Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
The sun was just peeking over a neighboring house when Nic plopped down on Raylene’s back porch steps beside Alex.
After he and Greer had made love early this morning, he hadn’t been able to get back to sleep.
Something about emotions and thoughts roller-derbying through his head had that effect.
They’d all been throwing elbows, trying to trip one another, and generally going full contact in there.
Where was the fucking penalty box when he needed one?
“Guess you want me to say thank you for getting Maria José out of there.” His brother’s resentful teenage attitude was already thick this morning.
“I don’t want you to do anything.”
“What does that mean?”
Alex flopped back onto the porch and covered his eyes with a forearm. “Just what I said.”
“You’re not gonna keep her, are you?”
“She’s not a fucking puppy,” Alex said, letting all his weariness and uncertainty ride his words.
“You didn’t know she was a girl. That makes things different.”
“How long have you been in love with her?”
“It’s not like that—”
Alex jackknifed up and grabbed his brother by the shirt. “You can lie to yourself all you want. But I’m done with that bullshit in my life.”
“Shit.” Nicolás swiped a hand across his face. “I’ve been looking out for her since the first time I saw her hanging off the side of a forty-foot-tall warehouse.”
“That why you joined the Tejanos Pintados?”
“She woulda killed herself.” Nicolás jumped up and stalked over to the basketball goal near Raylene’s two-story detached garage.
Jesus, it was hard to be pissed at the kid for looking after what he considered to be his.
Alex pushed himself off the porch and headed for the basketball goal to grab the ball that he knew, from his short stay here, was in a trunk holding a variety of sports equipment.
He palmed it, feeling the weight and the air pressure of the ball. Then he did a chest pass to Nic.
The kid was a monster on offense, shucking and jiving trying to shake Alex’s rusty defense. He’d scored a half-dozen points before Alex was even able to rebound the ball. With his bigger body, he was able to bulldoze Nic and make a few.
A little more back and forth like that and the score was tied 30 to 30. Sweat was dripping down Alex’s face and scorching his eyeballs. Nic was breathing heavy, but he’d barely sweated through his T-shirt. “What’s the matter,” he jeered, “the old man can’t take it?”
Alex jabbed him with an elbow and stole the ball.
“Hey,” Nic protested, “that’s bullshit.”
“Lotta things in this world are bullshit.”
They jockeyed back and forth before Nic caught Alex in the stomach with his shoulder and hammered the breath out of him. With Alex sucking wind, Nic made an easy layup. “You did what you had to do for her. You gave Ruben the finger to protect Greer. Figured you’d understand about Maria José.”
Oh, Jesus, did he understand. But Nic was only seeing part of the story. “I didn’t go to Ruben because of Greer. She came after me.”
“Then why were you there?”
“To get you the fuck out.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Alex popped the ball out of Nic’s slack hands. “That kind of cocky attitude will get you killed.”
“I’m not you, and I’m not Javi.”
Rather than take the easy shot, Alex bounced the ball off the back of his brother’s head. “You were heading down the same dumb-ass path.”
“Why the fuck would you care? It’s not like you even know me.”
That stopped Alex in a way the shoulder foul hadn’t. “You’re right,” he said, his head hanging and sweat plopping to the driveway. “But I want to.”
Nic rounded on him, chest-butted him. “If you wanted to know me, you would’ve done it a long fucking time ago. But where were you? Some fucking Wyoming or Idaho or something.”
“Montana.”
“Like I give a shit.”
But he obviously had. All Alex had worried about was keeping his mamá and little brother physically safe, far away from the mess he’d made of their lives in San Antonio.
But he of all people knew how much it hurt to cut himself off emotionally.
It was like being the walking dead. But he had a chance—with Nic, Maria José, and Greer—to make a different choice.
To make a different life. “I was planning to haul your ass back to Montana with me.”
Nic’s head shot up at that. “Fucking cold up there.”
“I want you to have a better life than I did.”
“So you’re just going to force me?”
