José: Who’s up for Margs and Tacos STAT?
Salome immediately replied with a thumbs-up and not long after Dani said he was down, but would join us a little later.
I quickly tapped in a response and was proud of myself for refraining from asking if any of the others were up for dinner.
Julia: I’m a little OD’d on Tex-Mex (not that I don’t LOOOOOVE me some authentic tacos), but would anyone be up for some Dominican at my place? My mother’s sent something close to a ton of Goya products and I need to start using them.
José and Salome responded within seconds.
José: Guuurlll... YES. I would kill some guandules and maduros right now. Shit I’m drooling already. As long as you don’t make me cook, I am in. Maybe Salome can be sous chef?
Salome: No habla kitchen. I grew up in the DR, we had a cook! I can do you some tostones, but dassit. I’ll do my best to hunt down some Presidente tho...
I cackled at the mention of the Dominican beer.
Julia: Perfect. I cook, you pour drinks. It’s on! Give me an hour?
I sent a screenshot with my address as more yeses from Dani, José, and Salome came. And still no word from Tariq or a certain finance shark who I knew had to be looking at the messages. I should’ve suspected José was not going to leave that alone.
José: Rocco and Tariq, are you still racking up billing hours in that cave you guys commandeered or can you come out tonight?
I didn’t need to be cheesing at my phone, but that’s exactly what I was doing.
“You’re in a hurry to get out of here today.”
My happy evaporated like drops of water in the Texas sun when I heard the condescending tone of Victoria Morris, the clinical director of the after-school program, behind me. For a second I considered just ignoring her, but I knew that would only make her that much harder to deal with later and I could not afford drama with staff right now. I turned and tried my best to at least look civil, because with this woman pleasant was simply not a possibility.
Victoria, or as she liked to be addressed, Vicki “with an i,” was an interesting character. Today she was dressed in a white cotton tunic with multicolored floral embroidery on the collar and hem. Vicki liked to wear “ethnic” fashions, and she made sure to let us know it was her way of seeming more approachable to our clients, “you know, because it’s something familiar.” One just had to make sure never to ask her where the shirts were from.
Never mind she couldn’t tell between students who came from Mexico and those who came from Central America, and loved to make sweeping statements about “them.”
I schooled my face into some kind of a smile and put my phone away as she approached. “Did I forget something?”
She waved a hand in the space between us and shook her head. “Oh no.” Her tone was sickly sweet and it was very hard not to roll my eyes at her. “I was just wondering how things were going with the consultant? If there’s anything I can do, let me know. If he wants to meet clients, I can call them up and tell them to be ready for Monday.”
I literally did a double take, because she could not be implying that she was calling clients on the weekends.
“Vicki, I don’t think that’s appropriate.” I sighed and regrouped. “The consultant already did a visit.” Fuck, now she would be pissed that I never told her Rocco was coming. “We are not having him walk in on clients during therapy.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, as if I was the one who was out of line. “Just make sure you remember to bring him around to the other programs. Some of us like to get a little credit for our work too.”
Oh, that’s what she was after. I knew she’d be pissed that Gail asked me to deal with Rocco even though she had zero reasons be involved. For one, I was the person who oversaw the whole program and she only ran the counseling services. And for another, unlike Vicki, Gail was actively trying to keep the foundation from getting shut down. I would have to mention to Gail that Vicki was not only willing to break confidentiality to parade clients around for a consultant, but that she was apparently calling clients on the weekends.
I held up a finger at her to look at my phone, which was buzzing in my hand.
And I could not help the smile that appeared on my face when I saw the message.
Rocco: A home-cooked meal sounds great, especially Dominican.
“Oh, got a hot date or something?”
Vicki had problems with boundaries, which was only part of the reason I regretted not pushing back when she’d first interviewed. Gail had insisted her extensive experience and connections in the Dallas public school system made up for all her other issues, but I wasn’t so convinced. On the surface she claimed to be ride or die for the program, but sometimes I really wondered about her. Especially when she seemed bound and determined to trample on my last nerve.
I cleared my throat again and tried once more to keep the gathering I was dying to give her inside myself. “No, I’m just meeting friends for dinner.”
I kept my eyes somewhere around her forehead, because if I had to look at her smug expression, I was not sure I could keep it together.
“Don’t want to make you late. I still have some loose ends to tie up here. Some of us will put in those extra hours when needed.”
I was not letting Vicki ruin my evening.
I showed her my teeth in what I knew did not even look remotely like a smile and pointed toward the parking lot in the direction of my car. “Don’t work too hard, Vicki. You’re going to put the rest of us to shame.”
I took the fact that I managed to unlock my jaw to say that as a win and walked off after wishing her a good night.
* * *
I’d barely gotten into some comfortable clothes, cute ones, because I didn’t need Rocco seeing me looking like a slob, when José and Salome arrived.
I didn’t stop moving around the kitchen and just called out to them while opening cans of coconut milk and pigeon peas. “It’s open! Come on in.”
I smiled as I heard them roll into my apartment like two Spanglish-speaking tornados.
