“Nolan’s cute. I’m thinking he should have kidnapped me instead,” I lied. There was something about this man, something about a part of him I knew and a part of him I had yet to discover that he was the only person who could stop me. He was hard as he was soft. Strict as much as he was lenient. He knew exactly what I needed in any given moment.
He barked out a laugh. “Nolan would have given you anything you wanted the moment you sicced those blues on him.”
I didn’t miss the glow of his teeth in the darkness or the dimples popping up as his cheeks stretched with a smile.
“I definitely should have gone with him, then.” I let my own little laugh escape. “Was he there, that night?”
I didn’t see him. But I didn’t see Hector until his body came into contact with mine.
Hector’s arm moved with his head as he nodded. “Yes. He’s almost always with me. He’s my brother, my best friend, and my business partner all wrapped in one.”
“He’s your brother,” I asked him softly.
He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling. “In every way that counts. My mom wanted an army of kids.”
I curled my knees tighter against my chest, fisted the pillow underneath my head and soaked up every word he offered to me in the darkness. “If life went according to plan, if she was still alive and healthy, I’m sure she’d still be popping out siblings of mine. That’s what she did. She loved. She was fearless about love. She loved her husband, her family, herself. She was in love with the idea of love and its healing powers. She always used to tell me, ‘Love is the channel of everything, mijo. It works for anyone. If you don’t have love, you have nothing. If you don’t give love, you give nothing. Blood may be pumping through your veins but it’s love that keeps you alive.’”
I instantly liked his mom simply for the way Hector’s entire demeanor changed when he talked about her. Long gone was the brooding man with the frown lines and pressed lips. This man reverted to a pre-teenage boy who only cared about one woman and that was his mama.
“She never got to meet Samuel,” I whispered, almost afraid to ask the question.
He didn’t open his eyes but his hands tightened across his stomach and a grimace stretched across his face. I reached for him but his whisper stalled me. “No. He came two years after she died. I know Samuel was the result of careless teenagers but I’d love to think she sent him to me. He’s exactly like her.”
I couldn’t help the smile that stretched across my lips. “The biggest blessings of my life. I wouldn’t be the man I am without either of them.”
Tears sprung to my eyes and I bit my lip, trying to keep them at bay. I knew all too well about one person shaping your life.
“Nolan was her second son,” Hector said after a long moment of silence stretched between us. I felt a single tear roll down my cheeks but I didn’t dare acknowledge it. “We met in kindergarten. He had shitty parents who only cared about their next dollar and their next fix. My mom and him, they were perfect for each other. My mom wanted more kids and Nolan needed a family. The moment she noticed the bruises on his skin, she took Nolan and marched over to his house. She threw money at his parents and packed his things. For years, his parents siphoned money out of my mother. She would pay them and they would forget about Nolan for a month, unless they ran out of drugs. Then, they’d bargain for more, threatening to go to the cops and tell them she kidnapped him if she didn’t agree. She never told my dad about it. Not until Nolan turned ten and called my mom ‘mom’ for the first time. Only then did she go to my father, asking to pay them off to sign the papers so Nolan could become her second son.”
Hector chuckled and his white teeth glinted in the darkness. “He naturally told her no.”
I gasped, immediately covering my mouth. Hector’s eyes slowly opened and his head fell to the side, pinning me with a smile in those brown eyes. “It was just how they operated. She asked him for something and instead he somehow always gave her more. My father was the outlier in our household. The only time he allowed vulnerability to seep through was with my mom. Since the moment she brought Nolan home the first time, he was building a case against his parents. The next morning, the two were arrested for a pile of charges, enough to put them away for life. They were offered a deal, sign over adoption pages and they’d get off on ten years of probation. They wisely took the deal and Nolan became a Rivera.”
