Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
I reached for the gun I wasn’t wearing, and Cassander raised both arms defensively before twitching and shaking his hands, thrusting them out again only to freeze.
From behind the kitchen peninsula, my mother shouted, “No running in the house! What did I tell you two?”
“Hey! Listen to your abuela!” My sister juggled two backpacks and a bag of groceries in her other hand. She was looking at my mother and shook her head. “Sorry, Mom?—”
She broke off, her mouth dropping open when she saw me and Cassander at the table. In the background, children screamed, jumping on the couch. But my entire world was narrowed down to Candace.
“Hey, Candy Cane,” I said.
Candace dropped everything, striding across the kitchen and wrapping me in a tight hug. She smelled different, which twisted something up in my stomach. She trembled, and I could feel wet tears on my shirt.
This was the homecoming I had been waiting for.
Abruptly, Candace pushed back, hitting me hard on the shoulder. “What are you doing here?”
Her eyes were narrowed, mouth pursed. She turned and yelled, “No jumping on the couch!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two children bounce off, settling in front of the TV and turning it on. Cartoon music blared loudly. Cassander looked between me and Candace before turning back to his hands, opening and closing his fingers, still frowning.
I wondered if our magical transportation had some side effects he hadn’t told me about yet. Was he experiencing nerve damage? Whatever had transported us was something so far beyond what I’d ever seen, was he experiencing effects I wasn’t?
Candace raised her hand again, her fingers nearly brushing my hair, but then dropped it, shaking her head and turning away from me. I heard her take a long breath. When she turned back, there were two deep grooves between her eyebrows.
“What are you doing here, Damian? Why did you come back?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Whatever magic had drawn me here, I hadn’t ever intended to come back home.
But how could I say that to my baby sister, the only other person who’d lived through the same childhood as me?
“I had some time off, and…” I trailed off, shrugging.
“You had some time off, and…” Candace mocked me with a one-shouldered shrug. “Are you messing with me? Twelve years. Twelve years .”
Her face got red, her jaw tightening. She looked at our mother, and Mom shook her head. “I told you.”
“Yeah.” Candace blew out a breath. “You told me.”
“What did she tell you?” I asked, confused. I looked between them, and neither one met my eyes. “What?”
“So, how long will you be here?” Candace asked. “How long is your vacation?”
“Just staying for the afternoon.” Because I might be kicked out of the SPA, I might be unable to go home, but there was no way I was staying here for any longer than I had to.
“Are you—” Candace lowered her voice, although it was hard to hear her over the cartoon on the TV screen shouting about the fight they were about to have. “Were you even going to let me know you were here?”
And there was the question I hadn’t been able to answer myself. If this was Who Wants to be a Millionaire , the music would have reached a crescendo, the lights gleaming on my sweating forehead.
Would I have let my sister know I was in town?
A: Yes
B: No
C: Not until I was out of town
D: Why didn’t the magic transportation spell happen right this second?
Her eyes narrowed. I didn’t have time to call a friend because she had already narrowed down my choices. I grinned, every part of my expression and body language indicating I believed exactly what I was saying.
“Of course! We just got into town, but, yeah, as soon as we’d found somewhere to eat, we were going to call.”
It was my best I’m a good guy, you can trust me with your criminal secrets smile. It was my best you’ll eat this bullshit because I have topped it with premium grade A whipped cream smile. It was Mamá Reyes’s why yes, I do speak to ghosts, and I can also tell the future smile.
Only Candace had learned it too, and we both smiled it right back at each other until the tension was so thick that our mother slapped a spatula hard on the kitchen peninsula. We jumped, because Mamá Reyes didn’t yell; Mamá Reyes got quiet, and she was very quiet when she said, “Both of you sit down. Candace, mi amor , what do you want?”
“Mom, I have to go, I have an appointment…” But Candy wilted under our mother’s glare.
We both sat down at the table, still baring our teeth at each other.
“Well, this is entertaining,” Cassander said. “Perhaps there’s an arena somewhere with tridents and swords?”
“Who’s this?” Candy narrowed her eyes, and Cassander gave her a winning smile. Nothing in his looked fake, no part of him gave off the eat this bullshit vibe, but I was still deeply suspicious.
“Cassander,” I said. “This is Cassander. He and I met in Europe.”
“Europe,” Candy said doubtfully, and I heard the “ You haven’t been home in years, and now you drag home some Eurotrash like dog poop on your shoe? ”
“Europe,” I confirmed, grinning. “I met him at work.”
