for helping him out—but it would have been nice. “If he poops, I’ll pick it up. But he hasn’t,” I said to him calmly, trying to figure out what might have crawled up his butt.
“I don’t see a bag in your hand,” he tried to argue.
Did he think he was the neighborhood watch?
“He just ran across the street, why would I have a bag on me?”
“Jackson, cut it out,” a deeper, rougher voice chimed in before either one of us had a chance to say something else.
There was only one person that voice could have belonged to: Dallas.
The man’s face went red and his entire body went stiff at getting called out by his supposed brother. He turned his body as the other man, Dallas, made his way down the pathway from his door, arms loose at his sides as he came toward us. But it wasn’t the ancient jeans he had on or the one-size-too-large dirty T-shirt he had on that caught my attention. It was his facial expression. There was a scowl on Dallas’s face that said he couldn’t believe what the hell he’d been hearing and he was disappointed by it. I would know, I’d been the cause of that look on my mom’s face enough times in my life.
Dallas kept coming, his gaze frozen in place, on his brother to be specific, who wasn’t moving. Neither one of them said a word until he stopped right next to the man talking to me, his forehead furrowed as he said in a low voice that wasn’t low enough for me to not hear, “We talked about this shit.” He spat each word out, anger lining each syllable.
I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t wonder what kind of shit they’d talked about. Being a jerk? Unfriendly? Both?
“I already told you to quit being an asshole to the neighbors.”
That explained it.
Somehow I must have disappeared to both of them because the man I could only assume was named Jackson turned to face Josh’s head coach. His neck was red, and I’d bet five bucks it wasn’t the sun to blame. “You’re not my fucking dad, asshole, and I’m not a fucking kid. You don’t get to tell me what to do—”
This was awkward.
And I wasn’t going anywhere.
I glanced from one man to the other, noticing their similarities, which were quite a bit actually. They both had the same long, straight nose, heavy brow bone and strong jawline. Both were handsome in a way, depending on how you looked at them, but Jackson was prettier even though he looked older, more like a cover model, where the only thing cover model about Dallas was his resting bitch face that was too aggressive to be on the cover of anything other than a survival guide magazine. That was it as far as similarities went though. Where one of them had long hair, the other had it shaved down. One had a beard; the other had thick stubble. Blond and brown. Green eyes and hazel ones. A jerk and not as much of a jerk. That last one was still out for judgment. Dallas’s saving grace was that he’d been nice to Louie and Josh.
“I get to tell you what you fucking do since you’re living at my house,” the man named Dallas kept going as if I wasn’t there. “My house, my rules. We went over it already. Don’t make it seem like I’m springing this on you.”
Maybe hanging around wasn’t a good idea after all.
I eyed the distance between my house and where I was. Then I squeezed Mac’s collar tighter. When Rodrigo and I argued, we had always done it away from other people… and a day later, we were usually on good terms again.
“Fuck off,” the Jackson guy spat, shaking his head, his rage clearly obvious to anyone within a quarter of a mile. “I’ve had about enough of your shit. I don’t need this.”
Dallas laughed that same bitter, wretched laugh I’d heard out of him the day he’d been arguing with the woman outside of the house. I couldn’t tell if it was out of rotten humor or if he was genuinely bothered and trying to cover it up, but… it hurt me. “All I’m asking is for you to be nice to the fucking neighbors and quit doing dumb shit, Jack. There’s nothing for you to have ‘enough of.’”
“Fuck off. That’s the story of your life and you know it. Everyone ends up getting tired of your shit eventually,” the Jackson guy continued so angrily it finally triggered Mac’s growl.
If I hadn’t overheard the conversation Dallas had with the woman in the sedan who may or may not have been his wife, I would have no idea what he was talking about. But I did hear it. And the comment had me feeling defensive of this poor man who might be a gigantic asshole to the people who should have been the most important in his life, for all I knew. But still, harsh, much?
Jackson raised a middle finger as he walked by his brother and pressed the front of it against Dallas’s forehead as he walked by. What the hell was wrong with this man? And my neighbor, the real one, didn’t move an inch as his brother did that. He kept those hazel eyes locked on the other man even as he disappeared up the driveway for a moment before the loud roar of a motorcycle filled the air. Before I knew it, a beefy Harley was getting rolled down the driveway—where the hell was that thing parked? In the backyard?—the person behind the handles wearing the same clothing Jackson had on a second ago. Then he was gone.
That was interesting.