His eyes fell shut and so did mine. A throbbing of pain at the memory of my own mother assaulted every inch of my body. From my head to my toes. I curled my fists against the sheets, grasping for control over my emotions. “Does it,” I whispered. “Does it devastate you to see people take their parents or children for granted when every moment of every day, you wish you could have just one more moment with them? One more smile. One more kiss. One more ‘I love you.’ One more anything.”
I felt his fingers hover over my forehead but I couldn’t open my eyes, afraid to see what would be swirling in those irises, afraid he could see what was in mine. “All of the time, bonita. All of the time.”
* * *
My favorite memories of my childhood always took place with me on my mom’s bed, my eyes glued to her while she sat at her vanity getting ready for the day.
Usually first thing in the morning before I went to school. But the fondest memories, the ones that made my cheeks ache from smiling and my chest tighten like her death was a fresh wound, were the nights she went out with her friends. She only went out a few times a month, sometimes less. Usually when Cameron was out of town for a conference.
I’d watch as she effortlessly crafted her makeup to either match what she wore or where she was heading. A black smoky eye went perfect with a tiny black dress. A natural look best with a flowy blouse and tight jeans.
Many lessons happened right there. Me, laying on my stomach, my hands holding my head up, eating up every second of her time. Her, in nothing but a towel, as she took an already beautiful face and made it even more flawless. Her eyes, every so often, would flick to the mirror catching a glimpse of me in the background.
I think the thing I loved most about my mother is that she didn’t treat me like a child. She held no power over me. I never felt like she owned me. She talked to me like a best friend and loved me as if I was an essential part of her being. “What do you think is the most beautiful thing about you?” she asked once, a few nights after my tenth birthday.
I scrunched my nose up. “I look like you. So everything.”
She burst out laughing, immediately cursing afterward because she messed up her eyeliner. She was still smiling when she spoke again. “That’s not what I meant, Annie. When you look in the mirror, what do you see that you love?”
I sighed from my spot on the bed.
“Do you want me to tell you my answer?”
I nodded, my eyes focused on her reflection in the mirror.
She turned around slowly, lifted the towel from her body, exposing the skin above her hips. Pale white scars lined her skin. “This is the proof that I created something beautiful. When I’m having a bad day, I look down at my stomach and my hips and I remember what it felt like when you were growing inside of my belly and I thank God because today may have been bad, but I get to snuggle into the arms of my tiny daughter and that’s more happiness than sunshine, or rainbows, or fairy tales could ever give me.”
My lips turned up in a grin. “You love me that much?”
She released her grip on the towel and pushed off of her wooden chair, walking over to me. She bent down, her blue eyes clashing with mine. She caressed my face with the back of her finger before grabbing my chin and giving it a gentle tug. “That’s only a fraction of how much I love you.”
I leaned forward, giving her a sloppy kiss on her cheek. “You brat,” she playfully scolded. “Now I have to reapply foundation.”
I shrugged, settling back into the bed.
“Now, answer my question.”
I flopped around on my back and
closed my eyes. “When I look into the mirror, the thing I find most beautiful about myself are my eyes.” She didn’t say anything but I knew she was waiting for an explanation. “Everyone has a pair of eyes. Different colors. Same color but different shades. Some with flecks in them. Some that change depending on the sun. No two pair of eyes are the same. Other than you, I’ve never seen anyone with eyes as dark as mine.”
I opened my eyes to see her looming over me. “You’re a little poet, love bug.”
I snorted. “Not likely. Miss Weathers hates my guts.”
“That’s because you don’t do your homework and lie about your dog eating it when we don’t even have a dog.” She pinned me with a disappointed look. “Take your homework over to Millie’s, okay? And hand it in tomorrow.”
I begrudgingly got up but I sure didn’t do my homework. I played with Millie’s dog and the next morning, in English class, I had an honest excuse.
My favorite time of day after my mother died was split between two times. The moment I woke in the morning and the moment I laid my head on the pillow at night. Morning because I had the next sixteen or so hours to be the best version of myself I could possibly be. Night because one day had passed, one day bringing me closer to receiving justice for my mother.
