do you say to the people you loved most when you’d walked out on them fifteen years earlier?
“Helibanas? They’re still hot.”
Alejandro stepped out from the shadows of the doorway, a flat of canned tomatillos in his hands, his expression unreadable.
Flaca loco, they’d called him.
Alejandro wasn’t skinny now. He looked tall, athletic...muscular. The opposite of everything those idiot gangbangers had reduced him to with their bullets.
“Hé, gordos!” Alejandro flicked his head toward Santi. “The ugly one finally decided to show.”
And with that, he threw the flat of tomatillos toward his brother as if it were weightless. “What are you waiting for, bro? Get counting.”
“HOT SAUCE, PLEASE.” Saoirse stuck out a hand.
“Someone’s getting a taste for Latino spices.” Santi laughed, pushing the bottle of fiery hot sauce across the breakfast bar counter.
“I don’t know what they put in this stuff, but it’s great!” She gleefully applied splash after splash of the green sauce to her enchiladas.
“I know. Our bodega is one of the only places to stock it. We can hardly keep it in stock.”
“Listen to you!” Saoirse teased through a mouthful of burn-your-lips-off enchiladas. “‘Our bodega.’ ‘We can hardly keep it in stock.’ When am I going to meet these mythical shopkeeping surgeons anyhow?”
Santiago bristled.
“I’m not stopping you from doing anything.”
Saoirse pulled away from the counter where they’d been wolfishly attacking their after-shift meals and gave him a wary look. One that said, Qué paso, hombre? And what’s with the arm’s-length business?
He’d felt it.
She’d felt it.
But joining up the two parts of his life that meant the most to him was proving tougher than he’d thought.
“Valentino,” she finally began, “of all the people in your life, you can count me as number one cheerleader in the thank heavens Santi’s made friends with his brothers’ club!”
“And why is that exactly? Enjoying having the place to yourself now that I’ve got more responsibilities?”
“Whoa!” Saoirse pushed her plate away and looked at him as if he’d sprouted horns. “Who put grumpy sauce on his chimichurris?”
“No one!” he bit back, confirming that someone had, in fact, put not only grumpy sauce but defensive sauce and a splash of get-off-my-back sauce into the mix, as well.
She gave him a gentle smile and a look of infinite tenderness he most assuredly didn’t deserve. “C’mon, you big macho man. Tell your...” she hesitated for a fraction of a second “...friend, Murphy, all about it.”
He opened his mouth to reply and found he couldn’t. Her choice of words was exactly the problem. Or, more accurately, just the one.
Friend.
Was that how she really saw their—whatever it was?
Sure, it hadn’t been a conventional start to a relationship. The order had been all wrong and the proposal hadn’t been a proposal, it had been...a proposition. But so much had changed in the weeks since she’d come into his life, including the way he saw her.
Much more than a friend.
Which was exactly why he didn’t want her meeting his brothers yet. She deserved more than being introduced as a green-card fiancée. Much more.
And until he found some way to pull off the jokey veneer he used to keep the mood between them light and tell her how he really felt? That he loved her? He couldn’t—wouldn’t—introduce her to his brothers. She was precious to him. And the last thing he was going to do was give his brothers even the slightest reason to think less of her than she deserved.
“This whole strong, silent type thing is making me nervous, Valentino.” She stabbed at her enchiladas, but was rearranging them now rather than eating. “What gives?”
“I thought you hated it when I talked. Last night you shushed me about a zillion times.” He forced on his jocular banter voice. It sounded strangled to him, but her shoulders shifted downward. Less nervous hunch and more feisty blonde.
“That’s because you were talking through my show.” Saoirse swooped her fork across the top of her enchiladas, gathering up a wealth of cheese and hot sauce as she did. She circled the fork in front of her mouth, forcing his gaze onto the pair of lips he never failed to be mesmerized by. “You should never, ever talk through my show.”
“The paramedics show? Your favorite show is what we do for work all day?”
“Uh-huh.”
He smiled as she popped the cheesy blob into her mouth, eyes disappearing under her lids as she gave a satisfied groan.
He was usually the reason she made that sound. Who knew he’d be reduced to duking it out with a forkful of queso blanco to be Saoirse’s favorite thing. Then again, the queso blanco probably would’ve taken her home to meet the family by now.
“I like watching it to reassure myself that I’m better,” she said after making the most of her mouthful of cheese. “Work’s the reason I get up in the morning!”
Santi nodded, eyes quickly averting to the takeaway menus on the freezer door, the stack of phone books holding up one corner of the secondhand sofa—anywhere but on Saoirse.
He wanted to be the reason she got up in the morning. They worked together. They slept together. And he liked it. For the first time in his life he wanted more. He felt his chest grow thick with emotions he usually never let bang around his rib cage.
He pushed away from the counter, brusquely scraping the remains of his meal into the garbage can. Sure, it was his own fault she didn’t know how he felt. Didn’t make feeling them any easier.
All he had to do was say the words—those three precious words that could change his life forever—but he just wasn’t there yet. If he lost Saoirse... He swore under his breath, slamming the lid to the garbage can down as he did.
“What’s got into you?” Saoirse was eyeing him warily.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
Santi put his plate into the dishwasher, closed it with an exasperated huff and looked her square in the eye.
“I don’t think we should sleep together anymore.”
The bright, cheery expression on Saoirse’s face completely disappeared. “Okay.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say about it? Okay?”
“You’re the one who said it, not me.” She grabbed her plate, jumped off her stool and in the process of putting the scraps in the garbage can managed to lose the entire plate. She slammed the lid down, leaving the plate to languish among the debris. “And you’re the one who hasn’t been using the guest room I very specially made up for you.”
“Well, I’ll be using it now. Don’t worry about that.”
“Good.” She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“Good.” He mirrored her defensive stance.
Great. A standoff.
He smacked his forehead suddenly remembering that Ángel down at Mad Ron’s knew about their marriage plans. He’d have to tell him to stay shtum as his brothers were no strangers