by Ella Fox
Without taking his eyes off of me, Alejandro gestured back over his shoulder. “Back at the trashcan area. Let me take you back there.”
I smiled and stepped forward, my skin prickling with awareness when he turned so we could walk side by side.
“How have you been?”
I wished my hair were down so that I could hide behind it as opposed to being done in a complicated fishtail braid. Reaching up with my left hand, I rubbed the pale pink rubber band that held the style together between my thumb and forefinger.
“Um, good,” I answered. “Really, really busy.”
I was stretching the truth since I wasn't all that busy. It was summer, and I was spending the majority of my days out by the pool reading magazines or inside where I was either working on my video stuff or binge watching Grey's Anatomy.
“What’s got you so busy?” he asked.
“I, uh—videos,” I blurted.
Alejandro stopped walking and turned to face me. “Videos?”
I was maybe one heartbeat away from asking him to point me toward the closest shovel so I could dig myself a hole of shame. Why had I just told him that?
“It’s stupid,” I laughed. “Forget I said anything.”
His laser-like attention only intensified.
“Now I have to know.”
His grin made me all kinds of dopey in the brain, and I found myself wanting to tell him everything about me.
“I’m already the crazy bird lady,” I joked. “I don’t want to add anything else.”
Without waiting for him to speak again, I shook it off and started walking back toward the side of his house. He caught up quickly and fell into step next to me.
“Please?”
My will to keep from sharing anything with him was done in by a simple, please. Clearly, I was weak where he was concerned.
“Fine,” I sighed. “I have a… um… well, a channel on YouTube.”
“What kind of channel on YouTube?” he asked.
If one were to count how many ways I didn’t want to tell him, they’d have quickly gotten up over a million. Although I was endlessly proud of my channel and the content I created, there were videos on there I didn’t want him seeing. Still, it wasn’t like I could not answer his question—at least without being rude.
“I make videos about hair, makeup, clothes, food, crafts and that kind of thing,” I said vaguely.
I was surprised that he immediately seemed to get it. “So it’s a lifestyle channel,” he smiled. “What’s your username?”
It was the worst possible thing he could've asked. If he knew my name, he would find my channel, and once that happened I had no guarantee that he wouldn't go all the way back to the beginning where the truly embarrassing stuff was. I couldn't tell him my username, even if it was rude.
“I’m not telling you,” I answered as I doubled my pace.
He caught up with me in a flash, probably because his legs were darn near double the length of mine. “Kaya,” he laughed, “you can’t announce that you have a YouTube channel and then refuse to tell me your username. Of course I’m curious.”
I refused to look at him, choosing instead to focus on the pavers beneath my feet as I walked. “They’re just stupid videos,” I huffed. “I guarantee nothing I do is anything you’d care about.”
"First, you're wrong about that, and second, I very much doubt they're stupid," he countered.
“It’s just silly,” I explained self-consciously. “Unless you like doing hair and makeup, challenging yourself to a ten-dollar transaction at the supermarket or making the perfect fruit salad, it would bore you to tears.”
“Actually, I enjoy fruit salad and I’m more than a little interested in couponing. I find the process fascinating, particularly the sites that tell you exactly what coupons to clip and when and where to use them. I spent two years learning everything there is to know about the intricacies of the coupon cycle. I could teach you things that could get you to a zero check out every time.”
I snorted out a laugh of disbelief. “Yeah, right!”
I believed the rich male model next door studied coupons and knew how to checkout for nothing about as much as I believed that L. Ron Hubbard was coming back from his visit with Xenu to take the helm at the Scientology Centers again.
“You know what they say about assumptions, Kaya,” Alejandro chuckled as we transitioned onto the grass in the side yard.
Instead of answering, I focused on Elvis who was beak deep in a trash bag full of food. I was almost thankful to him at that moment for being a naughty boy because it gave me an excuse to leave my conversation with Alejandro in the dust.