José came over to give me a kiss on the cheek as he unloaded the bottles of wine he’d brought.
I gave him a dirty looked as he pulled back. “You had to invite Rocco to that chat, didn’t you?” He clicked his tongue like I was talking nonsense. José had only been at Sturm’s about nine months, but he’d been working as a web designer in the fashion industry for a minute. He was not fazed by anything.
He waved his hand as if the fact that we were fraternizing with the enemy was no big. “It’s not like any of us are anything other than employees. He’s doing a job and so are we.” He lifted a hand, palm out. “At the end of the day, it’s not like any of us can do anything other than do what we’re supposed to and let the bigwigs figure this out.”
He wasn’t wrong and I wasn’t in the mood to argue, so I switched to a lighter topic.
“Ooh, are those the new Guccis?” I asked as he nodded and tapped his toes and heels together like a Puerto Rican Dorothy.
“Si, Nena.” He grabbed the wineglass I’d gotten for him from the cupboard, still admiring his white leather hi-tops with the green and red stripes. They matched perfectly with his skinny black jeans and fitted black Balmain long-sleeved shirt. “You know I can’t resist that employee discount. Not that you do either. Are those sweats that make your ass pop like Cardi’s from the new LV knits collection?”
He actually slapped my backside as Salome cackled from a stool on the counter.
And as if on fucking cue, Tariq and Rocco walked into my apartment.
I covered my eyes with the back of my hand, mortified. “Oh my gawd, José, you’re a mess.”
He just sipped on his wine, unbothered. “Oh good, more of the crew’s here.” I didn’t miss that he gave Tariq a very long look. The boy put his time in at the gym, that was for sure.
I also didn’t miss that Rocco was looking like a six-foot-tall Italian-Irish sex-fever dream in my living room and presently taking a thorough look at my LV-knits-clad ass.
“Nena, this is nice, you got a lot of space.” José snatched me out of staring at Rocco like a weirdo. I looked at him and nodded as he walked around my place.
“It was supposed to be an apartment for two.” I laughed humorlessly, and got various versions of “poor Julia” smiles. “But fortunately, the rent isn’t too bad and I could keep the place.” I lifted a shoulder, taking the glass of wine Salome slid over the counter.
José’s face shadowed for a moment at my words. He’d told us that he left New York City after his partner of over ten years had passed away. Too many memories. I gave his hand a squeeze but he bounced back quickly.
“Well, regardless of the circumstances, here we are.” He waved a hand at the lot of us. “The Gotham Exiles repping NYC. The Republic of Texas better be ready.” We all laughed at that and moved to clink glasses.
After a moment, I pointed at the spot where Rocco was standing while the others chatted on the couch. “Mr. Quinn.” I dipped my head and almost curtsied because I was a full-on dweeb now.
He lifted a shoulder, a small smile on his lips as he held a bottle of cold beer. He was in his work clothes still. Gray slacks and a navy shirt with the sleeves folded up to his elbows. I gripped the counter behind me with both hands to keep from sighing.
He was handsome and he was an extremely bad idea. That I needed to stay clear on.
After another moment of awkward silence, he pushed off the wall and went to wash his hands. His big body taking up space in my kitchen.
“How can I help with dinner?”
My eyebrows almost flew off my forehead at his question. I took another sip of my wine, assessing him, and came over to where he was. “You cook?”
Shit, proximity was not going to help me keep it together. The man smelled like lemon verbena and sweat, and the combo was really loosening joints that needed to stay strong if I wanted to keep my job.
He looked at me and it was like he was figuring out a really hard question. I could relate.
“I do. I’m pretty decent at it.” He gestured to the cilantro, onion, garlic, and tomatoes I’d pulled out of the fridge. “You making sofrito?”
Okay, that shouldn’t have made me gasp, but it did. I nodded and started moving, since it was getting close to six thirty and people were going to get hungry. “You got Caribbean food at your coach’s?”
He looked surprised. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do.” I nodded, wondering how low Rocco was on the priority lists of the people in his life that he felt special when I recalled something he’d told me the day before.
“Coach’s actually a really great cook. And he always recruited me to help. So I can give you a hand.”
I pointed at the stove as I talked. “I was going to make a moro de guandules con coco and some pollo guisado.” I walked around him to open the fridge and pull out the chicken thighs I’d gotten at the market on my way home.
When I popped up, he was not even pretending to be looking anywhere but at my ass. And, of course, there went the butterflies swooping around in my belly. Yeah, this plan to keep it professional was working out great.
I cleared my throat and tried my best to get my body temperature under control while he stared at me like he had all the time in the world. I almost asked him if he was trying to mess with me, then realized he was waiting for instructions.
Get it together, Julia.
I gestured to the pile of ingredients on the counter. “You work on the sofrito and I’ll start the rice.” I wasn’t super confident he knew what he was doing, but I had to get his eyes on some food and off me before one of us got maimed in this kitchen.
