“Everyone messes up, Val, but that’s not the point. All I’m saying is it makes sense what you did, what you said about what you can and can’t handle. You thought you did the right thing. Taking responsibility because you thought it was your fault Carlito was hurt cost you years of your life. You put your life back together, went back to school, and then you knocked up Johana before you got your feet under you. You tried to do your best with your son, but Johana kept you away.” She frowned. “You tried to do this thing with me, and look what happened. Of course you don’t expect anything to work. Not much has worked for you.”
“Mina—”
“Valentin.” She gave him a sharp look. “I’m not excusing you, or saying it was the best thing to do, or even that I agree with you. I’m saying I understand and that I can’t say I would’ve done much better in your shoes.”
She took a deep breath, her hands at his sides, holding on and holding him. “So, here’s the deal. You want a second chance? I’m going to give it to you.”
He couldn’t help it. He ducked his head forward, tasting her lips with the briefest of touches. It wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure anything had changed. He knew what he wanted, but… “Mina—”
“Shut up.” She put a finger to his lips and pulled back enough that she was looking in his eyes. “It’s not your turn to speak yet. You’re still in the doghouse, you got it?”
He sighed, a tiny but sad smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He ran his hands up and down her back and nodded that he understood.
“Good, because you know something? If you jump back on this train, it’s going to take some big hairy cojones.”
At that, he burst out laughing. She wagged a finger in his face. “I’m serious. I know you can be brave when you’re running in to save me from my own bad choices, but you know what? I don’t need a savior.”
She wound her arms around his neck, scooting so close that the heat of her body made his nerve endings come alive. He was stuck on silent, too many thoughts in his head to voice out loud. She ghosted the tip of her nose along his cheek, her lips and hot breath tickling his skin. He wanted to crush her to him.
With a shuddering breath, Mina lifted her head again, looking him in the eyes. “What I do need is for you to start fighting for yourself and love you like you love me. All the things you want for me? You have to believe you deserve them too.”
He opened his mouth, but the words died in his throat. He was trembling, and he didn’t know why. Too vulnerable, he turned his head and hid against her hair.
“We’ll figure it out, okay?” Mina rubbed the back of his neck, holding him close. “I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know how to build a life, but we’ll figure it out. You and me. Together. Okay?”
Val closed his eyes tightly, an inexplicable rush of terror making his throat tight. He had to resist the urge to crush her to him, remembering she was injured. He blew out a breath in a shaky gust and huffed a laugh at himself. “Big hairy cojones, huh?”
Mina took his face in her hands. “That’s what it takes to be my man.” She rubbed her thumb over his lips. “So how about it? Are you my man?”
A voice in his head scoffed. He wanted to ask her what the hell she wanted with a man like him. He was going to get this wrong; part of him was sure of it.
But hadn’t she just demanded this of him? That he would fight for himself?
It made sense. He couldn’t fight for them, for what they could build together, if he couldn’t fight for himself.
Leaning in, Val pressed a sweet kiss to her lips. “I’m yours, mi vida. If you’ll still have me, I’m yours.”
She kissed him, and he could feel her wide grin against his mouth. “Good. Good answer,” she said, and then she laughed, kissing him again.
He kissed her back like she was the air he breathed. His hands couldn’t get enough of her. He bent his legs around her as though he could consume her whole.
“You’re more, you know,” he whispered against her ear. “You’re more than I ever expected out of my life. Te amo. Eres mi vida. Eres mi mundo.”
“I love you too, Valentin. And it’s only going to go up from here.” She kissed him. “We got this.”
“We got this.”
Epilogue
It was late when Val pulled up to his little house. He was tired. He half-jumped out of his skin when he saw a shape rise up from where it had been sitting on his front stoop. He had brief visions of the old scary stories his mother used to tell him about the cucuy that was going to get him if he wasn’t a good boy.
The form, on second glance, took the shape of a woman. La Llorona, then, the ghost of a woman forever looking for her lost children, again with a habit of snatching up disobedient little ones in the night.
Yeah, he’d been a pain-in-the-ass kid.
Val got out of the car, opening his arms to the woman who was neither beast nor ghost. “Mina.” He kissed the top of her head. “What the hell are you doing out here in the dark?” He noticed she was shivering and opened his jacket to tuck her against him. “And you don’t even have a sweater.”
She screwed up her nose. “I may have forgotten where the hell I put the key you gave me.” She kissed his chin. “And I forgot my textbook here for my class tomorrow.” She kissed his lips, just a peck. “And maybe I was going to be in your bed, all naked and ready for you.”
Val growled and pulled her roughly against him. He kissed her hungrily, all the way awake now, and pulled her up the two small steps that led to his door.
Where Val tripped. Hard.
They stumbled. Val pitched himself away from Mina, his arms pinwheeling, but it was useless. He fell off the stoop, hard onto his ass. The breath knocked out of him, he could only blink up at the stars for a few seconds.
“Val? Valentin?” Mina jumped down to the ground beside him and dropped to her knees. Her hands roamed his chest. “Christ, Val. Breathe.”