Unsure what I was supposed to do, I just stood there. Awkward. Maybe he wouldn’t notice I’d listened to everything said between them. A girl could dream.
And that was exactly what didn’t happen because the man named Dallas turned his attention to me.
Of all the things I could have said or asked, I went with, “Are you the older brother or the younger one?” before I could stop myself.
I didn’t realize how offended someone could get over that question until after it came out of my mouth. If someone had asked if Rodrigo was the younger one, I would have slapped them.
He let out a noise in his throat as he glanced in the direction his brother had disappeared to and shook his head.
That said more than enough.
Luckily, after a moment or three, my neighbor settled for blinking down at me with that remote expression on his face. What did he think I was trying to do? Get information to steal his identity? “Older,” he finally answered.
“Ahh.” That explained everything. I would like to think it was because I didn’t know him that I said, “I’m sure my older brother wanted to kill me a few times in his life.” I could probably count at least fifty different occasions when he would have wanted to shake me at some point. God, I missed him. “That’s family for you.”
Something about that must have been the wrong thing to say because the dark-haired man shrugged like he was shaking off something he didn’t like, his gaze darting to Mac quickly. “Make sure to be careful with him running off. We don’t get a lot of traffic, but shit happens,” the rough-voiced man warned me, forcing the smile off my face.
I didn’t know why his concern irritated me from one second to the next, but it did. “Yeah. I will.” Did he think I was stupid and didn’t know that?
“Buttercup!” Louie yelled from across the street where he was standing on the front lawn, waving me over violently.
I waved back at him before turning to my neighbor one last time, trying to tell myself I didn’t need to get annoyed with his suggestion about keeping better track of Mac. He probably hadn’t meant anything condescending by it. “I should get going. Thanks for—” I pointed in the direction that his brother had gone in. “I don’t know what I did to make him mad, but see you.”
He took my leaving instantly, that sharp, serious face making a dismissive sound but I didn’t miss the way his gaze slid back in the direction of his house. “You didn’t do anything.” His attention shifted to the five-year-old waiting impatiently on the lawn and stayed there for a moment. “Later.”
I smiled at him. “See ya.” Tugging on Mac’s collar, we took a few steps toward the street before I used my grown-up voice on the stubborn-ass and whispered into his floppy ear, “The things I do for you.”
With his head turned over his shoulder, he gave me that silly dog grin of his that erased every frustration I felt toward him. He followed me across the street without a single problem, where the boys were waiting and watching.
“What are you doing standing around? That’s not what I pay you for,” I called out to them.
Louie gaped before asking his brother, “She pays us?”
* * *
“Son of a bitch.”
From her spot inside the break room, I heard, “Did you cut yourself?”
I shook my head, not bothering to see if Ginny had peeked out at my words or not. My eyes were laser-focused on the e-mail I’d just gotten. “No. I just got the schedule for Josh’s baseball team. They want to bump practices up to three times a week. Three times a week. Like four hours during the school week isn’t enough on top of him already going to batting and catcher practice. When am I supposed to have an afternoon to poop in peace?”
“Diana!” Ginny laughed, her voice getting louder, telling me she either had stuck her head out or she’d walked out.
“Who agreed to this?” I asked myself more than her. Practice three times a week and tournaments twice a month minimum. Jesus Christ. At this rate, I was going to need to buy a sleeping bag and just camp out at the facility every day.
“One of my cousins,” she sacrificed them both. “It’s that bad?”
“Yes!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her approach me with a bowl of whatever she’d brought for lunch. “Why don’t you call Trip or one of the other coaches and complain? You can’t be the only one thinking about buying real estate by the field if it’s that bad.”
She had a point. I also didn’t fail to catch that she didn’t suggest Dallas, who was the head coach, to be the one I called.
When the team mom had e-mailed all of us after posting the roster, we’d been given all the coaching staff’s phone numbers and all the fellow parents’ numbers. I’d called Josh’s last coach just about every week for one reason or another. I’d had that crazy, moody asshole on speed dial I talked to him so often.
So calling Trip or Dallas wouldn’t be some crazy unheard of thing.
Would it?
“You have a tournament one week in Beaumont and the next week in Channelview? That’s a pickle,” Ginny said from over my shoulder.
Blinking at the list on my phone, I reeled back as I took in the information she had just told me about. Those were both three-hour plus drives! What in the hell? I could only take off one weekend a month, and every other month I managed to get two off. The Larsens wouldn’t hesitate to take Josh somewhere that far away, but it seemed unfair to have to ask them to do that.
Wait for It Page 12
