Concealed - A Hiding From Love Novel #2 (21 page)

Once we get outside, Carla decides it’d be better if we take a cab. I agree. I don’t give a shit how I get there, as long as there’s a bed at the end of the trip.

After we snag a cab, we fall into the back seat, giggling like…well, a couple of drunken fools. Pretty appropriate. Carla reels off an address that isn’t mine to the cabbie. Again, as long as there’s a bed, I don’t care.

I think I fall asleep for part of the ride home, because the next thing I know, the cabbie is asking for money and I’m digging my wallet out of my back pocket while Carla helps me out of the cab.

After we weave our way to her door, she spends a few minutes giggling while she tries to get the key in the lock. Finally, we bust into the living room. The lights are all off and she slaps around on the wall, trying to find a light switch.

“Shhh,” I chuckle. “You’re going to wake up the neighbors. We don’t need the lights anyway.” I grab her hand. “Which way is your room?” She pulls me toward a hallway that I can just barely see in the moonlight coming through the windows. A minute later, I find myself standing in the near darkness, looking down at Carla as she takes off her tank top and then her skirt. She’s standing in front of me in her underwear and bra, her long blond hair falling around her face.

My head is spinning and the scent of her perfume makes it spin harder. It’s a nice light scent, but it’s not wildflowers, and I feel my heart squeeze for a moment at the realization. Dammit. I should have had another shot.

“So,” I whisper as I brush my fingers along her hair from root to tip. “You’re all ready for bed.” I follow my finger with my lips.

“Yeah,” she breathes as she gingerly places her hands on my chest.

I touch her neck, grasping her jaw and chin finally as I look down at her. Her skin is soft and warm, and the ache in my soul is so fucking painful that I just need to feel her, feel something that helps the hurt go away.

“Do you hog the blankets?” I ask as I place a kiss on her temple.

She giggles quietly. “Mmm, not that I’ve heard. But you know, with the right friend in bed with me, I bet I wouldn’t even need blankets.” Her hands wander up my chest until they wind around my neck.

“You’ve got to know something, C.”

“Yeah?” she questions as she, rubs little circles on the back of my head.

I sigh and put my head down on her shoulder.

“It hurts. Everywhere. She fucking stripped me, and I’m not sure there’s anything left.”

“I know,” she soothes. She takes my hand and pulls me down on the bed with her. “I’m so sorry. Let me help.”

I blink back the tears that are trying to work their way from my heart out through my eyes. “Okay,” I sigh into her hair as we lie side by side. “Okay.”

“Time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” a voice chirps nearby.

As I come out of my daze, the first thing I’m aware of is that my head hurts like a bitch. The second thing is that it’s Carla’s voice I’m hearing. I slowly open my eyes to find her sitting on the edge of the bed with a cup of coffee in her hands.

“Hey,” she talks quietly obviously realizing any loud noises right now would be highly detrimental to my health. “Here’s a cup of coffee to get you started.” She places it on the nightstand. “I’ll get you some toast and eggs. Come on out to the kitchen when you’re ready.” She smiles and stands to leave.

I look down at myself, noticing that I’m fully dressed. I squint, trying desperately to remember the previous night.

I clear my throat. “Um, wait,” I croak out before she walks out of the room.

She turns expectantly.

I scratch my head. This is really fucking awkward, something I’ve never, frankly, had to ask before.

“What did… I mean, I’m a little fuzzy on the details. Did we…?”

She laughs. “Nothing happened, Gabe. I promise. You passed out as soon as you hit the bed, and you snored so damn bad I ended up sleeping on the sofa.”

“Man, I’m really sorry. I mean about the snoring. The rest, well, it’s probably for the best.”

She nods and goes to leave but turns back. “I know she did a number on you, but it seems to me like somehow you’ve got to have some say in it. Don’t give up until you get it. It takes two to get involved, so it ought to take two to get out too.”

Forty-five minutes later, I’ve had a shower, some coffee, and a bit of food. I still feel like crap but not as crappy as I did before.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” I tell Carla as I finish loading my dishes in her dishwasher. “I really appreciate you letting me crash and feeding me and all.”

She gives me a small smile. “No problem.”

“Listen, about the whole passing out in your bed thing…”

“Don’t worry about it, Gabe. Honestly, I just wanted to help you feel better. You’re a great guy, and anyone can see how much you love her. I wasn’t under any illusions.”

Relief courses through me. Carla’s a great girl, and she doesn’t deserve to have a really fucked-up guy drag her into his messy head.

“So, friends?” I ask as I stick my hand out.

“For sure,” she answers, and I take her hand then pull her into a hug. As I release her, I give her a noogie and she shrieks before slapping me on the back and shoving me out of her front door.

The cab I called shows up a minute later, and in ten minutes I’m back home in front of my apartment, facing the void I can’t seem to fill. Before I can even go inside, my phone chimes. It’s Mike texting:

Told Ramon u’d b late. You’ve got 30 min.