“No,” Alex said, “I can’t keep you here unless I lock you up. And I have my doubts that would be real effective. But I am keeping Maria José here.”
“Look, man—”
Alex held up a hand. “I not only made a deal with Ruben, but I made a promise. Don’t you think she deserves better than whatever might’ve happened to her out there on the streets?”
“Only the guys in the Tejanos knew she was a girl.”
With the way Maria José filled out the T-shirt under her hoodie, it wouldn’t have been long before even the most dumb-ass cholo figured out her secret. “What do you think would’ve happened the first time some guy clued in and tried to get in her pants?”
Nic’s eyes blazed brown fire. “She’s not that kinda girl. Besides, her papá would’ve—”
“All it takes is once. Sure, Ruben might’ve put the word out after that, but that wouldn’t change the fact that some douchebag used her like a whore.”
“I don’t wanna hear this.” Nic started walking toward the B&B.
Alex grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him off his feet. “I don’t care what you want to hear. You have a decision to make. But only one. You can go back to San Antonio and shoot and snort your way into the gutter. But you’re damn well not taking Maria José with you.”
“That mean you’re gonna stay around this little backwoods town?”
“It’s not backwoods. It’s safe and the people are nice.”
He laughed. “Yeah, if you like living in East No-Fucking-Where.”
“You want to be nothing more than a punk-ass street soldier?”
“I had plans, ese.”
“Tell me,” Alex thrust his face next to his brother’s, so close he could smell something sweet, probably Raylene’s cinnamon rolls, on Nic’s labored breath, “did those plans include Maria José? And if so, did you think you could set her up in some cute little house? Let her drop you a new baby every nine months while you’re out playing gangsta? ”
By the poleaxed look on Nic’s face, he hadn’t thought that far along in his plan. “She’s still just a kid.”
“A kid who deserves to be a kid somewhere out of danger.”
“And you think Ruben is gonna leave you alone? Dude, we’re within pissing distance of the city.”
If it weren’t for Maria José, Alex probably wouldn’t trust his old gang mate’s word.
But he’d seen the look on Ruben’s face when his daughter revealed herself.
He knew he couldn’t get the hell out of that life, but he’d had hope he could save his daughter.
“Yeah, I do. He may be a son of a bitch. But he’s a son of a bitch who’s good to his word. ”
“I gotta go to school?”
“If you want to stay out of juvie, then yeah.”
“Shit,” Nic said. “You got a place for us to live?”
“Maybe.” If he could figure out how to pay Greer to stay in her dad’s house. He shot a hard look at his brother. “And yours and Maria José’s bedrooms will be at opposite ends of the house.”
“I’m not stupid,” Nic said. “You gonna settle your girlfriend in this little sunshine-and-flowers place?”
God, that was one of those hard-skating thoughts that had been bouncing off his skull in the early morning hours. Greer deserved a hell of a lot better than an ex-gang member and his ragtag family. But what she deserved and what he wanted were on two different ends of the spectrum.
Nic laughed. “So you’ve got my life all worked out, but yours is completely fucked-up.”
Why deny it? He was right. He was in love with a woman he’d let down and pushed away. “That’s pretty much it.”
“Well.” Nic dug around in the front pocket of his long shorts and pulled out a fistful of something. “Raylene said this might help you unfuck it.”
“Raylene said that?”
“I’m paraphrasing.” If the kid knew that word, he’d obviously hit an English class more than once. He stuffed a wad of paper into Alex’s hand.
The weight. The texture. He’d felt them before. He stared down at the balled-up envelope clutched in his fist. “Where did Raylene get this?”
“Told me some chick named Delaney dropped it off earlier.”
How the hell had Delaney known he’d be back? Whatever happened in that boot shop would be spooky if it wasn’t so fucking cool.
“What is it?” Nic asked.
Alex felt his mouth curve, and he ironed out the crumpled and bloodstained envelope on his thigh. “The rest of my life.”