Hector (24 page)

“I know,” Walter said with a pathetic expression, “and, no, I
didn’t ask, but she did yawn a few times and said she was really tired because
she’d had a long night.”

Hector stared at Walter, the frustration reaching another level.
She makes a comment like that and still the guy doesn’t think to ask what or
who
kept her up so late?
Fuck!
Hector was going to break a tooth
or two if he didn’t stop grinding them as he did when he thought of someone
wearing Charlee into exhaustion.

“Hi, Walter.”
A young girl in scrubs
with little teddy bears on them walked into the small waiting room and smiled
brightly at him. She glanced at Hector for a second then looked back at Walter.
“You look different.” She smiled. “Your hair is shorter,” she studied his face
a little longer, and then it seemed to dawn on her. “Your eyebrows . . . You
cleaned them up.”

Walter smiled, running his fingers across his brows. “Yeah,” he
glanced at Hector and laughed. “After a friend told me I should name it, I
decided to do something about it.”

She frowned at that, and Hector was glad now that Walter didn’t
mention it was Hector, who told him he should name his unibrow. “I didn’t think
it was so bad, but it does look much better.”

Walter shrugged but didn’t say anything, not even thank you. The
guy was clueless.

“Your grandpa is excited about your visit today. He said he has a
few new tricks for you.
Says he just might even beat you this
time.”

Walter smiled, standing up. Hector stood with him. “We’ll see
about that.” He turned to Hector. “Hector, this is Natalie. She’s the nurse
assigned exclusively to my grandpa.” Hector smiled, nodding at her. “This is
Hector. He plays chess too.”

Natalie smiled at Hector now. “You on the U.S. team too?”

Hector nodded with a smile.
“Yep, just made the
team actually.”

“Wow. You must be really good. And smart.” She turned to Walter,
smiling timidly. “I know Walter is super smart. He’s tried teaching me how to
play.” She shook her head, waving her hand in front of her. “Forget about it.
I’m hopeless.”

They started walking out the waiting room. “Nah, you’re getting
better every time we play.” Walter said as they walked behind her. “You’ll get
it. You just have to practice.”

They walked into a room where an elderly frail-looking man sat in
a wheelchair, wearing a robe by the window. He was reading the paper and didn’t
notice them immediately. “Roberto,” Natalie’s cheery voice called out, “look
who’s here.”

The old man looked up, his dreary eyes cheered up at the sight of
them.

“Hey, Grandpa,” Walter walked over and hugged him.

After the introductions, Natalie excused herself, saying she had
to go get started on Roberto’s lunch. She offered to bring Walter and Hector
sandwiches, said she’d make them herself. While Hector passed, Walter said he’d
take one. She was short and a little on the chunky side, but she was full of energy
with a smile that seemed to brighten even that depressing place.

“Isn’t she a little young to be a nurse?” Hector asked once she
was gone.

“She’s not actually a nurse yet,” Walter explained. “She just got
her L.V.N.’s certification. And as soon as she did, this guy,” Walter waved his
in his gramps’ direction. “He insisted my dad hire her as his exclusive nurse.
She’s been working here for what seems like forever now. Did her high school
R.O.P. program here and was assigned to my gramps a lot.”

“She’s better than any nurse I’ve had so far,” Roberto said with
conviction. “She’s got spunk too. That girl; as young as she is, she don’t take
shit from the other older nurses. She’s always on time; she’s never in a bad
mood.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Walter teased. “She’s perfect. I’ve heard that a
million times.”

“She is. I tell her all the time, and,” his grandpa lifted a
finger, “she’s the only one that makes my soup the way I like it—with extra
Tapatio
. None of
the other nurses do that.”

Walter smiled, shaking his head. “That’s ’cause you’re not
supposed to have any, Grandpa. It’s not good for you.”

His grandpa waved his hand at him. “There are few things in this
life left for me to enjoy. That’s one of them and she knows it. Another one is playing
you, boy. I just might get you this time.”

They wheeled him out into the community room where there were a
lot of other old folks hanging out as well. Walter introduced Hector to a few
of them, and the day of playing chess with the oldies started.

