Chapter Three #2
“Pathetic, huh?” All traces of Dougie’s amusement vanished, his profile dulling. “I’d rather be pathetic than in denial,” he decided, a wry laugh escaping him. “You keep telling yourself whatever you need to. I’ll wait till you’re ready.”
Her tongue stabbed the inside of her cheek. “You’ll be waiting till you’re dead.”
“Maria, you’re a piece of work, y’know that?” Sean scolded, glaring at her. “The only thing that’s pathetic is the way you treat people you think are beneath you.”
“I don’t care.” But she did.
Bel’s shuffling in my peripheral caught my attention. Uncomfortable, she wrapped her arms around herself, shrinking into the jacket.
Sean shook his head. “You don’t deserve him, anyway. He’s too good for you.” Maria snorted, but her younger brother forged on, “One of these days”—Sean sucked back a determined breath—“someone is going to put you in your place.”
Maria picked invisible dirt from under her fingernails, examining the squared talons with the thick white tips. “I welcome the day.”
The way she rubbed her lips was the only tell she might have regretted what she had said just a little.
“Let’s bounce,” Sean said, hooking an arm around Dougie’s shoulders, towing him away. “Later, Bel.”
She lifted her hand in a feeble wave. “Bye.”
“See ya,” Dougie murmured, not meeting her stare as he passed. Bel tracked him with a sidelong glance as they disappeared through the doors.
At the loss of his presence, she deflated, her focus roaming, seeking a new focal point.
“Finally,” Maria muttered, adjusting her bracelet. “He exhausts me.”
“Because he’s in love with you,” I pointed out.
“No, he’s not,” she corrected softly, betraying herself. “Trust me. He loves what everyone else does.” Maria’s stony front returned. “That doesn’t make him special, and that sure as shit isn’t love.” Expelling a forceful breath, she stared off at nothing. “So, like I said, not even if he was the last man alive.” I wasn’t sure she believed that. There was something about Dougie that got under her skin. It always had. Maybe she resented the pressure of living on the pedestal of idealization he’d placed her on, or maybe, just maybe, she didn’t like that she responded to his antics. That he affected her. That he had her attention just as much as she had his.
Maria withered a little, discerning I’d heard her inner darkest thoughts. Squaring off her shoulders, she redirected the conversation with a flourish of her hand in the welcomed outlier’s direction. “Belmira, this is Felix Ferreira.”
Belmira . It suited her perfectly.
My heart seized when those sad, almond eyes fringed by a million lashes landed on me.
The sadness seemed inherent, a constant in her life, and just as her attention on Dougie had bothered me, so did the way the melancholy fit her like a second skin.
I was hell-bent on figuring out the cause so I could destroy it.
I frowned. What was with me? I didn’t know this girl… but the thought I needed to looped in my head.
Belmira’s smile was brief and noncommittal. “Hi.”
My jaw flapped. Words, Felix. Words. Nothing surfaced.
I’d been tongue-tied over a girl before. Who hadn’t been? But the power of her acknowledgment held me in a chokehold, my body humming under her regard.
“Hey,” I finally managed stiffly.
Shit, I hadn’t meant to sound unfriendly. I just… I swallowed, watching her weight bounce from one foot to the other, her chin tucking into her neck.
I wanted to make her smile. The kind that registered on her dimples and reached her eyes. Like the one she’d given Dougie, but better.
Real. Reciprocated.
“Felix, this is my first cousin on my dad’s side,” Maria supplied.
I did a double-take. Wait a second. My eyes flared. Oh, shit. How hadn’t I put that together? Bel. Belmira . She was that cousin? The hazy memory of a shy, gawky, frizzy-haired girl with crooked glasses too big for her face, being ordered around—I mean, ‘ choreographed’ —by Maria, one summer when they were kids, to a Madonna song.
But that girl was a thing of the past. In its place was hair that looked nearly black, blown out into a long sheet, draping over her shoulders. The curtain of her bangs framed made-up, deep-set eyes the same shade as roasted almonds. Curving, long lashes flapped gently with every anxious blink she took under arched, thick brows, muddying in the middle.
