27. Chase
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Chase
I hadn’t been in the backyard for more than thirty seconds when a random tía pressed a Modelo into my hand, and I was accosted by a woman who might have been a hundred and fifty years old.
“Pobrecito, so skinny,” she said.
The next thing I knew, I had a paper plate in my other hand, so laden with rice, beans, some sort of meat, and tortillas that I was surprised it hadn’t collapsed under its own gravity.
“Gracias, mamacita.” I winked at her, and she pinched my cheek—hard.
“Don’t flirt with me, coqueto. You won’t survive it.”
“Abuela, he’s very fragile. Be gentle with him.”
Selena appeared at my side, and her abuela gave her a much gentler pinch on the cheek, I noted, before disappearing back into the crowd. Selena looked between my two full hands and grinned.
“No one ever goes hungry at a Torres party.”
“I can see that.”
The music was loud and lively, the backyard filled to the brim with people talking and dancing, and a few maybe even fighting, although that got broken up quickly.
String lights drooped overhead, throwing warm light over everything.
Somebody had set up a folding table that sagged under more food than the crowd could ever finish—a mountain of carne asada still hissing off the grill, bowls of rice and beans and pico, a stack of tortillas wrapped in dish towels to keep them warm.
Smoke rolled off the grill where two tíos argued over the meat.
Kids tore between people’s legs despite it being nearly one in the morning.
The whole yard smelled like citrus and woodsmoke, and beneath the music you could hear three separate conversations happening in two languages, none of them quiet.
It was chaotic and full.
Nobody in it was performing for anybody.
It was home.
I pulled out a chair from a nearby table, only to find it already occupied by a sleeping toddler.
Selena chuckled, took the plate from my hand, and folded a tortilla around some meat, holding it up to me. I took a bite, maybe making sure I nipped her fingers too, then let out a very unmanly groan.
“Fuck, that’s good.”
“You haven’t even had the mole yet.”
I glanced up to see Lupe fussing over her pot on an outdoor burner, stirring it slowly, not really looking at it.
“It needs another twenty minutes,” she said to no one in particular. “Antonio always says I rush it. He likes it darker.” A pause. “Liked. Likes. Whatever.”
Selena and I traded a look and walked over to her.
“Smells perfect to me.”
“It’s not done.” Lupe gave the pot another turn, then set the spoon down and wiped her hands on her apron, summoning a smile that didn’t quite make it. “Sorry. Eat. There’s plenty. There’s always plenty.”
She tried to drift away when Selena grabbed her shoulder.
“What happened?”
“I kicked him out. He called me names, and I just…I just didn’t want to deal with it anymore.”
“Did he hurt you? I’ll kick his ass if he even tried—” I’d probably do a lot more than that, the shark in me clearly not satisfied tonight.
She shook her head.
“No, he just left. After six years he didn’t even…”
She covered her face and started sobbing, and Selena wrapped her up in her arms.
“It’s okay, mija. You deserve so much better.”
Selena peered up at me over her distraught cousin’s shoulder. Her eyes darted between Lupe and the dance floor, and I got the message.
“His loss, Lupe. The man had no taste and no sense. I meant what I said at your place.”
Lupe gave a wet, hiccupping laugh.
“You saw more of him in two minutes than I saw in six years.”
“Not everyone can be as smart and handsome as me, but that’s a burden I bear.”
There it was, a smile again.
Selena bit her lip to keep from laughing, and that was all the reward I needed.
“So, can I ask the chef for a dance, or is she too busy?” I held my hand out to her.
Lupe looked between me and Selena, who gave her an encouraging nod. She took my hand, and I led her onto the dance floor.
Lupe was a good dancer, but she started off slow, nervous.
We kept it chaste, my hand respectful at her back, and I led her through the slow movements.
But just like I could read a wave, I read how she liked to move, and as the music picked up, I didn’t let her wallow.
Soon I had her spinning, and the warm smile I’d seen in her kitchen returned.
“You know,” she remarked, catching her breath between turns, “with the way Selena talks about you, I expected rows of jagged teeth. Maybe a tail.”
“Only on the full moon.”
“She called you”—Lupe scrunched up her face, recalling—“a ‘sponsored frat boy with a god complex.’”
“That’s actually pretty good.” I spun her out and back. “If she’s not careful, RipTide might snap her up to write copy.”
That got a real laugh out of her, watery but real, and across the yard I saw Selena watching me get her cousin to laugh, smiling softly.
Then Lupe narrowed her eyes, still teasing but studying me more closely now.
“She talks about you a lot, is the thing. Like she’s always thinking about you…” She let it hang.
And under twinkling string lights, smelling like chiles and citrus, in a crowd that wasn’t anonymous but so intimately known it could be suffocating, I wanted to be known too.
“Well, the feeling is mutual.”
Lupe arched a brow.
“Have you told her that?”
The song ended, and I didn’t answer.
Then the music changed.
A younger cousin had gotten ahold of the aux cord and turned on much faster music, which cleared some folks to the edges while others ran in from their tables. Lupe spun off toward a cousin with a loud grito, and Selena was suddenly in front of me with her eyebrows raised.