“Sure,” Candy said. “Right. You met him at work.”
Because Candy was looking him over and reading all the same signs I was. Tailor-made shirt, open at the neck. Expensive haircut. Hands that had no calluses because work was for people he paid, not for himself.
A face like a Greek god coming down from Mount Olympus to grace us with a song that would haunt our dreams for the rest of our petty mortal lives.
Okay, maybe the last one was just like me.
Our mother dropped a plate of food in front of Candy and said sharply, “Candace.”
My sister straightened, her face smoothing out as she picked up her fork.
“Cassander, would you like some more food?” my mother asked. “You look too thin.”
“Oh, no, Rosario, I couldn’t possibly.” But Cassander watched with slight horror as my mother placed more food on his plate, patting his cheek fondly.
Jerking away from her touch, he stared at her as she puttered back to the kitchen, and I blinked in surprise. My mother should have pegged Cassander the same way I did, the same way Candace did by her expression. Cassander had never, in his entire life, been patted on the cheek, and doing it to him violated every personal boundary he had and made him deeply uncomfortable.
Candy and I turned to look at my mother suspiciously. She smiled at us benevolently. “Eat! Eat!”
Cassander’s expression had pulled, as though he was a cat who’d been dumped in water.
I glanced at Candy, and it didn’t matter that she was mad at me or that I had abandoned her and this town for twelve years. We were both thinking that Mamá Reyes didn’t make mistakes.
Mamá Reyes wanted Cassander and his expensive shoes and tailored shirt out of her house and her son’s life.
Candy tilted her head, and I watched her watching Cassander because the two of us were wondering the same thing: what did our mother see that we were missing?
Cassander looked down at the plate, frowning. When he looked at me, his lip was pulled slightly, the expression on his face nearing horrified as he struggled with whether to be rude and refuse the food or struggle to eat another bite.
“You still in shipping?” Candy asked, breaking the stalemate.
“Yeah,” I said. “I was just in Europe, then Canada.”
“And somehow never in California.” She shoved a forkful of food into her mouth, her expression softening. Even twelve years of anger wasn’t going to stand up to Mamá Reyes’s cooking.
I didn’t say anything, glancing at Cassander to see what he was making of all of this. He looked between us like this was a hockey game and the puck was flying back and forth.
“No,” I said.
“Nice of your company to give you a one-day vacation, even though they couldn’t spare you for your sister’s wedding or the birth of your niece and nephew.” She glared at me when my head swung back to her.
“It was unexpected leave,” I said. “I sent money. Didn’t you get it?”
Something on her face cracked, and I didn’t need any training at all to read that I’d just said exactly the wrong thing.
“Right.” She shook her head. “I can’t do this right now. Ma, I have appointments all day today. Can you watch the kids?”
“I’m doing a reading later,” my mother said from the kitchen, running water over a plate before putting it in the dishwasher.
“Take them.” Candy stood up, her hands flat on the table. “Is this goodbye for another twelve years? Or will the next time we hear from you be when you die?”
It was too close to what I’d thought earlier, too close to what might have happened if I hadn’t run into Cassander on that Paris street.
“Candy—” I broke off, seeing the expression on her face. She opened her mouth once, twice, clenching her jaw for a second before turning toward the back door.
She scooped up her purse on her way out, knuckles white on the strap.
“Goodbye, I guess,” she said sharply.
“Yeah.” What else could I say? If I had my way, this would be the last time I was back in Desert Flower ever.
“Say goodbye to your kids,” my mother’s voice was firm, as sharp as the spatula she had slapped down on the counter earlier.
Candy jerked, walking over to the kids and pressing kisses to their temples, murmuring under her breath. I took a good look at them. I was bad with kid ages, but I knew they were younger than twelve. I knew she hadn’t been pregnant when she’d gotten married eight years ago.
That left them somewhere between seven and zero, and since both of them were walking and talking, I put them between four and seven. They watched their mother with wide eyes, their attention yanked away from the cartoon by the family drama hanging in the room. It was like they’d looked up from the TV and found King Kong was sitting on the couch next to them.
Then Candy strode out the back door, not even looking at me, letting it slam behind her.
My mother’s disapproval was as large as Godzilla, making this entire experience a kaiju movie, and after the Jason Bourne on magical steroids day I’d had, I didn’t have the energy.