I wanted to follow the straight slant of the bridge of her nose with the pad of my finger, bask in the lowering of those dark lashes, and find purchase for my thumb against her pointed chin right before I tested my mouth against her heavy bottom lip and smaller upper one. And while I hadn’t yet discovered what Maria’s jacket was hiding, if the rest of her was anything to go by, I knew I wouldn’t be disappointed, either.
Belmira was all grown up now. A woman. A noisy, incessant, desperate, and borderline irrational echo clawed at me.
How did I make her mine?
I was confident we’d gone to the same—and only—public high school, but as hard as I tried to place her roaming the halls, my mind drew a blank. It was for the better. If she had looked anything like she did right now, I would have…
“Nice to meet you,” Belmira said to her shoes, unpolished toes wiggling under the thick strap stretched across her foot. Amusement warmed my chest. Was it nice to meet me? Did her footwear agree? My chuckle triggered the reluctant lift of her head, brows bending a little deeper.
Pink stained her cheeks. God, she was beautiful. Almost distractingly so.
I rubbed the corners of my mouth over with appreciation, catching the curious perusal of her eyes stalking the motion. She let out a shaky, audible exhale, the breath accompanied by the unhurried trace of her tongue against the inside of her bottom lip. Once. Twice. Three times. The low groan wedged in my throat, my fascination mounting with each teasing, careful stroke of that muscle inside of her mouth. Each caress invited another unbidden thought, surging my blood south. If she didn’t cut it out… I shifted forward in my seat, my legs parting wider.
Belmira’s lips fastened shut, horrified, wide eyes lurching to mine, gauging if I’d caught her.
She wedged her bottom lip between her teeth at the sight of my endorsing grin. Well, at least the interest wasn’t entirely one-sided. Dougie, who?
“We’ve met before.” Dozens of times, in fact.
I waited for recognition to hit her features, the onset of the delighted “oh, yeah!” but it never arrived. Freeing her lip from the cruel trap of her teeth, Belmira swayed in her shoes. “Oh.” Ouch. She didn’t remember me. Instead, she peeked at her cousin for confirmation—or a lifeline—lips tugging to the right. “I’m sorry.”
“You probably don’t remember him,” Maria said. “He used to come by the house to hang out with Sean all the time. He was a bit of a doofus.”
I lobbed Maria with a glare, boring a hole into her cranium at the crappy segue. Thanks for playing wingwoman, Tavares.
She could have at least talked me up. A little. Tossed me a bone.
Delight danced in Maria’s dark eyes. She was enjoying this. I wasn’t exactly being subtle, but she wasn’t helping my case. Snatching my cigarettes from off the table, her nose scrunched, followed by a curdled “ugh.” She hated the taste of Lucky Strikes, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
She could buy her own cigarettes come April instead of pilfering mine or her dad’s. Speaking of which, when was Belmira’s birthday?
Maria scanned behind her, ensuring she was in the clear as she fished a cigarette out, tapping it against the pack. “Felix works with my dad,” she offered, feeding the filter between her brown-red painted lips. She held out a waiting hand for me, fingers fluttering with impatience.
I deposited the lighter into her palm.
Maria shielded the flame, the end catching, then glowing bright with her long drag. Smoke curled from her mouth delicately with her exhale as she lowered the cigarette between the V of her fingers, gesturing at her cousin. “Bel’s parents own the bakery off Newton.”
Off Newton…? Ah, Azores Bakery. That’s right. I knew the one. Dozens of Portuguese bakeries in Fall River, but they had the best Portuguese custard tarts, and my parents liked the inventory of imported goods they lined their shelves with, too.
I tracked the defeated collapse of Belmira’s shoulders. “Just my ma,” she corrected with a resigned sigh.
So, her dad wasn’t in the picture. “Right,” Maria mumbled around the cigarette. Maybe my parents knew what happened to John’s older brother. His name was escaping me right now.