Hector had to admit it did feel good to be able to provide these
guys with some much-needed entertainment, though he felt bad about beating
them. After a few quick games, Natalie came over and started setting up
Roberto’s lunch. Hector took advantage of the distraction to try and get a
little more info on Charlee.

“So did you at least try to talk to Charlee about something other
than the robot?” He tried to sound as casual as possible. “I mean she stayed
over at your place long enough to eat. I’m sure you guys had time to talk about
something else.”

If he had to go by Walter’s expression, as usual, it didn’t look
too promising. But Hector waited, making an effort to not show his exasperation
again. “She asked about some of the photos in my room.”

Hector smirked. “At least you got her to go to your room.”

“It’s where I’d set up the demonstrations,” Walter said with a
small smile. “But we did stay in my room the whole time. And we ate on my bed.”

“Nice move,” Hector pretended to be impressed and winked.
“Setting up the demos in your bedroom.”

“
Mija
,
that’s too much.” Walter’s grandpa held his hand out, waving it above his soup.

From where Hector sat, he could see that there was
more red
in the bowl from the
Tapatio
than there was soup.
Walter glanced over and laughed. “
You trying
to kill my
grandpa, Natalie?”

Her face was bright red as she hurried to put the top back on the
small bottle of chili sauce. “No. I just . . .” She picked up the bowl. “I just
got distracted. I’ll bring you another one.”

She hurried away, glancing back at Walter with a regretful smile.
Walter laughed. “Don’t worry about it, Nat. You can’t
always
be perfect.”

“You leave her alone,” his grandpa said.

She eventually came back with another bowl of soup for the old
guy, this time getting it right as Walter continued to tease her.

Hector hung around and played a few more games with the old guys,
including one against Walter’s grandpa. As expected, none were able to beat
Hector or Walter. Hector might’ve gotten out of there earlier, but he agreed to
play Walter, and they had quite the audience by the time Hector beat him more
than an hour after they started.

Spending the afternoon with Walter at the old folk’s home had
served as somewhat of a distraction. But by the time he got back home, he was
back to thinking about Charlee nonstop again. It was irritating as hell. Spending
the day with Walter and watching the way he genuinely enjoyed spending time
with his gramps and the other old guys only served to demonstrate further
evidence of one thing: Walter was a real good guy, too good for Hector to even
consider backstabbing.

~*~

It had been impossible. After sobbing in her car for as
long as she had Friday night, Charlee had finally sucked it up, wiped her face
clean, and insisted she was done crying. No guy was worth this amount of
grieving, not this time and certainly not the first time.

She’d been fine up until she got home and tried smiling
cheerfully for Drew. Her friend had seen right through her. All it took was one
pout and the million dollar question. “You saw him, didn’t you?”

Charlee had fallen apart all over again, and Drew dove right in
with her best friend duties of holding her, consoling her, breaking out the ice
cream, and then staying up with her into the late hours of the night talking.
Drew was able to finally convince her of one thing, and as jagged a pill it was
to swallow, it made sense. This was a good thing.

“You’ll get over it, and you’ll be stronger for it.”

Drew hadn’t been aware of just how sweet Hector had been to
Charlee that night at the party—how convincing, without even having to say it, he’d
been about making her feel as if she weren’t just another one-night stand—how
deeply he’d looked in her eyes and melted her completely. It hadn’t been just a
hot and heavy moment between them.

She knew none of that mattered now, but she wanted Drew to
understand she wasn’t being such a crybaby over nothing. After what she’d
already been through, she knew better than to trust some fake, kind words from
a guy. She’d been completely naïve the first time. This time she
felt
what Hector was saying to her.
There was no way to explain it, but Drew got it. That’s why she loved her so
much. She totally understood.

“I believe you, Charlee.” Drew said with that sympathetic smile.
“I saw it too. There’s something about the way he looks at you. I saw it at the
party again. But maybe he’s just
that
good. Even though, with his looks, he doesn’t have to be.”