“No! Bad,” I called as I picked up my pace. “Elvis! Get out of the trash.”
He gave me a look that said nice try, Kaya, before he continued eating. When I got to his side, I grabbed the bag and yanked it away, scolding him as I did. Elvis didn't fight me for it, but it wasn't like he needed to either since it was more shredded than I'd originally seen. A small amount of berries, melons, nuts and scrambled eggs rained down onto the grass as the bag split further down the middle.
Elvis jumped to the ground to continue enjoying his smorgasbord as I screeched in horror when a blueberry landed on my white Adidas superstar shoes. Fortunately for me, Alejandro was fast on his feet. He threw open the lid to the trash can and grabbed the bag from me, tossing what remained away before any more could drop onto my shoes. I breathed a sigh of relief when I kicked the blueberry off and saw that none of the juice had stained the leather of my sneakers. It wasn't often that I splurged on full price shoes, but my Adidas superstar collection was something I gladly spent money on without waiting for a sale. I had five pairs, and I loved them all.
My eyes went from my shoes to Elvis, who was busy gobbling up berries like he was Pac-Man. Letting out an annoyed sigh, I crouched down to start cleaning up Alejandro’s lawn. He stopped me when I went to pick up a handful of melon chunks.
“No, no, Kaya, please,” he said as he set a hand on my shoulder, “don’t worry about it.”
His touch sent off a cascade of feeling within my body, all of it good. Too good. I stood up fast and crossed my arms over my chest protectively as I tried to ignore the way he made me feel.
“If I don’t clean it up he won’t stop,” I explained. “And if he doesn’t stop, he’ll get sick. Birds don’t have an all you can eat diet.”
“Don’t move,” he instructed, “I will get the rake.”
After Alejandro hurried around the corner, I tried to shoo Elvis away. "You're being such a bad boy," I scolded.
Nothing. He kept right on eating. That meant it was time to pull out the big guns.
“Mommy isn’t going to be happy, little man.”
He immediately stopped and cocked his head to look at me with one eye.
Ah-ha! Victory. I finally had his attention.
"That's right, Mister. I'm telling Mommy, and she's going to be very sad.”
People will tell you that animals can’t understand the things we say, but I know they’re wrong. Elvis loved Emery more than anything in the world. Whether it was my tone of voice or the use of the word mommy, he changed course quickly.
I couldn’t help my smile as he walked away from the small pile of food, but my smile turned into a look of confusion when he stopped in front of a large pot full of water and began drinking. My eyes darted between the mound of food on the lawn to the pot of water as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.
“I found a rake and a dustpan in the garage,” Alejandro announced as he came around the corner.
“Did you purposely set out a bird buffet?” I joked.
His eyes went wide with shock. “I—b-bird buffet?” he spluttered. “What?”
I laughed as I gestured from the mound of food to the water. “I don’t often see kitchen pots outside. Elvis must’ve thought he’d found the Promised Land. Do you leave giant pots full of water out here often?”
Alejandr
o looked from the pot of water to me twice more. “Crabs,” he finally murmured, so low that I wasn’t certain I’d heard him correctly.
“I’m sorry?”
“Yeah. Um. Crabs. So, I was thinking of setting up a crab boil on the grill? Got the whole pot filled with water to see if it would fit on there and the grill and then I saw a spider. You know how it is in new houses. Everything is just settling, I guess. Anyway, I was carrying it over to dump out onto the rose bushes when I saw Elvis in the trash.”
“Ah,” I said with a nod. “I get it. No one wants a spider in with their crabs.”
Alejandro barked out a laugh. “Right. No spiders.”
Finished with his buffet and full of water, Elvis walked around us and jumped up onto the wall between the two properties as Alejandro began to rake up the remains of the trash. “That’s right,” I praised, “you go back on the right side of the wall and be a good boy.”
Elvis cawed before doing as I instructed. The husky chuckle at my side caused goosebumps to break out across my already too-sensitive skin.
