Chapter 5
five
I stood there and watched Isabel spin on her heels and leave my bedroom, in painted on skinny jeans and a bra that was bursting at the seams. She had done that on purpose. What the hell? Was she fucking trying to torture me? Because it was working. Ripping a pair of shorts out of my dresser, I stepped in to them, shoving my dick out of the way when it got caught on the zipper because it was so hard.
Bullshit. This was all bullshit. How did I get sucked into this and now why did I feel like Isabel was pissed off at me? I stepped into flipflops and went into the kitchen for my gun. I needed a cup of coffee and to get laid. I was wound up, tense, surly. My shower jack off hadn’t taken the edge off of the desire I felt for Isabel and I wanted nothing more than to grab that curvy ass of hers and pump into her, hard.
Keyed up, I ignored Isabel as she came out of the bathroom. I didn’t want to look at her and be both turned on and disgusted with myself. I jammed my gun into my waistband and grabbed my car keys off the countertop. “Are you ready?”
“Yes. Can I have my phone please?”
Right. Her phone. “Who the fuck is that jackhole, Juan Carlos?” I asked, and I sounded like a dick. A huge, rude, jealous dickhead.
Isabel bristled. “Why do you care?”
Good question. “Because we’re trying to figure out what happened to you,” I said shortly. I got her phone out of the junk drawer where I had thrown it. “Here. Don’t delete anything.”
She made a face at me.
“Who is Juan Carlos?” I asked again.
“A guy I’ve gone on a few dates with.”
“Did you tell him you didn’t want to see him anymore?”
“Yes. Yesterday.”
“Why?”
“Because we wanted different things.” She sounded a little flustered, but she didn’t explain any further. “I was kind of vague about it though. I don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“Does he frequently send you dick pics?”
She made a sound of exasperation and bent her head over her phone. “That is none of your business.” She swiped and then started typing.
I waited but she didn’t say anything else. “What are you doing?”
“I’m texting my mother!”
“Oh.” That would be me, feeling like a douchebag. “Let me know when you’re ready.”
She blew her hair out of her eyes and tucked her phone into her pocket. “I’m ready.”
I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary outside, so I just ushered Isabel to my car, putting my hand on the small of her back. She shifted out of my touch and I knew I’d lost points with her after gaining some by helping her through the asthma attack. My confession over seeing her naked hadn’t gone well. I wasn’t sure if she was upset or embarrassed or if she thought I was a pervert or what. I just knew she wasn’t happy and damn, I didn’t like that.
When I opened the door for her and she climbed into my car, I leaned way down so I could see her. “Hey. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you what I did.”
“It’s not a big deal,” she said shortly.
“I don’t believe you,” I told her, scoffing. It was clearly a big deal. I just didn’t know why it was a big deal.
She didn’t say anything, just blinked up at me.
“Okay, then.” I shut the door. I got in the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “Do you want some coffee? I need a cup.” Or twelve.
“No, thanks. It’s kind of hot today for January.”
It was. The temperature was already past eighty and it was only eight in the morning. But unlike a lot of January days, where the breeze cut down the heat index, the air felt still, muggy. “They do iced coffee, too. It’s a thing.”
She made a face. “I don’t like coffee in any form.”
That made her an enigma to me. I rolled my window down, wanting some fresh air, even if it wasn’t fresh. “When was the last time you went to the beach?” I asked her, craving cool waves over my skin. Maybe a hard swim would knock some of the restlessness out of me.
“I don’t know. Maybe last September? Something like that.”
“I was there in October. Why don’t you grab your bathing suit at the house and we can go this afternoon.” Technically, that didn’t fall under the umbrella of proper security techniques, but it wasn’t like I wasn’t going to take my gun, no matter what. But then I thought about leaving it rolled up in my towel and decided that wasn’t such a great idea. I could hear Alejandro telling me to go for it, but I wasn’t as much of a rule breaker as he was. Actually, I wasn’t a rule breaker at all. “Scratch that. It’s a bad idea until we know what’s going on.” My number one priority had to be keeping her safe, not cooling down in the ocean.