My favorite time of the day changed once more in the past couple of weeks. My favorite time of day I spent in the dark, lying a hair’s breadth’s away from Hector as he told me about his life, about himself. I feigned for any word he was willing to give me. I soaked up his memories like he was the sun. Some mornings I woke up and dreaded the day because they stood between me and my next fix. And always, always I hated the moment I fell asleep while he still whispered a piece of his memories.
Our nights hadn’t been the same since he told me the story of Samuel’s birth and how Nolan became his family. We ate dinner and cleaned up as our normal, but neither of us tried to escape each other like an unhappy married couple. I showered while he squeezed in his phone call with Samuel and his nightly workout. He would come up to shower as I finished up an episode of Criminal Minds.
He’d come in with just a towel wrapped dangerously low on his hips. I had questions for him and myself. Did he think I was a saint? Did he not know how beautiful I found him and how sexy I found his body? Did he have any modesty at all? The question I had for myself every single night as I watched him dress was, why the fuck couldn’t I look away?
Once he was fully clothed, t-shirt and all, he’d lie on the edge of the bed and I would ignore the TV. I found his face, his warm smiles, his memories far more entertaining than anything I could find on the six hundred channels on the TV. He told me more stories between him and Nolan. He told me all about Samuel, moments from when he was a child to him to how much of a sarcastic fool he’d grown into.
After the second night of his confessions, I wouldn’t even let him start telling me a story before I made my demands of him. One night I asked him to tell me something funny and he told me the story of him catching Samuel jerking off for the first time. How his son’s face turned tomato red and how Hector didn’t apologize and leave the room but hassled his then fifteen-year-old son.
I barely saw him at all today, both of us putting in long shifts. Matt needed me to come in earlier than normal and stay later. Something about a city inspection. Hector didn’t end up picking me up until closer to nine. We heated up leftovers from last night and he came upstairs and straight into the shower, skipping his precious nightly work out.
He pulled his shirt over his head and collapsed onto the bed. He landed on his side, nowhere near close to touching me but chills ran down my arms at the sight of him. Flat on his stomach, his knee bent a few inches from my stomach, his arms folded under his head in utter exhaustion. His hair was a dark mess on top of his head and my hands ached, wanting nothing more than to reach out and glide through the damp strands.
I wanted his body.
I think I had from the very second that I smashed my lips to his.
Each day with him made the feeling stronger. Not blinking once as he dressed. Sneaking peeks into the gym as he lifted weights. Across the kitchen, tracking his every move as he cooked. Wanting him had become very close to admitting to myself that I needed him.
I needed him to pin me with those dark, brown eyes, caressing every inch of my body with that heated gaze. I needed him to touch me. Light touches on my back as we walked. Tucking a strand of my hair behind my ear. Laying a warm hand over my thigh. I needed him to drive me wild. Crazy to the point that my heart thudded against my chest, chills ran across my skin, and the pressure between my hips was almost unbearable.
But the thing I needed most from Hector had nothing to do with my eyes on his body, but his soft admissions in the dark.
Maybe it was selfish of me. Maybe I should’ve let him sleep, rest his tired eyes. I still had near a hundred and fifty nights just like this one. But I couldn’t convince myself to keep my mouth shut, even when I bit my tongue to the point of pain. “Tell me something that surprised you,” I whispered.
His eyes fluttered open but the rest of his body didn’t move an inch. His eyes, a liquid brown, held me captive. I forgot to breathe. I forgot everything. Everything but the soft look in his eyes. The skin at the corner of his eyes crinkled and I had to tear my gaze away, afraid to miss the upturn of his lips. A soft smile stretched his lips, a flash of his pink tongue peeking through.
“You’ll like this one,” he hummed, sitting up. He fetched his blanket before lying down again. He stretched one hand behind his head and the other on top of his stomach. He tapped a couple of fingers on top of his abs and started to chuckle softly.