So instead, I looked to see what Cassander was making of the whole thing. His eyebrows were up, the pinch of his lips hiding an amused smile.
“I’m glad someone is enjoying this,” I muttered.
“Oh, this has nothing on my own family dinners, but I have to admit the emotions are somewhat familiar. It seems you don’t allow weapons at the dinner table, which I’m sure helps prevent bloodshed.” Cassander tilted his head, examining me. “Although not by much.”
“Yeah, well, in this family, the words are mightier than the sword.” That didn’t sound right, but Candy was the one who had the brain for books, and she wasn’t here to correct me.
“Yes, your sister’s tongue is very cutting.” Cassander pushed some beans around with the tines of his fork, and I narrowed my eyes.
“Hey. She has every reason to be mad at me.” I opened my mouth, but why did I need to explain myself to some stranger? It didn’t matter that he was looking at me like I was the most interesting person he’d ever met.
No, he was looking at me like I was an insect he was interested in dissecting.
“Does she?” Cassander’s question was mild. “I would never know from the amount of exposition you dropped on each other.”
“Yeah, well, Cass, I could really use some exposition of your own.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. The nickname made his eye twitch, but then he narrowed his gaze, clearly onto my game.
“Sadly, my own family drama would far outpace your own, and you’d find out quickly that you were outmatched.” Cassander’s grin spread. “And I would hate to embarrass a man like that in his own childhood home.”
I snorted, ready to press him for more, but my mother cleared her throat in the kitchen.
“So, Cassander, what time does your ride arrive?” My mother’s voice was mild, the question almost bored, as though she was struggling to think of anything to ask. In her entire life, she had never struggled to think of a question, especially not on a stranger, not on someone who she could read like a book.
She had just read the entire situation and knew that Cass and I were strangers, that we didn’t know each other at all, that I hadn’t intended to bring him with me.
Mamá Reyes was smart enough to put together the facts that she knew: her prodigal son had come home with a man he hardly knew, something was wrong because I had no luggage, no car, and clearly no plans, and this stranger was just as good at adapting as she was at reading people.
And that calculus added up to Cassander wearing black, twirling his mustache onstage, ready to give his villain’s monologue.
“All right, mijos, go get your stuff. You’re coming to the shop with me today!” My mother looked between me and Cassander, something shadowed in her eyes. “Damian, will you still be here when we get back?”
I looked at the kids, obediently turning off the TV, gathering their backpacks.
“You’re taking them to the shop?” She’d said as much to Candace, but Candy and I had been locked in our own battle, and I hadn’t thought through what that meant.
My mother arched an eyebrow.
She had a new generation of Reyes kids and was turning them exactly into the con artists Candy and I were raised to be. I shook my head, jerking back and forth.
“You can’t take them to the shop.” My lips felt numb.
“Why not?” The question was so simple and so complicated it almost left me breathless. Why not ? How could she want her grandkids to be taught the same life as me and Candy? They were even younger than Candy and I were when we started, and I couldn’t let her do this again.
“Ma…” I trailed off. “Why doesn’t their dad watch them?”
“Brad is working a case.” My mother tilted her head. “Is there a reason I shouldn’t watch my own grandchildren?”
“I’ll watch them.” I looked at them. An older boy, a younger girl. It couldn’t be that much trouble.
“No.” My mother glanced from me to Cassander and back, and she still saw him twirling his mustache, perhaps even tipping his black cowboy hat in her innocent grandchildren’s direction. “I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’re leaving.”
“We’ll stick around until Candace gets back.” I lifted my chin. “We don’t have any solid plans.”
My mother stared at me, her eyes tracing from my hair down to my hands, clenched on the table. I relaxed them, pressing my palms flat to the wood. She tilted her head down, then turned to the kids.
Crouching in front of them, she said, “This is your uncle Damian. He’s going to watch you for a little bit until I get back. Say, ‘Hello, Uncle Damian.’”
The children turned to me, frowns on their faces comically aggrieved. Dutifully, they greeted me.
“There’s food in the fridge. Their dinner is at five. Candace should be back by then, but if she’s not, at eight o’clock you can put them in the guest room, where there’s a bunk bed.” My mother stood, dusting her knees and then her hands. She walked to the front door, grabbing her purse and waving at the kids one last time.
She shot me a look that warned what the consequences would be if anything happened to her grandchildren. Then she was gone, and I turned back to the kids.
“So, you’re the one who abandoned the family?” the little girl asked.