“He listens to you,” Alejandro murmured as he finished raking and dropped the dustpan onto the ground.
"Apparently not," I coughed. "I'm so sorry about all of this," I said as I gestured to the pile of food Alejandro was moving into the dustpan.
“Please don’t apologize,” he said firmly. “I’ve told you, Elvis is welcome any time. Don’t even worry about it.”
"I can't help worrying about it," I sighed. "He's never left his home base before, and now he's done it twice in a matter of days. I'm afraid he'll branch out and go farther. If he got lost or hurt it would kill Emery. He's all she has left of her…" I stopped talking when I realized I'd been about to share her business with a stranger. Alejandro didn't strike me as a gossip, but still. It wasn't my place to share.
"Elvis will not go any further," Alejandro assured me as he dumped the trash into the can and shut the lid. "It's my fault, Kaya. If it weren't for the garbage we've left out, he never would've come over. We'll do a better job at making sure it goes out the right way."
The way Alejandro studied me as he spoke made my skin feel two sizes too small. For twenty-one years, I'd been all but oblivious to the opposite sex, and suddenly, I couldn't stop noticing every little thing a man did. I needed to nip it in the bud immediately.
“I have to go,” I blurted as I took three steps back.
“You don’t have to go,” he said, a look of displeasure flashing across his features. “Come in for coffee instead.”
“I can’t. I’m going out.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Where are you off to?”
"The Malibu Farmer's Market. It's only open on Sundays, so I don't want to miss it."
He frowned as I took another step back and prepared to turn away. “Wait! I’ve never been to the Farmer’s Market. Mind if I tag along?”
6
Alejandro
I could tell she was hesitant to agree and it stung far more than it should have, considering I'd spent a total of fifteen minutes with her since we'd met. It didn't matter because just like Mateo had said about the night he saw Avelina in the sunroom, I knew what Kaya was to me. I held my breath and said a silent prayer as I waited for her answer.
“You want to go to the Farmer's Market?" she asked, her voice incredulous. I would have been mildly insulted if it hadn't been so funny. It also didn't hurt that I was turned on by the way she bit her lip when she said it, as if my desire to go, was a real conundrum.
I grinned but kept my laugh inside. “I do,” I confirmed.
She made a face that caused her brow to furrow and her nose to scrunch up, which was oddly fucking hot. “Well then. Um, sure,” she answered after a lengthy pause. “I mean, it would be a sin not to experience it if you want to go.”
I couldn't have given less of a shit about the Farmer's Market experience, but I wanted to spend as much time with Kaya Porter as humanly possible.
“Thanks for letting me tag along, neighbor” I smiled. “I’ll go get my wallet.”
She swallowed and looked away for a few seconds. “I need to run back to the house to grab my purse and lock the doors,” she explained when she looked back at me. “I’ll swing by to pick you up in about five minutes. Meet me at the gate?”
I opened my mouth to offer to drive only to firmly close it before the words could come out. Something told me that Kaya needed that control, and I was fine giving it to her. She was wary, and I needed to work with it. "I'll be there," I answered.
The look of relief that flashed across her face told me I'd been right to acquiesce. "See you then," she said before she turned and walked away.
I watched her walk away, enjoying the deliberate and determined way she walked. She was tiny as hell, but everything about her packed a massive punch. Kaya made a bigger impression than anyone I'd ever met. I couldn't help the way I watched her until she walked out my still open gate, nor could I contain my grin when I realized she was purposely not turning to look back. I had no doubt she was well aware that I was watching her, but she didn’t want to acknowledge it.
After she was out of sight, I ran into the house to wash my hands and grab my wallet before I tore off down the drive to wait for her at the gate. My heart rate skyrocketed when I heard the motor of the electric gate at Kaya's opening. When a cherry red VW Cabrio with two white fluffy dice hanging from the rearview mirror pulled out and stopped next to me, I couldn't contain my laugh. It matched Kaya and her personality to a T. She looked at home behind the wheel, the crystal accents on her white horn rimmed sunglasses twinkling in the sun.