“I don’t understand why anyone would want to intentionally hurt me,” Isabel said. “I am not the type of person who makes enemies.”
“This isn’t about you,” I said, as I fished my sunglasses out of the glove box. “This is about my dad. You have to know he does shit that is not legal.”
She frowned. “I didn’t know that. What do you mean?”
She couldn’t be serious. “Mickey firmly believes in the motto of the Beach. If you’re not indicted, you’re not invited. His whole social circle is criminal. You can’t call it mob, but they’re all trying to get away with what they can in the pursuit of big money. This town was built on that principle.”
“Does my mom know that?” She sounded aghast.
I suppose I couldn’t blame her but at the same time I was floored by her innocence and naiveté. Was there ever a time when I was that freaking unaware of how people were always out to get what they could? If there was, I didn’t remember it. Actually, that wasn’t true. I had a memory of being four and my parents were throwing a big party, right after we moved into the house in Coral Gables. My father thought it made him made him look respectable, that somehow he and his former stripper wife were shaking the glitter of South Beach off of them and living the American dream. I had a babysitter, but she had been just as eager as me to crash the party, and I had been young enough to assume that my parents were good people, who were well liked. But by the end of that party, I knew that my mother was letting a man who I had never seen before suck on her bare breasts. And that a lot of adults did drugs, got into physical fights, and gave a shit about no one but themselves.
My parents weren’t exempted from any of that, my father doing a line of coke off the fireplace mantle, and it was like discovering Santa isn’t real. It shattered my perception of my world, of the people entrusted with teaching me morality. I didn’t understand it then, couldn’t articulate it at four years old, but it was the day I found my own moral compass.
Apparently Isabel had her own moral compass as well. “I’m pretty sure your mother knows Mickey likes to dabble in shady business dealings.” Like my mother, Kim was a former stripper. Though obviously that didn’t make her a bad person, I just meant that she had seen a thing or two in her time, and wasn’t naive. I liked Kim a lot because she was strong but sweet. I knew that after she retired from dancing, she had worked high-end retail sales to support herself and Isabel. I also knew that she was more than happy to never have to work again, and who the fuck could blame her for that?
A year with Mickey had given her a healthy nest egg and a house.
The house I’d grown up in. Which pissed me off, I could admit it. That house should be mine. Not because I wanted it, but because it was my right. My due. At the very least Mickey should have asked me how I felt about him giving it to Kim, and offered it to me first. But no, he’d seen that house as a convenient way to hide some money, not as a sentimental place where he had raised his only child.
Yep. An asshole.
Who still got under my skin.
“What makes you think she knows?”
“She knows where the money is kept. My father had to trust her enough to marry her. He would have given her access to some of the secrets. Not all of them. But some of them, some of the money.”
“What money?”
I didn’t feel like explaining everything to her. I found a parking spot in front of Starbucks. I swung into it, ignoring the car honking behind me when I paused to parallel park. “The money.”
“That clears it right up.” She sounded petulant.
I started to get out of the car, but she sat there like she wasn’t planning to get out of the car. “You have to come with me,” I told her.
“I don’t feel like it.”
“And I don’t care how you feel.” I slammed my door shut and stomped around to hers. I was tired and hungry and I needed caffeine. I was pissed at my father and I was worried about Isabel’s safety and her health. She still didn’t seem right in the head after the incident and I was afraid that somehow someone would get the jump on me and kill her. It was really damn annoying that I had no clue what any of this was about. I yanked her door open. “Get out.”
Her eyes widened and her bottom lip trembled. Tears rose in her eyes. “Fine. God.”
Fuck, she was tearing up like she was going to legitimately cry. Fuck, fuck, and fuck. “Don’t cry.” But it didn’t sound kind or reassuring. It sounded bossy and dickheaded.
“I’m not!” She got out of the car, and shoved past me to the sidewalk. She stood there, waiting, her arms over her chest.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and it didn’t sound brimming with sincerity, even though I meant it. I was just never good at conveying emotions.