But within a few minutes of working in companionable silence, he’d chopped up the veggies and was frying up tomato paste in olive oil to make the sofrito, exactly like my abuela taught me. Rocco just kept shattering all my assumptions.
“Damn, you do know what you’re doing.” I wasn’t joking; he’d chopped that onion and tomato perfectly and was mixing them into the hot tomato paste like a pro.
He smiled shyly as he worked. “I spent a lot of time with Coach and his wife during high school and in college. I told you he was Boricua.”
He tried to sound upbeat but I didn’t miss the tinge of sadness whenever he talked about college and high school.
“Pass me the chicken?” Rocco’s voice was soft when he worked, like he needed the rest of his energy to focus on doing a good job. I passed him the plate with six thighs and he placed each one gently in the pan, skin down.
I passed him his beer and we both watched the chicken sizzle as we took long sips of our drinks.
“So how did you get so close to your coach?” I knew I was going into territory that would put me very far from my initial plans with Rocco, but this man was so unexpected I could not resist wanting to know more.
He ran a finger on the edge of the granite countertop, taking his time. “My home life was kind of messed up growing up and he helped me out. His wife was great, but she wasn’t into cooking so I would always help out when I was over there.”
His smile was a little broken and I should’ve taken the heat radiating in my chest as a red flag that going further in was not advisable.
“I’m glad that your coach did the good work of indoctrinating you into sofrito. Did you guys hang a lot after you finished school?”
He lifted a shoulder as he watched the chicken browning in the pan. “Yeah, we still do. He helped me a lot. I couldn’t afford the dorms at Columbia, so I stayed with him and his wife the first couple of years of school. I ended up making decent money tutoring other kids. That gig got me through the end of undergrad and then business school.”
I raised an eyebrow at his casual mention of where he went to college. “Columbia, undergrad and business school? Damn, you fancy. No wonder you’re bringing in the dineros.”
He snorted at my comment and looked at me a little incredulously. “You know I get the CVs for all the program directors, right? I’ve seen your credentials.”
Okay, that smart-assness came back to bite me. “No, I didn’t, but I’m glad you’re aware how impressive I am.”
He bit his bottom lip like the sexy-ass fucker he was while he competently flipped the chicken in the pan. “You got a master in nonprofit management and master of social work. You’re not exactly a slouch in the higher education department.”
I looked over to see what the other four were doing and it seemed that they were engrossed in whatever Dani was showing them on his phone. “My dad is tenured at CUNY so I got a lot of breaks on tuition.”
Now I was the one shrugging, and feeling like I wanted to share this little bit of myself that I rarely talked about with anyone. “I started with social work, but after a while I noticed that even with my master’s there were only certain jobs out there. I could be a therapist, maybe a supervisor. But a director? Nah.” I shook my head at Rocco, who had put a lid on the pan and was now fully focused on me. “Those jobs went to white women. The black and brown social workers who were serving the black and brown customers, we were frontline staff, maybe middle management. None of the executives ever looked like me.”
I looked up at him expecting to find defensiveness, or a pursed mouth in response to what I’d said, but the only thing I saw were open eyes and understanding.
“Coach always talked about that. That even though in the city schools most of the kids weren’t white, the faculty and administrators were. That it impacted the odds of kids being able to thrive.”
Fuck. Of course he wouldn’t be an ass about this.
I tripped on my tongue when I tried to say something to that effect. In the end, I exhaled and just let this moment
of feeling understood be what it was: good.
“Yeah, it’s also an issue in social services agencies and nonprofits. The people doing all the programming and making the decisions don’t look like the kids and adults they’re planning for, and no matter how good their intentions, we need to have a seat at the table too. We have an understanding that only comes from living through similar things.”
I turned to fill my glass again, and pointed at his half-drunk beer. “You good?”
“I’m cool.” I smiled, again because every once in a while, the Queens just jumped out of Rocco, and if possible that made him even hotter.
“Anyway, I went back and got my master in management, so nobody could tell me I couldn’t run my own show.” I slid a hand over the granite of the counter and once again looked for words to talk about things I rarely voiced out loud. “That’s why this job is so awesome. They’ve just let me run with it. I built that program for the kids and families I always dreamed of working with from the ground up.”
He looked at me then and I knew we were both thinking the same thing. Hoping that him doing his job didn’t have to cost me mine.
“You’re a badass, Julia Ortiz.”
He said it like he meant it, and for that second I believed him.
“So are you, Rocco Quinn. Born and raised in the best borough. We came out of the womb ready to kick ass.”
That got me a scorching long look from under hooded lids that reminded me of the ones I got from the boys back on the block when they wanted something with me. This man had just enough street in him to make me falter in my celibacy plans, no doubt.
I needed to drop some work shit into this moment because I was getting dangerously close to getting tripped up. “What did you think of the visit?”
He cocked his head to the side as if he knew I was backtracking on the personal talk. “You’re running a great program.”
No reassurance that he would put in a good word or not mess with it, but I also knew that was not his call. Best to leave it alone and let myself have a night with friends. I fucking deserved this.
Here to Stay Page 7
