25. Cisco
Cisco
F or the next few days, Cisco stayed with Marisol.
After their less-than-stellar dinner with her family, he felt as if he understood Marisol better and the reasons why she was who she was.
It didn’t make him feel any less for her.
If anything, his affection for her only grew until he could no longer deny he loved her.
He loved Marisol.
It was an all-consuming feeling he felt deep within his bones.
It was also different from anything he had ever experienced.
The need to have her right next to him and protect her was strong.
Yet he couldn’t find the words to tell her yet, only because she was still dealing with the fallout from their dinner.
She needed time to process, and he’d give her that. However long she needed.
“I have another therapy appointment this morning,” Marisol said during breakfast. Cisco wasn’t much of a cook, but he could make a simple omelet. She had opted for only veggies, while he filled his with bacon.
“Do you want me to take you?” he asked through bites .
Marisol chuckled and leaned over, rubbing her thumb along his chin.
“Dropped some eggs there.” She let her thumb linger before falling back.
She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and shook her head.
“No, but thank you. I just wanted to speak with Alice before I meet with Stella and the other volunteers tomorrow evening.”
“Oh, that’s right. You excited?”
She shrugs. “Kinda. A little nervous. But Stella is really nice. I just hope she doesn’t think I’m incapable after the whole Snowball situation.”
“She won’t,” Cisco insisted. “Because she also saw how distraught you were over losing Snowball. She knows it was an accident.”
That earned him a timid smile. “Thank you.”
Cisco winked at her and then finished up his breakfast. He had to get to work soon and knew he’d probably need to go home tonight.
He needed to do laundry and run a few errands.
Since spending the past few days with Marisol, he had neglected many items on his to-do list. He needed a few days to get his affairs in order.
Once Marisol finished eating, Cisco took their plates to the sink and washed them off. “Call me after your meeting tomorrow. I want to hear how it goes.” He rounded the island to place a soft kiss on her forehead.
Marisol preened underneath him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him back down for a proper kiss. Her lips against his always got him going, and if he didn’t have clients today, he’d drag her pretty ass back to her bedroom and make her scream his name twice before he left.
He was so tempted.
Then Marisol broke the kiss, a flush to her cheeks. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later. I want to hear your voice before I fall asleep tonight.” Cisco untangled himself from her, still smelling her candied scent as he walked out the door.
“Tiny, my favorite teenager. What’s my schedule looking like today?
” Cisco asked as he walked through the doors of Golden City Tattoo.
Before leaving Marisol, he had snuck a glance and saw he had clients, but not any specifics.
Tiny was manning the front desk, sipping on one of her gross iced coffees she liked so much.
It was mostly sugar, and Tiny had the biggest sweet tooth of anyone he knew.
“If you had other favorite teenagers, I would be worried.” She narrowed her dark eyes on him. “And you have a bit of free time this morning, but then you have two clients, both slotted for four hours. All artists are in and fully booked today.”
Cisco liked longer sessions. That usually meant bigger pieces, and he could get creative with it. “My station ready?”
“Duh. Did I start yesterday?” She rolled her eyes. “Also ordered new gloves. I realized they sent me the wrong size last time. I’ll take that raise whenever you want to give it to me.”
Cisco laughed, coming up next to her and rubbing her head. She hated that and immediately hit his hands away. “What if I buy you lunch? We even?”
“I have your credit card. You were going to buy me lunch anyway. Throw in money for the new Willows record, and I’ll call it even,” she countered.
“You drive a hard bargain, but I guess I can do that.” In truth, Cisco spoiled the hell out of Tiny. He liked to. He had no siblings of his own, and Tiny was the closest thing he had to an annoying little sister .
Cisco’s phone began to buzz in his pocket. He reached for it, seeing it was Ernesto. He had been expecting a call from him for the last few days. “Gotta take this, prima. Come get me when my first client is here.”
Tiny saluted him as he went into the back toward his office. Once the door was shut, he answered the call. “Ernesto. You better be calling me with good news,” he joked.
There was silence on the other end of his phone. Cisco thought that was odd because Ernesto was usually speaking the moment he answered his call. “Ernesto?”
There was a cough on the other end before Ernesto’s voice filled his ear. “Hey, man. You got a minute?”
Even if he didn’t, he did now. The dejection in Ernesto’s tone had him on edge. He took a seat at his desk, putting the phone on speaker and setting it down. “Yeah. What’s up?”