She was silent, just going into the coffeeshop when I held the door open for her. She didn’t acknowledge me at all while we waited in line, but after I ordered my coffee, and the cashier addressed her in Spanish, she answered in kind and they ended up having a five minute conversation I didn’t understand, though I was pretty sure it was about me, given that the older woman behind the counter kept pointing to me and laughing. One day I was going to learn Spanish for real, instead of the few phrases that I had mastered. It had taken me forever during my teen years to figure out that the little old ladies in the grocery store weren’t asking me to move out of the way, but were asking me to get things down off of top shelves. I was mortified when at eighteen a friend told me when we were in the store what a woman was saying. I realized I had spent at least three years shifting away when women spoke to me, which was the exact opposite of what they had wanted.
“Do you know her?” I asked Isabel after I paid and we moved down to the pickup area.
“No.”
“Then what were you talking about?”
“She said that maybe coffee would take away the sour look on my boyfriend’s face. I told her you’re not my boyfriend, but my stepbrother, and she said then I don’t have to put up with you and I should find a nice Cuban boy who isn’t the size of a giant.”
Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. “I’m not your stepbrother.”
Isabel snorted. “No, I suppose you’re not. We’re actually nothing to each other.”
That made me feel bad. “I didn’t say that. We’ve just never had a chance to get to know each other or anything.”
She gave me a long, searching stare that made me uncomfortable. “It really doesn’t matter, I suppose.”
That answer made me even more tense. I picked up my cup and took a sip. “It matters,” I said, shortly.
But she just shrugged.
Fortunately there was no traffic, because it was a quiet car ride. Isabel stared out the window as we drove over the causeway and rather than looking over at her every three seconds like I really wanted to do, I forced myself to concentrate on the highway stretch in front of me.
When we got to the Gables and to my former house, I felt a wave of nostalgia, which was ridiculous. So it was the house I’d grown up in. It wasn’t like it was jam packed with great memories and wonderful dinners and holiday family gatherings. After my mother left, my father let it go to shit on the inside, though he did pay to maintain the exterior. But the inside was still the same dated sixties remodel that had slapped midcentury modern on top of 1920s Spanish architecture. It was a bad combo, but Mickey had stopped caring. Mostly I had been alone in the house growing up and it had been a hell of a party pad in high school, because there was nothing to ruin. It was a dusty relic with lots of square footage.
Out of respect for Isabel, I had her let us in the house with her key, even though I had a key too still. Mickey had never changed the locks. But she did look up at me apologetically.
“This must be strange for you,” she said. “My mom said this is the house you grew up in.”
It was my time to shrug. “It’s just a house.” Not a fucking symbol of my whole shitty childhood. Because that would be dramatic and stupid. “Your mom has done a nice job with it,” I said as we went inside, because she had. It was clean, for one thing. “I stayed here when Kim and Mickey were in Europe and you were visiting your dad.”
“My mom loves to decorate.” Isabel went into the living room and stopped at the bottom of the tile stairs that went to the bedrooms. “Why do I suddenly feel nervous to be in my own house?”
Because she’d been assaulted in it. Or because it felt odd to have me in it. One or the other. “You were at the bottom of these steps knocked out cold, so that might have something to do with it.”
“Did it occur to anyone I just fell down the stairs? I’m not exactly grace personified. I take after my father, not my mother.”
She went up the stairs and I followed her, because that was my job. “I seriously doubt you tripped all on your own and fell down six stairs and landed in just the right position to knock yourself unconscious. Give yourself a twisted ankle or a bruise on your ass, sure. But not knock yourself out.”
“You don’t know how klutzy I am. I fell off the stage at my ballet recital when I was seven. That was the end of my mom’s dreams of me being a professional dancer.”
“Your mom wanted you to be a stripper?” Unbidden, images of Isabel naked, those luscious thighs wrapped around a pole, popped into my head. It immediately morphed into her giving me a private lap dance and I hated myself for mentally going there, but I couldn’t stop myself. I had seen things I couldn’t unsee and it was messing with my head.
