14. “Walking On Sunshine” #2
Javi’s body jerked when I made it to him and put my hand on his back, and I knew then how mad he was, because no way did anyone approach Javier Montoya and take him by surprise.
His head tipped down to look at me.
“I’m intruding,” the man muttered.
I turned my attention to Javi’s dad.
“Yes,” I replied. “You are.”
“I’m his father,” the man told me.
“I got that,” I returned. “I also read loud and clear Javi doesn’t wish to speak to you.”
“We have things—” Javi’s father began.
I didn’t let him get further.
“If Javi wishes to discuss them with you, I sense he knows how to get hold of you, and he’ll do that. Right now, this isn’t happening.”
This dude was not getting it, I knew, when he asserted, “A man should have his father.”
“A boy should too,” I retorted, muscling in front of Javi and pushing him back with my body (or trying to, he didn’t budge much).
“But Javi didn’t. And now I see you’ve realized the error of your ways, considering he’s grown up to be all he’s become, without your help.
But it isn’t on Javi to make you feel better about it.
If he makes that decision, he’ll contact you.
Until then, you wait. And if he never calls, you deal. ”
With that, I put all my weight into pushing Javi back and I slammed the door in his dad’s face.
I then locked it.
“The pizza guy was standing behind him,” Javi said.
Dang!
Okay, my (kinda?) man was hungry so I needed to feed him, but his father might still be out there.
I had to deal with this, so I pointed across the room.
“Go. Over there,” I ordered.
“Babe—”
“Go!” I snapped.
He pressed his lips together, though I didn’t miss his eyes lit with humor, and he went to stand where whoever was at the door couldn’t see him.
I braced to go up against his father again and opened the door to the pizza guy.
Fortunately, Javi’s father was gone.
“Just a sec, I don’t have any tip money on me,” I told him.
“I was tipped on the app,” he replied, handing me a massive pizza box that weighed a ton, because the pizza in it had to be huge, and there was a big bag on top filled with other stuff.
“Thanks,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” he replied then hurried down the walk to his car at the curb, probably so he could pick up another order and bust his hump for a five-dollar tip in order to be able to afford a box of Cap’n Crunch.
Alternatively, maybe it was because he watched that scene and wanted to get out of there.
Javi took the box from me.
I closed the door, locked it and trailed him to the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure what to do in this situation because what I just witnessed wasn’t mine to have unless he gave it to me, even if I’d witnessed it.
So I stood opposite the island as Javi poured my wine (he didn’t have wineglasses), popped open a beer then threw open the box to the pizza, a Styrofoam container filled with mozzarella sticks, another one with boneless wings, the last one had two slices of chocolate cake, and we could not forget the plethora of containers of ranch dressing and marinara sauce.
He pulled down some plates, put one in front of me, one in front of him, and then he looked right at me.
“There were times when I was so fucking hungry, it felt like I had rats living in my gut, gnawing at it.”
Across the embarrassment of food in front of us, my body swayed from this unexpected blow.
“If we had food, if she was with it, Ma and me would fight about who would eat it. She wanted me to. I wanted her to. But it was never enough for the both of us.”
“Javi,” I whispered.
“More than once, I nearly caved and gave a guy a blowjob so I’d have the money to get us something to eat.”
Such was the weight of this, I closed my eyes and dropped my head.
“I didn’t, only because if Ma ever knew, it’d kill her,” he shared.
I didn’t know what to say.
“That’s who I am, Harlow.”
I opened my eyes and lifted my head.
“And you…” He didn’t finish that.
“Me, what?” I prompted softly.
Javi sidestepped by jabbing a finger at the door and saying, “That guy’s a fuckin’ millionaire. And he thinks he can show up when I got a life, a crew, a home, Ma’s safe, and play dad?”
“You get to decide that, sweetheart,” I pointed out.
His head jerked at the endearment, and my heart spasmed because he seemed in pain.
“You went to school with my two little sisters.”
Annnnnnnnnnnd…
There it was.
I didn’t know about his sisters, but Javi had a good deal of pent up (and justified) hostility about the life he was forced to lead versus what his siblings had.
And maybe some of that leaked out on me.
I continued to talk softly when I asked, “What are their names?”
“Julia and Catherine Atherton.”
Julia and Cath were both younger than me. We weren’t friends, but I knew them, and they were sweet.
I didn’t tell Javi that, and not only because he was still speaking.
“His wife left him seeing as he cheated on her when she was in the third trimester of her pregnancy with my older brother. Real catch, that fuckin’ guy.”
He was.
Not .
Javi kept going.
“But she took him back and they kept on building their family. By the way, that bitch didn’t encourage her husband to look after his by-blow kid either.”
I kinda remembered Julia and Cath’s mom thinking her poo smelled of roses. I also kinda remembered it was weird they were so sweet when their mom waltzed around like someone should be rolling a red carpet out for every step.
Though, I’d never seen his/their dad.
“They’ve finally divorced,” Javi shared. “So it’s no surprise, now that she doesn’t have his balls in a vise and she’s not holding his infidelity over him to get her way, he’s blowing up my phone and ambushing me on my doorstep.”