I sunk farther into the mattress, ready for his words. “A woman once tried to kill me.”
My mouth dropped open. He paused, looking over at me, his smile widening tenfold.
I managed to close my mouth. “You mean I wasn’t the first?”
He held my gaze for so long that my eyes burned with the need to blink. He seemed to get lost in his own thoughts because he snapped his head back and closed his eyes. Only then did he speak again. “A few years ago, I was attacked and ended up in the hospital.” His words were vague, his tone cautious. I frowned but otherwise remained quiet.
“It was just a flesh wound. I should have been in and out of there. And I would have been if it weren’t for Liliana Carter.” A smile broke out on his lips at the mention of her name, a fond, maybe even prideful smile. “She knew exactly who I was. She walked in, shutting the door first and then the blinds. I underestimated her.” He looked at me again, smirking and I couldn’t help my own small smile. “I should have learned, huh?”
I lifted my shoulders in a shrug. “She didn’t say a word as she brought a needle out of her lab coat. She looked up at me and said, ‘You don’t know me but I know you.’ There was steel in her voice, demanding my attention. Demanding that if I didn’t give her what she wanted, I might not be leaving the hospital alive. She flicked the liquid a few times like she was a professional killer in disguise of a doctor. It was kind of badass to see. She told me to raise the prices of drugs.”
I looked at him in shock. He was a drug pusher? Noticing my reaction, he closed his eyes. “I’m not a good man, Annie. You know this. Anyway, she told me to stop making the drugs cheap because it targeted kids of color. She argued that if I raised the prices, the minorities wouldn’t be able to afford to touch it. The white kids would pay as much as I sold it for, though. And through them, it was the only way to get a discussion going on about a change of how we treated drugs, both selling and using in this country.”
Liliana Carter was a smart woman, and a badass activist by the sound of it.
“I asked her if she really had it in her to kill me. If she was prepared to live with that weight on her shoulders for the rest of her life.” He threw me a pointed look which I ignored. “Her eyes were sad when she told me, ‘I’d rather take one life in exchange for thousands, even if that life was my own.�
�”
Damn. That was my only thought. Damn. “So, I’m guessing you conceded.”
He grinned wolfishly. “I’m still breathing, aren’t I?”
“Is that the last you saw of her?” I whispered, fighting my tired eyes. Hector reached over and turned the lamp off, plunging us in darkness.
“No. The last time I saw her was a few days ago. She and I work closely together.”
“On America’s drug problem?”
“That and she’s my unofficial med school teacher.” I raised my eyebrows up at that. “She’s one of the best surgeons on the East Coast, her and her soon-to-be brother-in-law. She’s won every award in her short career that you could think of. Breakthrough research, her name is attached to it. Groundbreaking surgeries, she’s the lead surgeon behind it. I’m a fan of hers. I’m obsessed with her mind.”
“Is it like being friends with Lebron James?”
A light chuckle floated to my ears, but my heavy eyes refused to open and see his smile. “You know who that is?”
“I searched the best professional basketball player after watching the game with you last time. His name popped up.”
“Being friends with Lily...” His voice trailed off as darkness pulled me under.
Annie. Annie. Annie. ANNIE.
I woke to the sound of my name and urgent hands wrapped around my arms. I blinked back my vision until I could see clearly. Worried brown eyes darted across my face. “Hector?” I asked, but my voice came out in a breathy gasp. His hand cupped the back of my neck and I cringed, registering how hot my body felt, sweat making my hair stick to my face.
Some nights were like this. These nightmares wrecked my body but showed mercy to my brain. I didn’t remember the memory, but I felt it. I’d wake up, hands shaking, sweat coating every inch of skin, and my throat soar from the screams that never woke me up.
He pulled me up into a sitting position. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t ask me if I was alright. He didn’t try to pry into what I had been dreaming about. He simply held me, one hand firm on my nape, the other hand tracing soft circles on my back.
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