Once Perfect

by Cecy Robson

  I pulled the blanket against my exposed breasts and knelt on the bed beside him. “Is everything all right?” Based on the hardening planes on his face, it was a stupid question to ask. I just didn’t know what else to say.

  He tied his boots hastily. “I have to take care of a few things. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Ah, okay.”

  He gave my head a quick kiss and stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t look back. Hell, he didn’t look at me at all.

  —

  Mateo didn’t call me and his texts over the next week were short and limited. I’d begun to worry about his state, and us…if there even was an us. I’d already committed to him. My stop into Planned Parenthood for birth control pills and an STI test first thing on Monday proved as much.

  When Friday came and I still hadn’t spoken to him, I went to check on him after obtaining my blood results from the clinic. I was clean. I’d suspected as much, but it was great to actually have something in writing. I’d never cheated on Donovan and hadn’t been with anyone since. But I’d accepted Donovan wasn’t the knight I’d once believed him to be. There could have been a serious chink in that armor. And if so, he could have passed it on to me.

  On my way to Mateo’s place, I pulled into a sandwich shop and used a few bills meant for groceries to buy two large subs and a frozen lemonade, hoping I wasn’t making a mistake. He hadn’t exactly invited me over. But I reasoned that he also hadn’t told me not to stop by unannounced. Damn, I was such a girl sometimes. My only worry was that my actions might take me into psycho-stalker territory without my meaning them to.

  My hands trembled as I drove. Since leaving Mateo on Sunday, my nightmares had grown worse and become more graphic. I didn’t know what was happening to me. And I began to worry Lourdes was right. Maybe something was really wrong with me.

  I hoped not. With just two semesters left before graduation, I could finally see the light at the end of that long, dark, and friggin’ hellish tunnel. And then there was Mateo. God, I really liked him. And I really liked how he made me feel.

  I veered into Elaine’s long driveway, waving when I spotted her tending to her flower bed. Despite the overalls she wore, she looked amazing. And she was still relatively young. I hoped she could find someone nice.

  She glanced in the direction of the garage and then back at me before waving in return. Her gesture seemed odd. Something was up. I didn’t know what until I knocked on Mateo’s door.

  It took a moment for the door to open. When it did, I almost fell down the steps. A young woman who resembled Victoria Justice, only with bigger boobs, answered the door wearing Mateo’s Club Excess shirt. The waistband of his MMA sweatpants was rolled several times to fit against her tiny waist. She wasn’t pretty. No. Not at all. She was drop-dead stunning.

  Her shiny black hair fell around her face and breasts in bed-tousled waves. She leaned against the doorframe with one hand up, one at her hip, staring at me boldly with large dark eyes. “Who are you?”

  My heart, which had initially stopped beating, pounded brutally against my sternum. “I was about to ask you the same question.”

  “Who’s at the door?” Mateo appeared, his bruised body wrapped only in a towel. His eyes widened when he saw me. “Oh, shit.”

  I dropped my purse on the landing.

  And I threw my bag of food at him.

  I snatched my purse and stormed down the steps. He’d lied to me. He’d fucking lied to me. What was all that bullshit about promising to tell me if he was with someone else? And about getting a blood test? Shit. I guess when I hadn’t put out, he ran out and found someone who would!

  “Ev!” Mateo chased after me, swearing when his soles smacked against the pebbles of the slab walkway. He hooked my arm before I could round the corner of the garage. “Wait, don’t leave.”

  I yanked free of his hold. “Don’t you touch me!” Tears burned my eyes. “God, I trusted you!”

  “You have a girlfriend?” his conquest for the night asked above us.

  “Shut up,” he snapped at her.

  The first of my tears fell. Damn it. I didn’t want to cry in front of him—or her.

  Mateo gripped my wrists when I tried to bolt. “Ev, it’s not what it looks like.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us you had a girlfriend?” she asked.

  I froze. Us?

  Another girl, wearing another of Mateo’s shirts, joined the first, this one stick thin with dark curls so tight they bounced when she glanced over the railing.

  My mouth fell open and I almost punched him. “Jesus Christ, Mateo!”