“No!” She glared at me over her shoulder. “She didn’t want men ogling me. She wanted me to be a ballerina. Though I have to say, there are times I envy my mother for having been so confident that she was able to take her talent for dance and make money from it. I’ve seen video footage and she was good at it- her style was more burlesque than shock value. I could never been virtually naked in front of strangers. I’m too self-conscious. Not to mention, I have my dad’s looks, not hers. She has always been beautiful.”
I pried my eyes away from her ass, hovering in front of me as she took the stairs, and tried to process what she was saying. Self-conscious? The night before she had been anything but self-conscious. In fact, she had seemed to crave nudity. Or Julia had anyway. Was her personality really that split? Was Isabel repressed but deep down inside her she had a wild woman raring to go? It seemed a little nuts. A lot nuts.
If I were a nice guy, I wouldn’t call her out on it. I respected women and normally I did consider myself a decent human being with moral boundaries. But the fact that she could say any of that with a straight face after I had told her she kept taking her clothes off, and after yanking her T-shirt off in front of me an hour earlier, was ridiculous.
“I have seen every inch of you naked,” I told her. “Without any hesitation on your part. So maybe you don’t give yourself enough credit. Maybe inside you there lurks a secret stripper.”
In the doorway of a bedroom- my old bedroom- she whirled around. “I highly doubt it. I wasn’t in control of my actions.”
I raised my eyebrows and gave her a smirk. “You looked pretty damn in control to me. Especially when you bent over my kitchen counter and gave my beer bottle a rim job.”
Her cheeks bloomed pink. “I did not!”
“The hell you didn’t.” Then because I was feeling moody and selfish and horny as hell, I added, “You have a very talented tongue. And a cute little birthmark on your thigh.”
She hunched her shoulders forward and crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t make fun of me. Please.”
That surprised me. “I’m not making fun of you. I’m just trying to figure out who you are, Isabel. You seemed shy and quiet the few times I’ve met you, but last night you were anything but.”
“I had a head injury.”
“I don’t think a head injury makes someone want to be sexy.” I glanced down at her full lips, wondering what they would taste like. “I think you should let Julia out to play more often. Maybe merge the two of you together. And for the record, you’re just as beautiful as your mother.”
I expected further blushing and demurring. But she just met my stare, nostrils flaring. “You just told me to keep my clothes on back at your apartment. Which is it? Do you want sexy Julia or shy Isabel?”
The truth was, I wanted both. I wanted a merger, just like I’d suggested. I wanted Julia to stroll around my apartment naked and do amazing things with her mouth, and I wanted sweet Isabel to show concern for me, have a conversation with me. It was the perfect combination if I were looking for a girlfriend, which I wasn’t.
I didn’t know how to do a real relationship and if I attempted it, I was going to fuck it up, and I could never do that to Isabel. She deserved a good dude, some college guy, who had a future that didn’t involve guns and bullshit and questionable money shifting. She deserved a guy who didn’t look like a Russian thug in a Rocky movie, and who was a good hugger. Because she basically walked around looking like she needed a hug.
That wasn’t me. So no matter what my dick was saying, I had to make my stance clear. “I don’t want either one. That’s not my point.”
It sounded harsher than I meant it to, and her face made that clear.
Her mouth dropped open.
I wanted to apologize, but I stopped myself. If I did, I would end up awkward hugging her, and then because I felt awkward and because she was so short and cute and sexy I would kiss her. Then suddenly I’d have her on the bed and I would take her, all of her, then I would bolt post-sex and be cold and remote and she would be hurt.
So I kept my fucking mouth shut.
Hurt her a little now or a lot later. I’d stick with hurt her a little.
I stared up at Ryan, my neck cramping. In my fantasies about Ryan I seemed to have shrunk him down in size a little. He was huge. I’d also made him a little less of a prick. He was blunt. And maybe I overly sensitive, but he didn’t seem to think much about my feelings.
“If you don’t want me, either one of me, then mind your own business.” It didn’t sound sassy, like I intended. My voice just sounded shaky and hurt. So I turned and continued into my room. I wished Ryan would just wait downstairs for me and not stand there in the doorway, watching. Judging.