“I know! That’s what I keep thinking. Even if his act had been as
obviously bogus like Danny’s . . .” Charlee stopped and Drew stared at her
silently. Charlee hadn’t said that name in over a year. “I probably still
would’ve fallen for it,” she whispered, glancing down at her hands.

Drew reached over and took
Charlee’s
hand in hers. “No you wouldn’t have. You were younger and completely
inexperienced when Danny got a hold of you. Plus that was totally different. There
was no way you could’ve ever imagined what he was up to. But just like that
experience, Charlee, you grew from it. I’ve watched you be overly cautious
about these things, and trust me, even with my sixth sense I’m always going on
about, I didn’t see this coming from Hector. Sure, I was nervous this would be
the case, but I truly believed I saw something else in the way he acted with
you. So if you say you even
felt
it,
then I believe you.” Drew sighed. “I guess the jerk is just really
that
good.” She smiled weakly at
Charlee. “That’s why this is a good thing. We were both duped by one of the
smoothest, if not
the
best at being
smooth. Anyone else who comes along now will have nothing on our reinforced asshole
radars.”

Surprisingly, her words made Charlee laugh out loud. Ironically,
they made her think about Hector explaining his scar. He’d learned from it, and
ever since, he hadn’t let his guard down as much. Charlee had another scar to
reinforce her asshole radar
. She only
hoped she’d be strong enough to not let her guard down again.

By Saturday she was over it. At least she told herself that, and
she did her best to enjoy her time at Walter’s and then at the play Drew’s dad
had gotten them tickets for that night.

Since then, she’d seen Hector one time. He decided to grace the
team with his presence Wednesday afternoon. She and Drew had gone over the game
plan. She wouldn’t give him the pleasure of letting him see he’d affected her
life in any way. Instead, she’d keep up the “I’d already forgotten about that”
attitude. Drew had been especially proud of Charlee for making that comment. She’d
even high-fived her.

So when he showed up Wednesday, she did just that—smiled sweetly
at him, showing absolutely no resentment whatsoever. A few times she couldn’t
help feeling annoyed that their eyes would meet and she thought she saw what
she had the night he kissed her. That’s when it was hardest to
not
feel aggravated. He already knew he
had the power to make her melt, and he made it clear it wasn’t something he
wanted to continue, so why was he torturing her now? It was the sickest kind of
cruelty, and she’d walked out of the lab, cursing him under her breath again.

Day two, Thursday, hadn’t been much better. She’d caught him
looking at her more than once in that way that did crazy things to her insides.
Charlee was trying so hard to remain composed and to act indifferent about the
entire thing. It didn’t even hurt as much as it made her angry now. How could
anyone be that mean? Did he enjoy stroking his ego again and again each time he
managed to get her caught in one of his intense gazes?

Once again, she walked out of the lab, feeling thoroughly
nettled. Drew met her by the waterfall in the middle of campus, where she
always did Thursday afternoons. “How was it? Was he there today?”

“Yes,” Charlee huffed.

“That bad, huh?”

“I suppose it’s my fault for giving him opportunity after
opportunity to get me caught in a trance with him because I can’t stop looking
at him. But why does he have to keep doing that?”

“That just seems so weird,” Drew pondered, holding her books to
her chest and staring straight ahead as they began walking. “If he’s really
that attracted to you that he can’t stop looking, why cut things off? Even
players like him have to eventually get bitten by the love bug.”

“Drew,” Charlee warned. She wasn’t about to get pulled into that
again.

“Okay, okay.” Drew turned to her. “Maybe not love. You two don’t
know each other well enough, but it seems to me there’s more than meets the eye
here. Maybe he’s fighting it because he’s just never been that type of guy.”

“No, please don’t start with this.”

“No, no, I’m serious, Charlee. You hear about these types of guys
all the time. There are guys who are seriously afraid of commitment.” She
squeezed
Charlee’s
arm. “He fits the profile
perfectly. These guys are usually the very good-looking ones who are used to
having tons of girls at their beck and call but never have to commit to any one
of them. That’s him!”