He gasped in a breath and then groaned. Mina grunted in relief as he coughed. “Oh, hell.”
“Is anything broken? How’s your hip? I hear they break easy when you get to be your age.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Are you calling me old? Again?” he asked in a rasp.
She broke out in a grin and patted his knee. “Come on, viejo. Let’s get inside, and I’ll make it up to you.” She took his hand, helping him sit up. “And don’t worry. I’ll be gentle on your old bones.”
“Gentle.” He growled and attacked her, pushing her onto her back on the cool grass. She gave a squeal of protest but sighed, melting into his kiss as his lips took hers.
After a minute, she squirmed beneath him and smacked his side. “Come on. The grass is damp. Feels like I wet myself.”
“Now who’s old?”
They got up, wrapped up in each other’s arms. Val pressed a kiss to her temple as they mounted the steps. He looked down and saw a package. A yellow, bubble mailer. It was askew now, obviously the thing he’d tripped on in the first place. “The hell?” He bent down to pick it up and nearly dropped it when he saw the return address.
“What is it?” Mina asked, taking the key from him and opening the door.
“It’s from Johana.” He stepped into the foyer, his heart inexplicably pounding.
“What the hell does she want?”
Val sank down in the living room chair, ripping the top of the envelope open. He sucked in a breath, and in spite of his nerves, he smiled at the stack of cool, glossy photos that came out. “Look at this.”
Mina perched on the arm of the chair, keeping her balance by resting an arm around his shoulders. “Oh. Emile.” She took some of the photos from his hands and flipped through them. “He’s getting big.”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat, trying to rid himself of the lump that had risen there. “I wrote him a letter. Who knows if Joana gave it to him or even kept it for him…? I told him…” He had to swallow down emotion. “I told him I did
n’t want to leave him, that he could always know me. I’m here. You know?”
“I know.” She scratched the back of his head in an affectionate, tender gesture. “He looks so much like you.”
“Yeah.” Val scoffed. “I always wondered how crazy that drove his mother, that he came out looking so much like me. How does that figure into her whole plan, huh? She can take me out of the picture, but he’s never going to look like them—her, her husband, and their other kids.”
“She’s good to him, though?”
Val sighed. “Yeah. Yeah, she’s a good mom.” He rolled his eyes. “And Preston’s a good dad. And Emile’s a good kid. A really good boy.”
“You know you had a hand in that too.”
“No, I didn’t.” Val sighed, smiling ruefully at a picture of his boy in a baseball uniform, clutching a bat and grinning. “In a way, Johana was right. She made my life harder—she made everything harder—but she was right. I never could’ve given Emile the things she could. I never could give him the life she could.”
Mina shifted, throwing her legs over him as she slid carefully onto his lap. She stroked his cheek. “There’s nothing wrong with the life you could’ve given him. If it were just you two, you would’ve struggled—”
“Mina.” Val rubbed his hands up and down her back. He had to smile. She was young, his beautiful and brilliant girlfriend. She still had that innocent shine, as though anyone could make a “happily ever after” out of any situation. “I was a former felon—a Mexican former felon in Texas—with no education and a shaky job history. And hell if I knew what I was doing as a parent. I can only imagine how I would’ve handled actually being a parent.”
“You were a parent.”
“No. I was a guy who took my son away from his parents every once in a while. I wasn’t the guy who taught him values, who enforced bedtime, who put him in the corner when he was bad.” He laughed without humor. “He would’ve been loved. That’s not nothing. It’s more than I had from my father—and definitely my stepfather—but come on. I screwed up every other damn thing in my life. If it had been just me, or me and someone as messed up as I am?” He shrugged.
“Valentin—”
He lifted his head and smirked at her. “It’s going to be different.”
“What’s that?”
“When it’s us. It’s going to be different.” He cocked his head, looking at her. “We’re going to be good together.”
“We are good together, pendejo.” She kissed his lips sweetly. “You keep me in check. I keep you in check.”
“Is that what we do? No wonder I’m so tired all the time. It’s like having a second job sometimes.”
She smacked his arm lightly. “What?” he protested. “You’re a troublemaker.”
“You lie so bad, Valentin Belmonte.”
Val snorted. “Who are you trying to fool? Do you know how hard it is to get you to keep your hands off me long enough to do your homework?”
Mina used his chest to push herself up. “It’s about to get a lot easier, cabron. I’m leaving.”
He caught her around the waist, and she squealed as he pulled her back against him. She wiggled, laughing as she smacked at his hands in an effort to get away. They wrestled until he caught her in a bridal-style hold. Still laughing, she beat her fists against his chest as he got up. She kicked her feet as he carried her, and he was thrown off balance. He tumbled both of them onto the couch and climbed over her, catching her swinging hands by the wrists. He let his weight drop on her as he took her lips.
She sighed into his mouth, sounding happy—as happy and content as he felt.
He tilted his head into her hand like a purring cat when she stroked his hair. “You know what I think?”
He ducked his head, kissing her neck. “What’s that?”