I needed more intel. “Do you work there?” Could I conveniently run into her? Did she like it? Was inheriting the place part of her life plan?
The direct question startled her, reservation with a hint of curiosity blooming in her dark, measuring stare. She was getting a read on me, or trying to, anyway. Breaking eye contact first, she nodded. “Yeah. I do.”
Strands of her dark locks flapped wildly in a cold, unexpected bluster. Her hand shot out to pin back the wild strands, the motion parting the curtain of her hair from her profile like the unveiling of a pretty piece of artwork. I greedily studied the curvature of her heart-shaped face and the punching of her heady pulse in her delicate, flushed throat.
She was nervous. Made two of us.
A companionable quietude fell over the courtyard, save for the muted festivities unfolding indoors and the whirr of cars driving by in the distance.
I caught the conspiratorial slant of Maria’s smirk. What was she up to now? I didn’t like that look. It was the same look my older sister Felicity got when she was about to humiliate me. Maria tapped her tongue against her upper teeth, flicking the growing ash from the tip of the cigarette. “Bel just got out of a bad relationship, and Felix hasn’t had a girlfriend in two years.”
Worst. Fucking. Wingwoman. Ever.
What next? Was she going to out me for still sleeping with my Teddy Ruxpin bear? His batteries were dead, and he sits against my headboard, alright? I didn’t cuddle him or anything… I just, I liked him there. Maybe she’d drag me for my aimlessness? Or worse, she’d submit a detailed report card complete with a summary on how well I kissed.
Did she really think dredging up my dating history was helping me score any points? It made me sound like I had issues in that department. Which, for the record, I didn’t. I dated. Frequently.
It wasn’t unusual for my Sunday mornings to start with Ma violently lurching my bedroom door wide-open, still in her church clothes, and practically breathing fire. She’d tear the window curtains open and force me awake before I was ready because word had gotten back to her post-eight a.m. Mass that someone had seen me with yet another girl the night before. It wasn’t my fault this town, even in the house of God, couldn’t mind their own fucking business.
“Another one, Felix?” She’d punctuate her irritation by pulling the pillow out from underneath my cheek, whacking me over the head with it. “Again?”
Yeah, again. Another girl, another face, another name. I wasn’t proud of it. They were transactional dates to fill a void that left me more restless than they did content. Any short-lived satisfaction I’d found between a girl’s legs in the backseat of my car was eclipsed by the ensuing numbness once I peeled the condom off and my heart rate regulated.
I culled the emptiness by taking them to eat at a local haunt, where we slipped into easy conversation over a bar pie and a pitcher of Budweiser, because there was no confusion about what the sex had meant.
Nothing.
I took them home after and walked them to their front doors. We skipped the ‘call me sometime’—we both knew I wouldn’t—and left it at ‘thanks’, complete with the noncommittal ‘see you around’. Once they were securely inside, I got back in my idling car, rolled the window down all the way as fast as I could, and planted my forehead on the steering wheel, collecting myself while the night breeze carried away the distinct combination of perfume, latex, and sex from the cabin of my car.
I didn’t like the drawn-out reminder that I used them just as much as they used me.
I’d known since the conclusion of my last long-term relationship I was looking for something —there was the blanket word again—but I hadn’t found it yet and wasn’t sure I ever would.
Or I thought I wouldn’t. My Adam’s apple bobbed in my throat, a prickling stretching over the back of my neck, setting the hairs upright.
Maybe she had existed in my periphery all along, and I hadn’t been paying attention.
“Maria!” Belmira’s outburst lured me out of my messy headspace. The leather of the jacket wrinkled as she wreathed her arms over her chest in an embrace, her profile straining while she studied the snowy treetops and then her shoes again. She toed at a piece of salt on the ground, grinding it under her heel until it was chalky dust.
I wanted her to look at me, and it was taking everything to remain seated, to not angle her chin upward and train her eyes on me while I waited on bated breath for her tongue to outline the inside of her gorgeous bottom lip again.
