“That’s crazy,” Angel said, the wheels in his head beginning to turn.
“I know. I mean she did finally get a stable job, but this was ultimately what gave her the courage to stay in one place. She said she felt bad that she’d moved me around so much all those years.”
Secretly, Angel had always wondered how long her mother had been taking funds from her boss. Now it made sense that maybe she hadn’t for too long if she’d made out with this much cash early on. And then it hit him. Is this what her dad was after? But why now? Why would he wait all this time? And was her brother in on this too?
“When’s the last time you talked to your dad?”
“What?” she asked, obviously not expecting this question now. Then she went quiet.
“Sarah, babe, I’m not saying that—”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “The thought did cross my mind. Was this the jewelry he’d been talking about? It could be, I guess, but he said he told my mom he’d hoped she’d hold onto it for me, and she said he never once mentioned any jewelry.”
He wouldn’t say it, but her mother’s words didn’t carry a whole lot of credibility as far as Angel was concerned. Luna had already proven she made bad decisions when desperate, not that he thought selling the jewelry was a bad decision. He agreed with Sarah that she’d done what she had to as a single mom with no other means. But it did make sense that she’d chosen to deny knowing the jewelry had been meant for Sarah.
“You’re not gonna tell your dad or Leo, are you?”
“No.” She was quiet for a moment then said, “What good would it do, right? My mom says the money’s gone.” She went quiet again then spoke again, sounding a little somber. “It’s why she started taking money from her boss. She’d blown through the first twenty thousand she’d found in those bags really fast and was afraid she’d be in that same bind soon. When her co-worker showed her how easy it was to slip a few hundred in her pocket every week and no one was ever the wiser, it just was too tempting, and little by little she started taking more.”
Angel didn’t comment. He knew this was a sore subject for Sarah—knew she felt people still judged her mom—and he didn’t want her to think she was judging now.
“Regardless,” she said with renewed conviction. “If that’s what Omar was after, it’s gone. She made it stretch for a long time, but then when she got into that trouble, a big chunk of what was left went to lawyers’ fees. She managed to hold on to the rest and used it for the down payment on this condo. Besides. . .” She exhaled softly. Angel didn’t miss the fact that she was back to calling her dad Omar, only this time he didn’t encourage her to refer to the asshole as dad. “I still haven’t heard from Omar since the last time we spoke over two weeks ago, and I get the feeling Leonardo is upset with him. I’m not sure why, but he’s been pretty cold and short about it whenever I ask if he’s spoken to him. I don’t know,” she added. “Maybe I will ask Leonardo. The last couple of times we’ve spoken our conversations have gotten a little personal.”
Angel sat up a little straighter, tensing up instantly. “Personal?” He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath. “Yeah? Like how?”
“He asked me about when I’d first moved out here. I’d already told him about how suddenly I’d moved out to California my senior year but never really got into the details of why. So I decided to just tell him. The conversation went on until I got to the part about Coach Rudy. He wanted to know more about it—more about how it affected me emotionally and how long it’d taken for me to get over it.”
“Why?” Angel asked, sitting up slowly.
“He said his stepsister recently went through something similar, only hers was a date rape. Like my situation, it was someone she trusted who she went out with, but then he took advantage of her and she kept it to herself for months. I told him how stupid I’d felt for trusting Coach Rudy and putting myself in that danger even after everyone had warned me, and that made him even more upset. He said I shouldn’t feel stupid because that’s what people like the coach and the guy who raped his sister are so good at—gaining your trust. And people like me and his sister with trusting hearts were susceptible—easy prey.” She paused for a moment. “In other words suckers.”
“He said that?” Angel asked, his tone a little less restrained.
“No, no,” she assured him. “That’s just what I was thinking. I’m just wondering now, given what happened to his sister and what happened to me in the past, if maybe Omar was only interested in finding out about that ring. Leonardo says he hasn’t heard from him either. Maybe Omar mentioned to Leonardo that his only interest was the ring, and that’s why Leonardo’s irritated with Omar. When all this first started, Leonardo seemed as excited about having Omar in his life as he was meeting me. Now anytime I happen to bring up Omar he changes the subject pretty quickly, not at all interested in finding out what’s going on with him and why we haven’t heard from him.”