“Okay, surf star. My turn now.”
I caught her hand, set the frame, and took her into it—the fast footwork, the turns, the lean—and she met me on every count, laughing, her hair whipping around.
She was a powerhouse on the volleyball court, and she was a powerhouse here too, reading my lead, anticipating, adjusting, pushing.
The whole yard noticed.
Somebody whistled.
I spun her out and reeled her back against my chest. She was breathing hard and grinning up at me.
There she was again. Glowing.
“Where,” she demanded between turns, “did you learn to dance quebradita?”
“Let a man have his secrets, Torres.”
“Absolutely not. Pro surfer, DJ, and now dancer. That’s really just not fair.”
“Maybe I contain multitudes.”
“Maybe you’re showing off.”
“For you? Always.”
I dipped her, just to watch her roll her eyes upside down, and she laughed.
It was the easiest I had felt inside my own skin in years.
My fingers sank into the soft fabric of her dress and the warm flesh beneath.
I pulled her closer so I could feel her racing heart, and I never, ever wanted to let go.
“Selena.”
Selena went rigid in my arms.
One word, and the woman I was holding changed beneath my hands. I brought her up out of the dip, and she stepped back out of my grasp. The music kept going, but we’d stopped. I turned to find the source.
Marina Torres stood at the edge of the patio, dressed for a different and fancier party than the one she was standing in.
Selena shrank before my very eyes. This wasn’t the stubborn, fierce woman I knew, and it wasn’t her customer-service face either.
It was worse. It was small, as if someone had extinguished all the light that poured out of her. I looked across the yard at the woman who had done it.
Her mother.
Her family.
Her greatest opposition.
Try telling my mother that.
“You’re flushed,” Marina said pleasantly enough. “You’ll want to be careful in this heat. And the”—a small gesture at Selena’s loose hair, her bare feet in the grass, her whole joyful disarray—“well. People are watching, mija.”
She turned the pleasantness on me.
“Chase, so wonderful to see you again.”
“Mrs. Torres.” I didn’t let go of Selena’s hand. She tried to slip it free, and I held on easily, like I hadn’t noticed. “I hope you’re enjoying your evening.”
“I am.” The warmth stayed on her face, but I heard the ice in her next words. “You know, I waited at The Salty Siren the other night. I’d cleared my whole evening to talk about your waves, and you just ran off on me.” A light, wounded laugh, for the audience. “I sat there like a fool.”
“Something came up.”
“Mmm. Well.” She recovered the smile. “You’re here now. Walk with me—five minutes. There’s a great deal I can do for a man in your position, and the ocean is rather particular about who it favors. We should talk before the broadcast.”
She extended a hand toward the quieter end of the patio.
She was so certain I would take it.
“I’m good, thanks.”
The certainty flickered.
“It’s only five minutes—”
“I’m currently occupied.” I nodded toward the dance floor behind us. “But I appreciate the offer.”
“Chase.” Selena’s voice was low. She’d tensed beside me, already managing her disappointment. “It’s fine. Go talk to her. It’s just business, I don’t—”
“It’s not, though.” I kept my eyes on Marina. “Fine, I mean. I came to this party for exactly one reason, and it wasn’t to take a meeting.”
Marina’s mouth flattened.
And then I saw it—the warm voice going to work, the charm wrapped around someone who always got her way.
“I see. Well, I’d hoped you were more serious than that. A man with genuine prospects rarely spends his weekend at a little backyard party, dancing with”—a fond, devastating glance at her own daughter—“well. It’s sweet. But summers don’t last do they? Selena clearly understands that.”
“Funny.”
Selena went still as stone next to me.
“I’ve been to a lot of big events. Sponsor galas, award shows, you know, stuff like that.
” I glanced around the yard—the grill smoke, the laughter, Lupe smiling and still dancing.
“Not one of them was worth a dance with your daughter. So I think I’ll be getting back to that, if it’s all the same to you. ”
The pleasant mask held, but the depths behind it churned.
The predator in me recognized another.
I ignored it completely.
“How charming,” Marina remarked.
“I have my moments.” I lifted Selena’s hand, the one I was still holding, as the music sped back up. “Excuse us.”
I led her back to the middle of the makeshift dance floor, away from her mother, and felt her come back to herself one beat at a time.
“You didn’t have to say that,” she said under the music.
“It was all true.”
She bit her lip.
“She’ll make you pay for it.”
“Let her bill me.” I spun her out and back. “Dance, Torres. Your abuela is watching, and I’m trying to make a good impression.”
The music got even faster, and I wasn’t about to let her get away. I spun her around over and over until she had no choice but to focus on the footwork instead of whatever was churning in her mind. I watched the tension melt away again as she found herself, found her body.
From the edges, people started shouting, “Quiébrala!” on repeat, and I wrapped my hands tighter around her waist so we could move faster.
“Slow down, pendejo!”
But the smile was back, and she didn’t miss a single step.
“Don’t worry, Selena. I’m not going to break you.”