  He smirked. “They’re my sisters.”

  I barely understood his words. “What?”

  He released me when I stopped fighting him, and adjusted his towel. “Shut up, Lety!” he growled when the first girl cracked up.

  That didn’t stop her. “That’s what you get for not answering your girl’s texts,” she told him, pointing.

  He linked our fingers. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

  I numbly followed as he led me back up the steps, still in shock, slightly relieved, and more than just a little embarrassed. His sisters backed into his apartment. He gave Lety a playful shove when she continued laughing. “Quit causing trouble,” he said.

  “Ay, pesado,” she told him, smacking his arm. To me she grinned. “Hey. I’m Lety. And this is Sofia.”

  Their younger sister watched me cautiously. Although she was a little taller than Lety, she seemed so fragile. Her skin was the same olive tone as Mateo’s, and her eyes light green. She reminded me of Jessica Alba, if Jessica were a teen with long, inky curls. “Hi,” she said, so quietly that I barely heard her.

  They looked to Mateo. “Well?” Lety asked.

  Mateo gritted his teeth. “This is Evelyn.”

  Lety crossed her arms. “Ohhhhhh, so a little gringa’s been occupying your time.”

  “Watch your mouth.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll only be a few.” He pointed his finger at Lety. “Be nice or I’ll beat your ass.”

  Lety made a talking motion with her hand. “Yeah, yeah, just get your shower, tough guy.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “And clean up the mess before I get out. It’s your fault Evie got mad.”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  He mussed her hair. “You never do, do you, Trouble?”

  Mateo crossed the room and shut the French doors leading to his bedroom. I watched him through the glass until he disappeared into the bathroom. As comfortable as he seemed with his sisters, he didn’t seem comfortable leaving us together.

  Lety and Sofia returned to the kitchen and grabbed a wad of paper towels. Sofia kept her head lowered so her hair hid most of her small face.

  Lety wasn’t afraid to talk. “So, you’re with our brother?”

  “Ah, yeah.” She waited for me to say more. My cheeks warmed under her scrutiny. “It’s new. Things are new between us.”

  “How new?” she asked.

  Sofia reached for the bag of sandwiches now soaked with lemonade. “Lety, leave her alone.”

  Although her sister’s voice was gentle, Lety complied and let me off the hook. She sprayed the tile with cleanser and wiped the area until it shone brightly.

  “You’re in nursing school?” I asked.

  She dumped the dirty towels in the garbage. “Yeah. I’m in a BSN program. You in college?”

  I was almost surprised she asked. “I graduate nursing school in the spring―with an associate’s degree.” I may have known a little about her, but she didn’t know jack about me. “Mateo hasn’t mentioned me before, has he?”

  Lety and Sofia exchanged glances. Lety shrugged. “No, but don’t sweat it. Teo doesn’t say much about his life down here, and he gets quiet about stuff that’s important to him.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was trying to make me feel better or patronize me. Her softening dark eyes made me think it was the f
ormer. “Come on, Evelyn,” she said. “I owe you and Teo food. You like breakfast stuff? That’s all he ever seems to have.”

  “Ah, sure.”

  “Sofi, do you want to do the bacon?”

  Sofia nodded, but otherwise she didn’t speak and kept her head down. I followed Lety into the kitchen when she started throwing open the cabinets. She pulled out a box of pancake mix and offered it to me. “Do you want to help?”

  “I’m not the best cook,” I admitted.

  Lety smiled at Sofia. “Oh, kid, if you want to hang on to our brother, you have to learn how to cook. That boy likes to eat.” She laughed when I didn’t move. “Come on. We’ll teach you if you don’t know how.”

  “To cook?”

  Lety laughed again. It seemed it was something she did often. “Well, not everything―not yet. But we can start with breakfast.” She shoved the box of mix and a bowl into in my hands.

  I turned the box over to read the instructions. Lety shook her head. “Don’t read. Mix.” She dumped a bunch of powder into the bowl and added water. “Okay, now use a fork to blend everything together.” I started to do as she asked. “Not too hard, otherwise the pancakes will be too tough and nasty.”

  I stared at the bowl. “Does the same go for cookies?”