“I got a call back from the agent on the San Francisco property,” he said.
He had been waiting to hear back for weeks to see where they were in the process. He finished all his necessary paperwork; all they needed was to formally accept the offer. “Okay, so is it done? Place mine yet?”
“That’s the thing, man, they pulled out. Rejected.”
Cisco heard the words, but his brain couldn’t seem to process them. It made no sense. He offered above asking price and was prepared to be competitive. “Why? What the hell happened?”
“They got wind of your record, man. I’m sorry. I don’t know how that happened.”
The blood in his veins went cold as his whole body tensed. He didn’t talk about the incident often. In fact, he made sure it was buried from his record. No one should have had access to it, unless they combed the entire internet or happened across his file.
The incident in question happened in college, and it wasn’t his fault. But that didn’t matter because it nearly fucked up his entire life. He spent months…if not years, trying to rebuild himself. Obviously, he was able to, but it took so fucking long.
“How?” he gritted out.
“I told you, I don’t know?—”
“Even if they found out, why the fuck is it a reason to pull out? That shouldn’t matter,” Cisco interrupted.
“Normally it wouldn’t,” Ernesto agreed, speaking quickly, as if afraid Cisco would cut him off again. “But this district is full of elitists.”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Cisco tried to keep his voice at a normal level, even if his anger continued to spike the longer this conversation went on. He knew Ernesto was just the messenger and shouldn’t be the one to get his ire, but unfortunately he was.
“The place is a tourist's wet dream. It brings in a lot of revenue for a lot of people with money. The seller feels that your background could…diminish the reputation of the district.”
“What the actual fuck, Ernesto? How does that make any sense? It’s a fucking tattoo shop.”
“I don’t know! It doesn’t,” he quickly agreed, “but I can’t change his mind, man.
All I can say is you might want to get with your lawyer and ask him how these records were leaked.
In the meantime, I’ll keep working with the agent.
Let them know it’s a misunderstanding. And listen, there are other spots we can look at too.
I can have five other locations in your email in the next hour. ”
It wasn’t even about the location anymore, though Cisco had desperately wanted that building. The foot traffic and clientele would have been amazing, but he could work with other places. What angered him the most was how someone unburied his past. Shit he hadn’t thought about in years.
“I’ll call you later. If you learn anything, call me back.” Cisco didn’t give Ernesto a chance to reply before he hung up and searched for his lawyer's number. These days, Elias mostly dealt with his business matters, but he had once been an integral part of getting Cisco’s name cleared.
Elias answered on the second ring. “Mr. Ramos. How can I help you today?”
“Elias, tell me how I just lost a property for my next shop because they found my records?”
“Shouldn’t be possible. Tell me what happened.” Keys clicked on the other end, no doubt Elias searching something on his computer.
Cisco told him about his conversation with Ernesto. Elias didn’t interrupt him, just typed away. It took him a few moments to respond. “I’ll need to look into this. I’m not seeing anything on my end. Listen, give me a few days to sort this out, and I’ll call you when I have an answer.”
It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, but he supposed it was better than nothing. “Is there anything I can do in the meantime?”
“Nothing for you to do. Let me take care of this. Try not to worry about it.” Cisco was glad Elias wasn’t here to see him roll his eyes. Yeah, if only it were that simple: just to not worry about it. It would be the only thing on his mind.
“Yeah, fine. Get back to me when you can,” he said, sighing.
“Have a good day, Mr. Ramos. I’ll call you when I know more,” Elias promised, and the line went dead .
Cisco dropped his head into his hands, feeling drained.
His day hadn’t even started yet, but he was already over it.
He eyed his phone, half tempted to call Marisol.
He could explain everything to her and have another person tell him it would be okay.
But he also didn’t want her to worry, especially after the disastrous dinner at her parents’ they were still recovering from.
She had enough on her plate. No, he could handle this on his own.
A knock came from the door, and a second later, Tiny stuck her head in. She eyed him once and furrowed her brow. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “What’s going on?”
It was clear Tiny didn’t believe him, but she didn’t push him either. That was why he loved his cousin. She knew when to push and when to back off. “Your first appointment is here. Want me to bring him back?”
And just like that, he needed to get back to the real world. Just because his world was imploding didn’t mean time stopped until the problem was fixed. He nodded once. “Yeah, I’m ready.”
Tattooing would at least let him escape. And later he would call Marisol, and things would get better. He trusted Elias to handle the problem. It was a waiting game now.