“I hope you’re a better lawyer someday than you are a saleswoman,” I quipped, slicing the fraught tension. Maria sucked at this.
She shrugged. “Figured I’d cut to the chase since you’re making eyes at her, and Belmira is clueless on a good day.” Maria served me a look that communicated, “ How’s that for a wingwoman?”
I kind of hated her.
“No, he wasn’t,” Belmira said, holding a hand to her chest as if she’d never heard something so outrageous in her life. Like she couldn’t possibly affect someone the way she had me almost immediately.
She met my eyes, a question burning in hers. It shifted into worry and, finally, urgency, ordering me to jump in and deny I’d ever do such a thing. But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. And the longer I basked in the yet unspoken truth, drinking in all her anxious nuances while she squirmed in its weighty presence, the hotter she got.
“He wasn’t,” she insisted, inflection losing a little steam as she dropped the shield of her arms. “And I am not clueless.”
She was a little, but it was endearing. Difference of opinion aside, she’d just created the perfect opening. “I was making eyes at you,” I said, shamelessly at that.
What was the point of beating around the bush? The only games I liked playing were of the N64 and PlayStation variety.
Belmira’s plush mouth fell open, an anemic “oh” slithering out. Shuffling her feet in place, she scraped her hair behind her ears, the lobes burning red. “I thought, I-I mean.” She glanced at Maria for help, but she was a sinking ship with no lifeboat in sight. Her follow-up query bounded out of her hastily, “Why?”
“Why not?”
Belmira gaped at me, startled. Had she not seen that rebuttal coming? Or looked in a mirror recently? But to ensure there was no room for confusion, I reiterated, “I was making eyes at you.” I scanned her head to toe. “I’m still making eyes at you.” How could I not? Her voice alone had my head turning. Looking at her, though? Life-altering.
Her throat bounced with a sticky swallow. If her face got any ruddier, she was going to pass out.
“You wanna sit down?” I suggested, jutting my chin at the empty seat.
Stumbling to an iron chair, she lowered herself onto it in a daze. What was with her? There was no way in hell she’d never been hit on before. Sure, I was taking a forward approach, especially in front of a spectator—who apparently hadn’t gotten the hint she needed to make like Sean and Dougie and scram—but what was there to gain by denying the truth?
I tracked the crossing of one trim leg over the other, her hand draping over her bare knee, the other perched against the table, steadying herself. Gooseflesh spread up her endless legs, and despite her cousin’s jacket, the urge to shuck off my blazer and hand it to her gnawed at me.
But the panic in her eyes screamed flight risk, so I refrained, even if it went against my very upbringing.
This close, I could isolate each distinct note of her perfume—crisp, tart raspberries freshly picked, unclipped jasmine vines perfuming the air, and creamy vanilla. It was such a sharp contrast to the time of year, like a memory waiting to be made.
“Tell me about the bad boyfriend,” I suggested.
Might as well skip the polite get-to-know-you formalities and learn from the fuckups of my predecessors.
Uneasy, Belmira replied, “It’s not a very good story.” She scraped her thumbnail against the nail bed of the other.
Understood. She didn’t want to talk about it. Not yet, and as much as I didn’t like it, I wasn’t going to push her. She’d tell me when she was ready.
Maria squinted, scrutinizing the exchange with latent interest, the pad of her thumb clipping against the filter of the cigarette, ash hissing against the cold ground.
Her unrelenting presence felt closer to a twisted lab experiment designed for her entertainment . Can you go? I suggested telepathically, regarding her, then the door. Hadn’t she agreed to watch her youngest sister Katrina’s Tamagotchi? While she was at it, she could tackle solving world hunger and fighting Congress on some bill. Anything, as long as she wasn’t standing right here.
Being a buzzkill.
Maria held up the hand holding the cigarette. She wasn’t rushing her enjoyment faster than she planned to.
“Sorry, uhm,” Belmira began. The jacket shifted when she crossed her legs, her teeth worrying the inside of her bottom lip to avoid her lipstick. “Can we try this again?” She offered me her hand, eyeing me with an apology. “I feel terrible I don’t remember you.”