I sigh, head inside for my keys and a fresh t-shirt, and start the shit all over again.

Alexis

Los tiempos van cambiando.

The times, they are changing.

M
Y
mom has been home from the hospital for nearly a whole day now. The doctors think she can have a full recovery, but she’s going to need to make a lot of lifestyle changes. The doctors sat with my dad and siblings and me this morning, before we checked Mom out and told us that the traditional Mexican diet my parents have been eating their whole lives isn’t the best thing for Mom’s heart. The lard and pork and salt Mom’s always used in so much of her cooking is cardio enemy number one, and if she’s going to make it to a nice old age without this happening again, she’s going to need to change the whole way she cooks and eats.

My dad is fine with this. My mom? Not so much. When we all sit her down at home to explain it, she launches into a thirty-minute diatribe in Spanish detailing how her mother cooked and all the women in her family before that cooked and how she’s always cooked the same way and no one else ever died from it and neither will she.

Next up on the list we were given is exercise. The doctors have of course said that she’ll need to start exercising. She scoffs at this. “What do you think I am? One of those rich
gringa
housewives who go to aerobics?
Ay dios mio
. Exercise? I clean the house, I worry about my children, and soon I hope to be chasing after grandchildren.” She gazes adoringly at my oldest brother whose wedding is in a few months. “That’s all the exercise I’ll ever need.”

Her stubbornness is almost enough to push me into talking to Beth, who I haven’t spoken to since Mom’s first night in the hospital. Our youngest sister, Ruby, is like a pig in mud, finally able to breach the bond Beth and I have always had because she’s been too young to share. She’s become the apex of the triangle and runs the messages between the two of us, her sixteen-year-old eyes sparkling with pride.

The final component of Mom’s lifestyle changes is stress reduction. Imagine my shock when we start to discuss this one with her and she looks directly at me and says in Spanish, “The only thing that will reduce my stress is for my middle daughter to stop destroying her life with this man and go back to the bright future she has with Marco”

I feel the heat pour through my face as the rest of the family turns to look at me. “Mama, now isn’t the time to talk about this,” I say quietly.

“And when should we?” she asks, her voice rising with every word. “When you’ve let this man take you to some far away place? Or maybe when he tells you to leave the Church? What about when he gets you pregnant and you’re all alone with no family to help you?”

By this time, my mother is practically shrieking and my siblings are looking increasingly nervous. My dad puts his arm around her, shushing her and telling her to calm down before she makes herself sick. She starts to cry, and he stands up with his arm around her as he leads her slowly upstairs. Before he goes, he casts me a look that says all too clearly he sees this as my fault.

The tears are pooling in my eyes when my oldest brother, Tomás, huffs out a laugh. “Jesus, Lex, I’ve gotta meet this guy. I’ve never seen Mom so wigged out.”

“Mom’s never met him either,” Beth snaps. “She’s wigged out based on the fact he’s white. That’s it. That’s her whole hangup.”

“Well, that’s bullshit,” mutters my other brother, David.

I run my hand through my hair. “Yeah, but does it matter if it’s bullshit or not? I mean, you heard her. I’ve caused her so much stress she had a heart attack. It’s my fault.”

“God,” Tomás says sardonically. “Aren’t you the important one?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I bristle.

“After years of eating lard and red meat, sitting around in front of the
telenovelas
, and never getting check-ups, Mom has a heart attack and yet you can claim it’s all your fault? Christ, Lex, when did you get so damn special?”

I sit absolutely still in my seat, rigid with humiliation and fury. Who the hell does Tomás think he is? The golden child, the one who does no wrong, the perfect eldest son with his perfect Hispanic fiancée and his perfect job as a CPA in Floresville’s best accounting firm. How could he possibly know what it’s like to be the one who wants something different, the one who can’t be happy like she should?

I’ve tried for so long. I had the perfect guy, the perfect future, all planned out, one hundred percent approved by my parents, and I threw it all away because I had to have more. I had to have
him
. And I hate it. I hate my parents, I hate my brothers and sisters, I hate Gabe, and most of all, I hate myself. Why can’t I be happy like I’m supposed to be?

“Yeah, I am special, Tomás,” I hiss hotly. “I’m the special one who left Texas. The one who went to a war and saw people get killed. I’m the one who survived shit none of you can even imagine and came home to discover that no one gave a damn.” I hear Beth give a little gasp and see Tomás look away from me, shame covering his face.

“I’m the one whose own father threatened to disown her if I didn’t toe his line in every aspect of my life, from where I lived to who I had dated. I’m that special one who found the only person in this entire world who touches my soul and then discovered I could have him or I could have my family but not both. And now? I guess I’ve got neither.”

“Lex,” my brother says, reaching out a hand to me.

“No,” I snap. “Don’t even. You have no idea what it’s like to have your place in your own family threatened, held over your head to make you comply. Be glad you’re not as
special
as me, Tomás. It’s no damn walk in the park.”