If that were the case, if Leo were even a fraction as pissed as Angel was beginning to feel about her dad, then the guy may’ve just earned some points with him. “So are you gonna ask him?”
“Who? Omar?”
“No,” Angel said a little too strongly. “I wouldn’t even call that fu—” He caught himself and cleared his throat. “I’d wait for him to call or email you first. Even then it’s up to you. I personally wouldn’t say anything to him about it. I was talking about Leo. Are you gonna ask him if Omar mentioned the ring?”
She was quiet for a little too long, which had Angel clenching his teeth in annoyance with himself that he nearly snapped.
“I don’t know. I’ll just wait for now,” she said. “If the time comes for me to meet Leonardo and I still haven’t heard from Omar, I’ll ask him then.”
“About that,” Angel said, standing up. “Any mention of when he might wanna come down and meet with you?”
His interest in meeting Leo had just spiked tenfold. From the moment Sarah first told her about this whole thing, he’d been suspicious. Regardless of what exactly Omar intended to do if he’d found the jewelry, Angel was certain of one thing now. It was the sole reason behind his sudden interest in meeting her. Maybe once he figured he wouldn’t be getting anything out of her, he let it go—let her go. He’d gone back to same disinterest he’d had for Sarah her entire life. Fuck him.
But Leo was still talking to Sarah daily, and Angel wasn’t sold on him yet. He needed to make sure the guy—brother or not—wasn’t in cahoots with her dad in any way.
He sat back, feeling a bit aggravated, and thought about how his worries about Sydney seemed so insignificant now. At least with Sydney he knew the guy would never do anything to hurt her. As much as it irked him to think any other guy could care for Sarah as much as Angel did, he had to admit Syd genuinely did. Ironically, at that moment, he felt more comfortable with Sarah around Syd, the guy she loved like a brother, than with Leo, the guy who may in fact be her actual brother.
Maybe Leo was a good guy. Maybe he didn’t know what his dad had been up to in the beginning, and when he got wind that Omar was interested in meeting his sister for his own selfish reasons, he dropped the asshole like he deserved to be dropped. If this were all true, it might be a good thing. Angel couldn’t always be around to protect her, so knowing she had a defensive brother who didn’t take kindly to anyone messing with his sister was a damn good thing. But until he knew for sure, Angel would be keeping his guard up. He trusted no one.
Chapter 11
Sarah
It had only been three weeks—three games since the season started—and Alex had been out of commission for two of them. Angel had told Sarah about how increasingly bitter his brother was about it with every practice he wasn’t allowed to participate in. Luckily, it was Alex’s first ankle injury ever. He hadn’t broken it, just fractured it pretty badly, but the docs were giving him the green light to join practices and play in this week’s game against Hawaii.
As bad as Valerie felt for Alex
, Sarah knew she would’ve loved for him to be out at least one more week. Now he’d be making the trip to Hawaii, and there was no telling how he’d be celebrating out there now that he was back in shape to play.
Sarah and Angel had only talked about Dana one other time since the day Sarah mentioned the stuff Dana had been blogging about and the countdown. Sarah didn’t want to worry about Dana because she was such a nonissue, but Sarah couldn’t help wonder not if but how stupid Dana would be about this.
With less than an hour left of her shift at the restaurant, Sarah shook any thoughts of Dana away and began to mentally prepare for that night’s first meeting with Leonardo. Angel was picking her up there at the restaurant after his practice, and they’d head to the marina where they’d meet Leonardo. There was a seafood fest going on at the marina, and they’d all agreed it would be a nice casual place to meet and walk around. Leonardo had a friend who lived in San Diego. He’d be staying with him for the night then heading back to Phoenix in the morning.