My focus fixed on her left hand curving over her bare knee. A question surfacing I was afraid to give life, but the longer I studied her bare fourth digit, the louder it resonated.
What size was her ring finger?
Get a fucking grip, Felix.
Attraction. That’s all it was. Attraction, plain and simple, because every part of her was pretty, even her dainty, thin fingers, with clipped, unpolished nails, that compelled me to memorize each line and bend of her knuckles, right down to the shape of her smooth, long nail beds.
I homed in on her face again, my resolve all but vaporizing because the future played out for me in a wide frame with perfect clarity. The proposal. Watching her walk down the aisle in a dress that didn’t do her beauty justice. Life as newlyweds and my commitment to ensuring every day captured the promise we’d made in our vows. Holidays and the traditions we’d continue and the new ones we’d create. Receiving the keys to our first house. Adopting a dog. Getting swept up in a moment and rolling the dice on contraception. A positive pregnancy test. Trading in my beater Hyundai Excel—the thing was already twelve years old—for a minivan. Raising well-rounded kids. Family vacations. Living . Growing old with her, being a source of her earned laugh lines. Praying like hell I went first because I didn’t want to think about what it would feel like to take my next breath without her.
I hadn’t forgotten I’d given Sean shit for less. Without Belmira’s knowledge, I’d planned out a whole life with her. Meanwhile, she was racking her brain, struggling to even remember me. But did any of that really matter? This felt unexplainably different somehow because where Sean was two years in on a relationship with what’s-her-face and still couldn’t confirm if he genuinely loved her, I was as sure as my last name that Belmira re-emerging in my life again was divine timing.
Or was I really drunk on my own delusions? No, that wasn’t it. I could be dismissive of it all I wanted, but there was… I needed to figure out what the hell the “something” was, but it was there. Ever present with a pulse. An itch I couldn’t scratch, an earworm stuck in my head, an all-consuming force that hijacked all my reasoning. A thing. A cosmic pull. Bigger than me.
I wet my lips, taking her hand in mine. “For what it’s worth, I remember you,” I husked, her eyes flaring as my fingers curled around hers, the voltaic charge running up the length of my arm. “But you’re all grown up now.”
A grown woman who was mesmerizing and frustratingly oblivious to it because she was too focused on blending into the background and not drawing too much attention to herself.
But I noticed her. Right down to the single tiny birthmark on her left thigh a little above her knee. How many more were there, and where were they? What made her tick? What made her happy or sad? Would she give me a chance to find out?
Her pretty lips unglued, unveiling the edges of her slightly overlapping front teeth, her expressive, luminous eyes dazed. My pulse raced, the throbbing current between us swelling louder and louder, drowning out all background sounds, people—Maria’s proximity included—things, and distractions, until we were the only two who existed.
Had she felt it the way I had? The connection that transported her into the future with me? Did she see it with the same logic-defying lucidity? The confirmation I sought manifested in the presence of her seized breath, a softness I’d yet to witness taking shape on her face. Our hands remained firmly clutched together, holding onto the link of a reality erected entirely for us just a little while longer.
It wasn’t until I got arrogant and tested the connection further, tracing the pad of my thumb over the bony valleys of her knuckles, halting on the joint of her ring finger, and sliding downward to measure the circumference—a size four, maybe—that the fog cleared from her eyes, and she realized we were still fastened together. Belmira cleared the invisible Etch A Sketch depicting our future with sweeping, furious blinks of her lashes, tearing her hand away indelicately, posture stiffening in her seat.
I’d blown it. It was too much, too fast. Her chest heaved with each winded pant, struggling to inflate her lungs, while her worried focus lobbed around the courtyard. Without warning, she leaped to her feet, shrugging frantically out of her cousin’s jacket and revealing a figure-hugging dress. The snug velvet clung like cellophane against each soft feminine dip and left me on the verge of biting my fist and dropping to the ground on both knees in worship.