There was no telling what was going on in his head, because his face was a stoic mask. I had only seen him break that expression once when I thought I had perceived lust in his eyes, but now I wasn’t even sure. I had probably just imagined it because that’s what I wanted.
“It’s my business because it’s my job and because my father cares about your mother.”
That was the sound of all my delusions shattering. “How long am I going to be stuck staying at your place?” I asked, flustered. I went for an overnight bag from my closet. I hoped it was not going to be longer than a night because I was really uncomfortable with the entire situation.
“A couple of days.”
That wasn’t so bad. I could survive that. Part of me wanted to just call my mom and put a stop to the whole damn thing, but then a second part of me wanted to be around Ryan. I couldn’t help it. That wasn’t even the drunk Julia side of me. It was my true self, the one who had noticed that Ryan was loyal, hard working. The one who wanted to climb him like a tree and find out for myself what it was like to have a man deep inside me.
In other words, the daydreamer who spent far too much time analyzing statistics at school, and not enough time talking to guys.
Also, I couldn’t lie. I was the girl who couldn’t watch horror movie or crime TV and I didn’t read suspense novels. I freaked myself out too much and wound up sleeping with the lights on. The thought that I could be in danger, crazy as it may seem, was terrifying when I allowed myself to think about it.
“Do you need help?”
“No.”
“This used to be my room,” Ryan said.
I knew it was his room. That’s why I had chosen it. It had made me feel like I knew him in some way. That we shared a secret. My bedroom wasn’t particularly representative of me. I’d left the blue paint intact and hadn’t removed his belongings from the bookcase and walls. He had walked out after high school and left everything behind and I had just moved in around it, adding my own artwork and personal photos to the walls next to his sports posters and bikini models.
“I know.” I pulled my drawer open and grabbed a couple of tank tops.
Ryan fingered a baseball trophy on the bookcase. “You could have packed all this stuff up and tossed it or given it to my dad.”
That made me stop what I was doing and forget all my embarrassment. “Why would I throw out your stuff?” I asked, astonished. “These are your memories.”
Ryan pursed his lips and flicked the signed photo of a former Miami Dolphins quarterback. Dan Marino. The quarterback with the perm. I had to admit, I wouldn’t mind taking that down.
“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “Because this is your room now, not mine?”
“If it bothered me, I would have picked a different room. I don’t like blank walls. I like clutter. History.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re a sweet girl, do you know that? I suspect that you are sometimes underappreciated by people.”
That made me flustered. “I don’t know about that.” Unable to look at him, I just went back to my drawer, pulling out some panties and some yoga pants.
“Did I leave condoms in that dresser?” he asked.
Yes, he had. They were still there. “I found some and threw them away. They were expired.” I wasn’t sure why I lied. I just didn’t want him to think I was weird. Because I was feeling pretty weird.
But I was also a terrible liar, as bad as Ryan was. The two of us could never go Bonnie and Clyde, clearly. Ryan came over and moved in beside me. His presence was overwhelming as usual and I started to shift away but he put his hand on my waist and lightly restrained me. It only took him a second of fishing around in the drawer to find a row of condoms, which he held up.
“I can’t figure you out,” he said.
“You don’t have to.” I smiled at him. A tight-lipped repressed virgin smile, which was what I was. It seemed fitting.
“Why didn’t you just toss these or use them?”
“Because I don’t need them.”
“You can still get an STD even on the pill.”
“Oh, my God, why are we having this conversation?” I asked, mortified. “You’re not my father. Don’t worry about it.” My father had never even had this conversation with me. He had reserved that privilege for my mother, which had been a hell of a relief.
“But tell me you use condoms.” He was frowning at me. Hell, he was glaring. “Seriously. I just want to hear you tell me you’re being safe.”
“You really sound patronizing.” And I hated the way he was talking to me like I was thirteen and an idiot.
“Men lie, Isabel. Guys use girls.”
Exasperated, I figured the best way to end this conversation was to tell him the truth. “I’m a virgin, Ryan. I don’t need condoms.”