  “Huh?”

  “Beating the cookie mix. Will beating it too much make the cookies hard?”

  “Oh, yeah, totally.”

  Okay. I knew then where I’d gone wrong with my cookies for Mateo. Lety peered into my bowl and lifted my wrist so the batter dripped from the fork. “Good, that’s the consistency you want.”

  “But there’s still powder on top.” I grimaced when the sisters stared back at me like I was a complete dork. “Like I mentioned, I’m not the best cook.”

  They both surprised me by smiling. “No worries,” Sofia said gently.

  I was pouring the batter into a pan when Mateo stepped out of his room in his black MMA shorts with a gray stripe and a black T. The hot water in the shower had aggravated the bruises to his face and swollen the skin more. He must have had another match since Sunday. Except the more I took in his face, the more I realized something was off.

  Fresh bruises lined his left temple and crawled along his jawline. They were bad, but what made them worse was how they mingled with older ones in various stages of healing. Mateo hadn’t just had one fight this week. He’d had several by the looks of it.

  He wandered into the kitchen and bent to kiss my lips. “Sorry I haven’t called. Spent the last few days taking care of business.”

  Lety banged the wooden spoon hard against the pan of eggs she was making. “Business, right.”

  Mateo straightened at her words and rubbed my back. “We’ll talk later, okay?” he said to me.

  “Okay.” I touched his face with my fingertips. “You need ice.”

  “Nah. I’ll worry about it later.”

  Lety and Sofia gaped at us like they’d caught us having sex. My cheeks reddened.

  “Shut up and cook,” Mateo snapped when Lety opened her mouth to say something. “Jesus, you’re such a pain in the ass.”

  Lety pointed her spoon at him. “Don’t use ‘Jesus’ and ‘ass’ in the same sentence. It’s disrespectful.”

  “Says the girl written up for streaking in college.” Mateo threw his head back, laughing when Lety’s mouth fell open. “Didn’t think I knew about that, did you, smartass?”

  Lety glared at Sofia. “You know, for someone who doesn’t talk much, you sure open your mouth for the wrong reasons.”

  Sofia grinned, and it was then I caught traces of her resemblance to Mateo. “Be nice, Lety,” she said. “There’s a lot more I could tell him.”

  Lety cleared her throat and pointed to my pan. “When it bubbles like that, you flip. Good. Wait a few more seconds and then put it on a plate. Otherwise, it’ll burn or be too hard.”

  We sat at the table and began to eat. The pancakes I’d made were actually pretty damn good. But I wasn’t really hungry. Mostly I was just confused by Mateo’s lack of contact this week. He was sitting next to me and started to rub my shoulder. “You okay, Evie?”

  I nodded, though I really wasn’t. He’d obviously been fighting, and hurt, and spending time with his sisters. But there seemed to be more…

  Lety watched us closely, not missing the tension. “How’d you guys meet?”

  Mateo’s hand slid from my shoulder. “She works at Excess.”

  She grinned. “As one of your bouncers?”

  We both laughed at that. “I waitress there every weekend and every other Thursday night.”

  “Since when?”

  “About seven months.”

  “Hmm, seven months.” Lety sipped on her juice, considering her next question. “And my brother’s just asking you out now? What were you waiting for, Teo? She’s cute.”

  “Lety,” he warned.

  “And educated.”

  Mateo put down his fork. “You’re seriously the biggest pain in the ass on this planet.”

  Lety laughed and threw out a hand. “I’m just sayin’.”

  Mateo tossed his crumpled napkin. “Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re saying.”

  I placed my hand on his thigh and glanced Lety’s way. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  Her grin widened. “Let’s just say you’re a nice step up from the hos who go after my brother.”

  Mateo covered his face with his hand. “Damn it, Lety!”

  Lety wiped her mouth with a paper napkin, ignoring my deep blush. “What? It’s a compliment. She’s nice.”

  “Holy shit,” Mateo snapped. “Just stop talking.”