“Here.” She held the jacket out to Maria, impatient. “I’m going to head back inside.”
I cursed inwardly but caught myself from begging her to stay. I’d find her again.
Maria made no move for the jacket, staring her cousin down with curiosity over the bridge of her nose. Smoke floated from the nearly finished cigarette, and she trained an arm around her ribcage, using it to prop her opposite elbow on. “Why?”
Belmira shoved the jacket against Maria’s chest, compelling her to accept it. “I’m cold.”
Liar.
“Felix will give you his blazer,” Maria offered while folding the jacket over her forearm, pulling a final drag on the cigarette.
Felix is ready to give you more than just his blazer, I thought.
“No. Thanks,” Belmira all but spat, shaking her head, arms tucking stiffly at her sides. “My ma’s probably looking for me now.”
Had she just said… her ma was looking for her? She and Maria were the same age. Why would her ma be looking for her grown daughter?
Without another word, she whirled around in the door’s direction, legs moving as fast as the salt-rutted ground under her heels would allow her, disappearing through the door.
Maria stabbed the cigarette into the ashtray. Figures. Now she was finished. “That was really lame, Felix.”
No duh, Tavares. My scruff worked under my fingers as I scratched idly at my jaw, deep in thought. “Is she always that… skittish?”
“Usually.”
I hadn’t meant to freak Belmira out. I wasn’t sure what had come over me—compulsion or instinct—but it made me want to press fast forward, just to hit rewind and watch the playback so I could relive the moment again.
But our past experiences informed our present responses. There could only be one cause. “What’s the deal with the ex-boyfriend?”
Maria scoffed, sneering with disgust. “Martin Pinto.”
I lost hold of my jaw. Martin Pinto? Of all the assholes… how’d he score her? How long had they dated? How’d he fuck this up outside of the obvious? Belmira was too reserved for him, too gentle.
“What happened?” Outside of the obvious because there were bricks on his family yard with more personality. What had she liked about him? The infamy of his aggression was well known in Fall River, never mind how showy he was. Him and his obnoxious fucking Lexus SC with the illegal muffler and too- dark window tint he managed to get away with. Pretty sure his dad had a cop or two in his back pocket.
Maria’s posture steeled. “He hit her.” The air fled my lungs. What the fuck? How could anyone… “Well,” she faltered, uncommunicative for a beat before correcting herself. “He punched her.”
Martin did what ? A lethal combination of rage and an insatiable need to retaliate swelled in my veins. Outside of stating the obvious, that any man—if you could call them that—who put their hands on a woman was a piece of shit, he had nearly a hundred pounds over her.
My fists bleached in my lap while my mind reeled with the darkening what-ifs. He could have dislocated her jaw, broken her nose, or sent her careening into something.
He hit her. No, he punched her, and while I could count on one hand how many fights I’d gotten into, I was liable to throw something through his front windshield and break his hands if we ever crossed paths again.
“I didn’t think she had it in her to break up with him, but she gave him the boot. Thank God,” Maria said.
It didn’t lessen my anger.
Every toned muscle built by the relentless motions of manual labor in my body swelled, the lattice of my abdomen contracting to slow the leaking lava spilling into my gut. That stupid prick had the luxury of riding on Daddy’s coattails and the legacy of his last name. Martin spent his days hidden behind a desk inside of the modular trailer on the brickyard, safely protected from the unpredictable New England elements—our winters were brutally cold, and our summers were thick with humidity—and the grueling toil of physical work, making a show of pushing papers and whipping his dick out to exert his dominance over the people who relied on his daddy, and someday, him, for a paycheck. But I didn’t owe him shit. He could try that on me. See how much he liked being the underdog.
“She deals with enough.” My ribs tightened when Maria didn’t elaborate. What the hell was that supposed to mean? With a weighted sigh, she fiddled with her earring. “Her ma.”
“Her ma?” What about her?
“She’s…” she rifled for a tactful explanation. I wished she’d lay it on me the way she had the information about Martin. “Domineering,” she settled on, clearing her throat.