For a heartbeat, there was no reaction. His jaw worked, like he was seeking words, but couldn’t settle on any. His brows furrowed. Finally, he said, “What do you mean?”
That actually made me laugh. “What do you think it means? It means I haven’t had intercourse. Hashtag no penis inside of me.”
“But… you’re twenty-one years old.”
Suddenly I felt on more even footing. His astonishment was amusing. I didn’t go around telling people I was a virgin, but those who knew usually reacted pretty similarly, but they hid it better. Ryan looked like he’d taken a two by four to the face.
“I know how old I am.”
“And you’re beautiful.”
That gave me pause. “Thank you,” I said, touched. There was sincerity in his voice. I wasn’t beautiful. I never had been. My face was too round, my features just a little disproportionate. Like I’d told him, I had more of my father in me than my mother, and while my dad was a decent man, classically beautiful he was not. It worked on a man. On me? Not so much. I wasn’t ugly, just… unusual. “But you don’t have to be ugly to be a virgin.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I just don’t get it. But it’s not any of my business.”
“It’s not,” I said. Yet I felt like I needed to explain. I wanted to explain because Ryan factored into my thoughts and feelings and life over the last eighteen months. He didn’t know that and maybe I needed to let him know that, just a little. “But the truth is, I just never met the right guy. I didn’t date in high school. In college there have been a few guys but no one that I wanted to be that… intimate with. Maybe that doesn’t make sense to you, but it does to me.”
None of the guys I had dated had made me feel like Ryan did, and I knew that was ridiculous, but there it was. “It’s not a big deal. I’m not some sort of freak show.”
I also knew that was something of a lie. My lack of confidence in my attractiveness was half the reason I hadn’t had sex. I didn’t believe in my ability to please a guy, or to be uninhibited enough to enjoy it. The irony being that Ryan had said I had walked around the night before naked. Where was my inner-Julia when I had been dating Ben and had been scared to take my clothes off?
He ran his hand over his face. “Fuck, I feel like such a dirtbag.”
That startled me. “Why?”
“Because for the last eighteen hours all I’ve been thinking about is screwing you to within an inch of your life. I told myself there was no fucking way I could touch you. Now I know there isn’t.”
My nipples hardened. My inner thighs grew damp. Now it was my turn to be at a loss for words. He had wanted to have sex with me? That was the most awesome and amazing and unbelievable thing I’d ever heard in my whole life. Yet he was restraining himself? What nonsense was that? “Are you sure you can’t?” I asked.
Because what he didn’t know was that what I was really waiting for was him.
And I wasn’t saving myself for marriage. Just for the right moment.
Maybe that moment was sooner than I’d thought. Saliva was thick in my mouth. With him I could get over my fears. With him the appeal was too great to let my insecurities hold me back. When you had a crush this deep and intense and irrational it could get you over the hump. The thought made me smile and he stood there frowning at me.
“What do you think?” he asked. “Of course I’m sure that I absolutely cannot touch you.”
“I’m not.” Then while I was trying to work up the nerve to say something or do something to entice him, he swore and chucked the condoms into the wastebasket next to the dresser.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice tight, eyes intense.
“I mean that I want you to.”
He reached out, like he was going to draw me to him, and I leaned forward, aching with the need to have Ryan’s hand on me. But he stopped himself.
“Isabel. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
That made me bristle. I was tired of being treated like a child. No one seemed to have noticed that I had grown up, you know, like four years ago. Being sexually inexperienced didn’t make me an infant. “I may be a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. I know what I’m saying.”
“What are you saying?”
So he wanted me to spell it out. Fine. I never thought I would have the chance. I wasn’t going to let it pass me by. I might never get another opportunity to tell him how I felt and what I wanted.
“I want to have sex with you. I have for at least a year.”
“I thought you said you weren’t stupid,” Ryan said, looking frustrated.
I lifted my chin. The words were out there, and I couldn’t take them back, so I had to follow through. “I have a four point oh grade point average.”
For a long, agonizing moment, he didn’t say anything at all.
But then Ryan said, “Fuck it.” He put his hand around my waist. “Come here, you sexy little brainiac.”