Sarah was a little nervous but glad now that she’d waited. The many chats they’d had so far made her feel as though she’d already met him. She’d since decided that his calling her beautiful often was just his way. He often referred to his stepsister and his mom in similar sweet ways—even calling his mom his queen. Just as Angel and all his brothers often called Sofie sweetheart, some guys were just like that. She wouldn’t admit it to Angel, but she liked it. Too often she’d felt a little jealous of Sofie and some of her other friends who had siblings they were so close to. Not that she expected to ever be that close to Leonardo, but this was a nice start.
The day they decided to meet, Sarah brought up the possibility of Omar being there as well. Leonardo admitted to having put in a call and a few texts to Omar, all of which had gone unanswered. Then he said something so reminiscent of what Angel would say. “Fuck him. If this is how he’s gonna be, then we don’t need his ass.” He went on to say he wasn’t waiting on him, and they planned their meeting—just the two of them. And Angel of course.
“No!” Sarah turned at the sound of a man’s loud voice a few tables over from the one she was waiting on. “I asked for hot tea, not iced.”
Cindy, the newer waitress waiting on his table, apologized, taking the glass of iced tea he was shoving at her.
“Is the service here always this bad?” he asked loudly as his embarrassed date or wife hid behind her menu. “Read back my order,” he demanded. “I wanna make sure you got it right.”
Cindy started to, and he immediately interrupted her rudely. “On the side!” he said. “How hard is that to get? I said I want the pico on the side, but the guacamole and sour cream I want on the taquitos.”
Writing it down and apologizing again, poor Cindy finally finished taking their order and rushed away.
Sarah finished delivering the plates to her table and asked if there was anything they needed as she glanced in the direction of the back office. Alex was here tonight since his release to be able to practice wasn’t scheduled for another few days.
She hurried toward the kitchen where Cindy was making sure the cooks got the order right. “What an asshole,” Sarah said as she approached, tacking another order slip up for the cooks.
Cindy shook her head, rolling her eyes. “I need those salads on the fly, Raul,” she added loudly.
“Why?” Alex came up from behind Raul in the kitchen taking a closer look at Cindy’s order slip. “How long have they been waiting?”
“Not long at all,” Cindy said. “I have others who’ve been waiting longer. He’s just a real jerk, and I’d rather not piss him off.”
“There’s others who’ve been waiting longer?” Alex’s brows furrowed.
“Well, not that much longer,” she explained.
“They just got here,” Sarah clarified for Cindy. “He’s just one of those loud mouth idiots who like talking down to the waitresses.”
Alex looked out into the dining room. “Table eight?”
“Yeah,” Cindy said as she poured the hot tea into a cup. “And I know he said iced tea not hot, but he let me have it for bringing him the iced one. Maybe he meant hot, but he ordered iced.”
“He can wait,” Alex said, still peering at the guy. “Take care of the slips in the order they came in,” he said to the Raul then turned back to Cindy and Sarah. “Let me know if he gets disrespectful.”
Cindy rushed away with the hot tea, and Sarah walked off behind her. In the little over two years she’d been working at the restaurant, she’d seen a few people thrown out. Each time it’d been Alex who’d done so, but both times it was drunks at the bar who were getting loud and obnoxious. Never had they asked a customer in the restaurant to leave, and they’d had some rude ones. This time Sarah got a bad feeling just by the way Alex had eyed the guy. Papa Moreno was a stickler for the customer always being right, but Alex was a stickler for having his employees’ backs, especially the sweet soft-spoken ones like Cindy.
Sarah picked up her drink orders for the other table she was waiting on and headed to it. “Could you be any slower?” the rude man said to Cindy as she handed him a sugar packet tray.
Smiling at her guests, Sarah began passing out their drinks. “What a jerk that guy is,” one of the younger girls at her table said.
“How much longer are our salads gonna be?” the rude man asked.
“I’ll go check on that,” Cindy said, rushing away.
The woman sitting with the man whispered something to him, and he quickly snapped back. “I don’t care! It’s her job. Doesn’t take much brains to wait tables. If she wants a tip, she better move her ass.”