Nonissue. “I can deal with an overprotective mother.” What Portuguese mother wasn’t? Bad ex-boyfriends required time and patience to unpack and build back trust and safety.
Mas, you played your cards right, and you were in. Maria forgot moms loved me. Her ma loved me, and believe me, it was nearly impossible to get on Connie Tavares’s good side. Just ask Dougie. She still muttered under her breath every time he let himself into their house and helped himself to whatever he wanted.
“Thank you for demonstrating your continued inability to listen.” My brows rose. “I said domineering ,” she clipped. “Overprotective is how I’d describe my mother.” Maria’s jaw rocked, brooding. “My uncle’s wife…” She’d deliberately made a distinction, refusing to acknowledge her cousin’s mother as her aunt, even by marriage. “She’s something else entirely.” Concern registered in the corners of her eyes. “I need you to understand this likely won’t have the outcome you want.”
How could she be so sure? I moderated my reaction, not wanting to accuse her of projecting whatever issues she had with her aunt onto me. “And what outcome is that?”
She tilted her head my way, face softening. “You really think I can’t see you planning out your entire lives right down to the welcome mat and annual family road trips?”
Busted. I chuckled, a little embarrassed, but Maria didn’t join in. She blew out her cheeks. “Be. Careful,” she urged, each word pronounced.
“Take a chill pill. It’s not that serious.” It wasn’t. I just wanted the 4-1-1 and her cousin’s ring size.
She scowled at me. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you fell out of the loft?”
“Could you relax?” Holy fuck. She was wound up tighter than a yo-yo, and I was ready to hand her the joint so she could quit bugging out. I had this under control. The unrelenting presence of her frozen glare told me otherwise. “Don’t worry about me,” I assured with a sniff. “I’ve got this.”
“You haven’t got shit, and that’s half the problem.”
Cool. We were telling each other how we really felt now? Alrighty then. I thought she’d come down on Dougie too hard, and she coulda been less salty about it. And hey, since she was in law school, pursuing a career built on y’know, facts and the truth, maybe being honest with him about how she really felt wasn’t the worst fucking idea.
Not that the buzzkill would let me get a word in because she was on a warpath.
“And I’m going to worry about you because you left the house thinking that blazer went with that shirt,” she said, motioning at my attire, forehead creasing. Wait. What was wrong with this shirt and blazer? Navy blue went with a plaid print, didn’t it? “So evidently, your common sense has not grown at the same pace as your ears.” On reflex, my hand measured my ear. I stared at my reflection in my beer bottle, assessing. I turned my head from left to right. I guessed they kinda stuck out a little, but my ears were perfectly in proportion to my head… weren’t they?
Leaning away from the bottle, I scratched idly at my chin. “Are you just about finished, Ally McBeal ?”
“That show is stupid, highly overrated, and perpetuates everything wrong with this era, but since you asked, just about.” Maria sneered with a ‘hardy-har-har.’ “I don’t want you to get your feelings hurt when you realize that evil bitch,” she spat with venom, pulling in a regulating breath that wasn’t for dramatic effect, “will never let you have her.”
“‘ Let me ?’” I narrowed my eyes. “Does Belmira get a choice in the matter?”
“No.” Maria said it so calmly it betrayed her visible anger.
How in the hell? “She’s nearly twenty-one.” The disbelieving laugh shot out of me. No matter how old-school her aunt might be, Maria had to be exaggerating.
“Her age isn’t relevant.” She glanced elsewhere, pursing her lips. “Never has been. Belmira is her ma’s most prized possession. An asset to her.” Her bleak stare returned to mine. “Bel does what she says. Right down to how many breaths she takes and who she dates.”
Was she implying her ma had picked that clown? More importantly… “She’s a person, not a thing.” An adult.
Old enough to do what she wanted.
Date who she wanted.
Marry who she wanted.
The pitch of Maria’s voice took on something I’d never heard from her before—defeat, and if I didn't know better, fear—it shook me to my core. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her.”