“I think Emile’s going to come back to you someday.” She traced a finger down the side of his nose. “He’s going to remember you, and he’ll want to know you. And you know what?”
“What?” he whispered.
“I think he’ll be glad to know you.” She tapped his chin. “I’m glad I know you.”
His lips quirked. “That’s good information to have from your girlfriend. I think you’re okay, for the record.”
“You’re a terrible person.”
“I have it on good authority you’re actually glad to know me.”
Mina rolled her eyes but then cupped his cheek. “You know what else I think?”
“What’s that, amor?”
“You and me? We’re going to get the whole thing: good jobs, good kids, good life.”
Val raised an eyebrow. “You think our kids are going to be good?”
“As good as we are.” She flashed an expression of pure innocence.
“Christ. We’re so screwed.” He leaned down and kissed her.
Acknowledgements
To Betsy, to whom this book is dedicated. Thank you for reading even when you cringed. Thank you for everything you do for me.
To Packy and Mina, who are literally there for me every day, who have read practically every word I’ve written, and who make my docs and days brighter.
To Julie, for being the one I go to for bouncing plot ideas and for making me a better mom.
To my Facebook group and my fic fans, who, over the years, have helped me know what works, what doesn’t, and whose feedback have made my day on the regular.
To Iris, for her tireless promotion and uplifting presence.
To Edward and Bella and fanfiction and fandom. Thank you.
A Note from the Author
As you might have noticed, I’m a self-published author. This means I’m responsible for everything from the content of my book, to its editing, its formatting, the cover graphic, and the advertising. All of that has to be paid for before I see a single penny of profit from the sale of this book. This book represents days, weeks, and months of my time, as well as a huge chunk of my heart and soul. Just like most of you, I have bills to pay and a wonderful baby to support on my own. This is my side hustle, and while it may be more fulfilling than many side jobs, it’s still a job.
Here’s how you can help a starving artist:
Pay for the book. Obviously, that’s where my income comes from! I promise to keep my prices reasonable.
Review, review, review. Amazon, Goodreads, any other rating site I might not know about. Let consumers know what you think. There are some places I can’t advertise without a certain amount of reviews, and Amazon gives more attention to books people are talking about.
Recommend. Know a reader who might like the story I’ve told? Spread the word.
Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this story, the following titles are available for you:
Spaces Between Notes
Nikolai Amorosa is one of those men’s men. You know the type—allergic to feelings, couldn’t have a heartfelt discussion if he tried, which he never did. Then, he lost his voice, and any chance of communication went out the window.
Unable to speak or otherwise interact with anyone, Niko’s anger was off the charts. It could’ve been worse; he could’ve been in jail. Instead, he found himself doing construction on Carys Harper’s house. Carys talked—a lot—both with her voice and her hands. She was also at the beck and call of her deaf little brother, Benny, which drove Niko nine kinds of crazy. Not that he would’ve said anything, even if he could.
Something else that drove him crazy? Carys was stubborn. She wouldn’t let him wallow. More than that, she seemed to hear all the things he couldn’t say. She understood him like she understood music. She heard what existed in the spaces between notes. She knew that sometimes silence screams the loudest.
Finding Purgatory
Bang!
In one short moment, Ani Novak’s life is turned upside down. Her beautiful family is destroyed, and she’s left completely alone. With an unnamed desire, she seeks out the little sister she walke
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Tori Kane is barely eighteen, jaded, and reluctantly in need of her sister’s help. While Ani is in the position to financially support her sister, the one thing Tori really needs money can’t buy and Ani no longer knows how to give—trust.
Neither of them expected paradise, but they want more than the hell their lives have become. There has to be a middle ground between heaven and hell where they can just be.
One To Tell The Grandkids
Since she was a teenager, Taryn Sato skirted the edge of disastrous decisions. When she found herself pregnant after a one-night stand with a complete stranger, she knew she was giving her family an opportunity to say, “I told you so.”
Caleb Ryder was more of a big brother than best friend to Slate McKenzie. When Slate found out he was going to be a father, Caleb promised to be there for him. Though Caleb was the type of man to learn from his mistakes, history threatened to repeat itself in the form of Slate’s baby’s mother, Taryn.
A story about finding love when you aren’t looking and finding your place when your family tree is really a forest.
Duplicity
In Lilith Callicotte’s profession, being able to indulge in a little fantasy was a plus. Not much that came out of her pretty little mouth was real, but then again, what did her rich, playboy clientele care about truth? Lilith made lying more than an art; it was her life. But as lies often go, it only took one client asking too many questions for everything to unravel.
Author Biography
Kristina M. Sanchez began her life-long love of writing as a small, insomniac child, making up stories about Bugs Bunny to occupy herself when everyone in the house was asleep. She lives now in Southern California with two cats and an enchanting hurricane—err—toddler. An enchanting, smarty-pants, bewildering toddler. Kristina’s an asexual, happily single mother by choice. You might think that’s a weird kind of person to be writing romance novels, but the best science-fiction writers have never been to space, so there you go.
Never Enough Page 22