  I wasn’t sure how to respond. Mostly, I was grateful to land in non-ho standing. I wondered if that would change if she knew what I’d done to her brother on Sunday. Sofia giggled, the gesture brightening her face. She pushed her hair aside. That’s when I noticed the large bruise that seemed to encompass her entire right cheek. With all that hair, I hadn’t noticed it before. “Oh, my God, Sofia. What happened?”

  She pulled her hair back down, recoiling behind Lety without answering. I stood, my instincts driving me to help her. “Sweetie, do you want me to look at it for you―”

  Mateo grasped my arm and held me in place. “Babe, she’s okay. Just leave her alone.”

  My eyes traveled to where a trail of contusions marked her forearms. Defensive wounds. She wasn’t okay. She was far from okay. Someone had hurt her. “Teo…”

  Mateo’s and Lety’s taut faces made it clear I shouldn’t say anything else. So did Sofia’s broken expression. She hugged herself protectively. “Excuse me,” she said. Like a little mouse, she walked into Mateo’s room, barely making a sound, shrinking inward as if trying to disappear from the world.

  Lety hurried after her and shut the door behind them. Sofia’s demeanor left me certain that she was the one who’d been raped. The one Mateo had gone to prison for defending. My biggest fear then was that it had happened again, and that’s why she and Mateo were both hurt.

  Mateo leaned over the counter, his hands gripping the sides. I turned to him slowly. “Teo, how did you get these bruises?”

  He wouldn’t answer me.

  I curled my arms around his. “Mateo, you’re scaring me. Please tell me what happened.”

  Lety stepped out, her expression strangely cold. “He got beat up trying to protect Sofia from our father.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Mateo’s furious face met Lety’s. “You really talk too much. You know that?”

  She offered a one-shoulder shrug. “Sorry.”

  “Sorry? For what? Saying shit in front of my girl that I don’t want her to know?”

  “Yeah. I am.” The confidence in Lety’s stance melted away. “Listen, I don’t want to fight with you―or cause problems with your girl. I have to get back to school.”

  Mateo’s shoulders squared. “What about Sofi?”

  “I’ll drop her off at Uncle Lino’s.
She’ll be safe there until Carlos’s arraignment Monday.”

  The conversation between them had continued like I wasn’t even there. “Who’s Carlos?” I asked quietly.

  Lety’s attention cut to Mateo before she answered, “Our father.”

  The hatred in her voice practically shoved me away from her. “Did he…” I couldn’t even say the words and suddenly felt unbearably sick.

  “No, he messed up her face and Teo’s, but even Carlos has limits when it comes to his kids.”

  “Lety, enough,” Mateo snapped at her.

  “Teo, I don’t mean to run my mouth.”

  “Could’ve fooled me,” he told her.

  She slapped her hands against her sides. “I really am sorry, Teo. Look, thanks for coming for her, and for letting us stay while things cooled down.”

  She disappeared into his bedroom when Mateo didn’t reply. “Time to go, Sofia,” I heard her say behind the closed door.

  Mateo turned, resting his forearms against the countertop and clasping his hands tight. “I’ll see you at work tonight, okay?”

  He wanted me to leave. And it sucked.

  I didn’t know Mateo well despite our recent time together, but I sensed the anger and humiliation he felt. It was as obvious as the strength he always showed. “All right,” I said. “I’ll see you at the club.” The last thing I wanted was to leave him like this. But he’d been patient with me, and I owed him the same in return. I stopped at the door with my purse in my hand. “I’m sorry, Teo. About everything. If I can help you or Sofia, please let me, okay?”

  He stopped me on the way down the steps, shutting the door behind him. “Evie, wait.” He took my hand when I returned to the landing, and searched my face, trying to gauge my emotions. “Listen. It’s been a shit week. And it’s shit I didn’t want you to find out about. If you don’t want to come around anymore, I get it, and I won’t hold it against you.”

  I had to stand on my toes and pull him down by his shirt in order to kiss him. Lucky for me, he didn’t fight me and was awesomely enthusiastic in his response. His hands gripped my backside as our tongues met over and over. Yeah, he’d missed me, too.

  I jumped when Lety swung open the door, my face immediately heating—I’d possibly lost my non-ho status. Her lids peeled back. “Oh, my bad.”