“Cute car,” I said as I slid into the passenger seat.
She glanced over and wrinkled her nose. “Velma doesn’t like to be called cute,” she answered.
“You’ve named the car?” I asked as I clicked my seatbelt into place.
Kaya laughed as she put the car into gear and headed for our destination. I watched her movements with interest that surprised me. Never before had I been so enthralled by anyone, but her ease behind the wheel was downright sensual.
"I did," she answered as she shifted gears. "Velma belonged to my neighbor from down the street. I was so obsessed that I made her promise me that when I was sixteen, I could buy it. I was nine at the time. She assured me that if she still had it, I would be welcome to it. I saved up all of my allowance and birthday money for years. Later the money I made working at Emery's family peacock farm each summer went right into the bank. This car needed to be mine. It was a significant moment when the keys were handed over."
I could tell it meant a lot to her because the smile on her face told a story of its own, but for a few seconds, I was unable to say anything because I was busy fighting off what I knew would be a damn noticeable erection.
The day before Kaya had smelled like coconuts and sunshine. Earlier I'd gotten a faint hint of something sweet when I walked alongside her, and in the car, I realized what it was. She smelled like delicious cotton candy, and I wanted to trail my tongue over her skin to see if she tasted as good as she smelled. Realizing that I was supposed to say something, I let out a cough and forced myself to get my head back into reality.
“It’s a great car.”
She looked over at me when she came to a stop at the light that led out to Pacific Coast Highway. "Not as nice as either the midnight blue Maserati Quattroporte or the black Range Rover with new tags still on it that are parked in your driveway," she said dryly. "I bet your first car was brand new and it probably cost an arm and a leg."
Never was I so glad that my parents hadn't spoiled us all miserable rotten. "Remember what I said to you about assumptions?" I teased. "My parents flat out refused to get any of us nice cars until we had one year of perfectly clean driving under our belts. I was a little heavy on the gas pedal back then, so it took me two years to work my way up from an old black Renault that had no air con and stank like an old woman's perfume for the first six months I had it."
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“So you hated every second of driving it,” she said as she shifted into gear and took the turn onto PCH.
"Actually, I didn't. The car was good to me, and I was good to it because it had personality. When it was passed down to my brother Diego, I threatened him with bodily harm if he fucked the car up. He managed to keep it safe for the year he had it—only one for him, no speeding tickets. It'd probably still be in the family now if my youngest brother Joaquin hadn't left it unlocked in a shitty area. It was stolen, and we never saw it again."
She looked over at me quickly before setting her gaze back on the road. “Exactly how many siblings do you have?” she asked.
“There are five of us,” I answered, “all boys.”
“Who’s the oldest?”
“I was the oldest until I was almost eleven,” I explained. “That year we found out about my brother Mateo after his mother passed away, and he came to live with us. He’s almost four years older than me.”
She chewed on her bottom lip as she focused on the road. "Did it bother you? Finding out you had a sibling and not being the oldest anymore?" she asked.
I was pleased with the interest in her tone.
I shook my head. "Not at all, because I immediately had a wicked case of hero worship for Mateo. It wasn't like my father had kept him from us. That was all his mother's decision. To this day it tears our father up inside that he did not have those first fourteen years with his son. I would not wish that on my worst enemy. Anyway, I am close to all of my brothers, but of the bunch, Mateo is who I have the closest friendship with. Rafe is a twin to our brother Diego, so they were born best friends and then Joaquin seemed to be born with a ball at his feet. He's always done his own thing."
She laughed as she shook her head. “I can’t even imagine having that many siblings.”
I got that a lot. The truth was that I couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to have them. Even when they drove me nuts—like Rafe was at the moment—they meant the world to me. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.
“Do you have any siblings?”