The older woman at Sarah’s table turned and gave him an unmistakably dirty look. Sarah finished with their drinks and rushed away to check on her other table.
“Hey, green eyes . . .” The guy snapped his fingers at Sarah. “Can you go check on our order? Our waitress is slow as molasses.”
“Yes, sir,” Sarah nodded but headed to her other table first.
“The kitchen is that way.” He snapped his fingers again, motioning to the kitchen.
Sarah nodded but ignored him and continued onto her table. The man continued grumbling something Sarah ignored, and she checked on the patrons she’d served earlier. “You need me to say something to him?” a man at her table asked, glaring at the rude guy.
“No.” Sarah smiled. “That’s fine. I apologize if he’s disturbing your dinner.”
“No, no.” The man quickly waved his hand in the air. “Don’t you apologize for anything. Idiots like that should stay home and eat.”
Smiling nervously, Sarah walked away as Cindy made her way back to the rude man’s table, holding a tea pot. Alex was leaning against the bar now, arms crossed, his eyes fixed in Cindy’s direction just as the man started up again. “Well, how long does it take to make a salad anyway? This is ridiculous. Those cooks must be as slow as you are.”
Cindy said something Sarah couldn’t hear from where she stood, but the man responded even louder. “No, I don’t want anymore! If the food here is as bad as the tea and the service, I ain’t paying for shit.”
Alex straightened out as the buzz from the other customers all talking at once about the scene the man was making grew louder. “Mind your own business, you hag,” the man said to the same woman who’d glared at him earlier. She was now saying something else to him, only she wasn’t quite as loud as the man, so Sarah couldn’t quite make out what it was.
The other man, the one who’d offered to say something earlier, said something now too. Alex started toward the rude animal as his mouth was still going. Sarah came around and stood where Alex had been standing to get a better listen.
“Is there a problem, sir?” Alex asked as he reached him, holding out his hand to stop the man in the other table who’d begun to walk over there. “I’m Alex, the manager.”
“You don’t need his business,” the angry man from Sarah’s table said to Alex. “He says he’s not paying a
nyway.”
“Not if the food is as shitty as the service and this tea.”
“Cancel his order,” Alex said to Cindy calmly, and she rushed away.
The entire restaurant had hushed and was watching now. Even the cooks in the kitchen had slowed to watch.
“I’m gonna have to ask you to leave,” Alex said with a calm that made Sarah proud of him.
She knew Alex had to be using every bit of restraint to not blow up at the idiot. The man scoffed even as his date began making her way out of their booth. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “I’m a customer like any other, and you’ll wait on me—”
“No one is waiting on you in this restaurant,” Alex said, the calm in his tone waning a bit. “Ever, because you’re not welcome back here again.”
“Bridgett.” The man pointed at his date as she was already standing. “Get your fucking ass back in the booth now before—”
Alex grabbed the man by the shirt and pulled him to his feet. “Maybe you talk to her like that in your home but not in my restaurant. You hear me, asshole?”
The man’s face turned nearly purple, and his eyes bugged out as he made a weak attempt to loosen Alex’s death grip from his shirt. Sarah brought her hand to her mouth, wondering if this would escalate any further. Would the cops have to be called? Alex made it seem almost effortless the way he yanked the guy toward the front door. The other customers were already clapping even before they reached the front door. “Don’t come back,” Alex said as he threw him out then held the door for the lady who’d rushed out after him.
He stood at the door, watching as the two walked away. From where Sarah was standing, she saw the man turn and say something else to Alex then grab his wife roughly by the arm. Alex charged out the door.
“Oh my God,” Sarah gasped, hurrying towards the front door.
Thankfully, by the time Sarah reached the front of the restaurant, Alex was already on his way back. “You okay?” she asked as he walked back in. He nodded, but she could see the movement in his tightened jaw. “You did good, Alex,” she offered with a smile. “You didn’t even punch him or anything.”
Forever Yours Page 12