“I hate he’s putting you through this, Javi.”
“I hate it too.”
“Um…how’s your mom now?” I asked hesitantly.
There was no hesitancy in his answer.
“Medicated. Void. Not there. She lives in her head, Harlow. Eventually, it took over. She was manic. She had hallucinations. She’d harm herself.
The ma I’d sometimes have when I was a kid was all gone.
The best they can do for her is fill her with pills and keep her peaceful.
Honest to fuck, I don’t know, when she wakes up, if she even understands she lived the day before. ”
Good God, that was so awful.
And seriously, I couldn’t hack this, not having to do it so far away.
“Can I come to you?” I requested.
“Do you wanna?” he asked like a dare.
His question had my head jerking.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Babe, I considered whoring myself so my ma could eat.”
“I—”
“There were weeks, sometimes months, I didn’t take a fuckin’ shower.”
“Javi—”
“Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night, freaked because I was sleeping too soundly, and I was pissed at myself because, you go that deep, you take the chance of not waking up in the morning.”
“Because it’s cold in the winter?” I queried.
“No. Because someone else off their head doesn’t mind sticking you full of holes so he can have your blanket.”
God.
Javi.
“That stuff you said to me, the other night, was it about your sisters?” I guessed.
He jerked up his chin. “Yeah. Some of it. Most of it was me trying to make sure you kept well clear of me. That didn’t fuckin’ work. The minute I saw I hurt you, I couldn’t stand it.”
God.
Javi .
I totally couldn’t hack this, not all the way across the island.
“Please let me come to you,” I whispered.
“I’m not that boy anymore,” he said.
“I know you aren’t, honey,” I replied.
“But he’s always in me.”
“Okay.”
His gaze grew intent on me, so much so, I felt like I’d suddenly been engulfed in an inferno.
“I want you so fucking much,” he growled.
I went solid.
“Not because you’re that pretty rich girl who wouldn’t ever look at me because I’ve got about two years of schooling and not much else,” he declared. “Because when you walk, your ponytail flips side to side.”
“Wh-what?” I stammered, taken back by what he said, which not even in my wildest imaginings was something I ever thought he’d say.
“You’re just like”—he threw his hand up in front of him to indicate me—“walking sunshine. My life was dark, Harlow, in a way you will never get. And you’re sunshine.”
Dang, dang, dang .
The tears hit and there was no hope for it.
I started crying.
A muscle in his jaw worked watching me do it, even as he said, “I struggled, being so fuckin’ into you. I can’t bring dark into your life.”
I huffed out a humorless laugh and, still crying, said, “Obviously, I didn’t have it as bad as you. Nowhere near. But it wasn’t always strawberries and cream at the O’Neill residence.” He opened his mouth, but I said, “What I’m telling you, Javi, is that I’m not scared of the dark.”
“So why’d you put me off?”
God, I was such a dork.
And I’d totally messed this up.
I should have known he’d need at least a sign.
“I didn’t. You didn’t go for it,” I said lamely, dashing at my tears.
“Man like me, Harlow, woman like you, it has to be you.”
I saw that.
He was still wrong, of a sort.
“I wanted you to pursue me.”
Yep.
Again lame.
“I’m kind of… traditional …in some ways,” I admitted. “Like, I can open my own doors, but I really like it when you open them for me. Also like, if a guy likes me, he’s the one who needs to ask me out.”
He rested his weight into his hands spread wide at the edge of the island, muttering, “Shit.”
“It’s not something I could tell you, but maybe I could have given you a hint,” I said morosely, and finished, “Though, I don’t know how I’d do that, at the same time I thought you knew.”
“C’mere, Lolita,” he called.
With no hesitation, I rounded the island and went there.
He curved one arm around my waist and tucked one hand around the side of my neck.
“It sounds fucked, but I thought I was doing right by you, spewing that shit I said,” he told me.
I didn’t have to confirm he did not at all do right by me, he already knew it.
“The thing is, this is happening,” he carried on.
Oh yes, it was.
I nodded avidly.
His eyes warmed, but he warned, “And you’re gonna meet my mom.”
“I’m not judgy,” I stated immediately. “There are all kinds of health issues, including mental ones. I get that. And you shared how she is now, so I won’t be surprised.”
“And I’m gonna meet your mom.”
I shut my mouth with a clack.
“Yeah,” he whispered, his eyes dropping to my lips.
Visions of my mother being judgy (and she totally would be, so would Easton) about Javi danced malevolently in my head.
Worse, visions of my mother being judgy about me (and she totally would be, again, so would Easton), and how Javi would react to that scared the absolute dickens out of me.
“So that’s the heavy,” Javi bottom lined it.
“You’re not going to like my mom, Javi,” I warned.
“I’m already sensing that.”
“But I’m not that pretty rich girl.”
“Wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“Babe, you are.”
“I—”
He curled his whole big hand over my mouth.
“You’re that pretty rich girl,” he stated. “You just are. You can’t escape it. But you’re also the girl who gets excited about a fifteen-dollar glass mushroom like I gave her a Tiffany’s diamond.”
I nodded enthusiastically to confirm this, taking his hand with me.
He smiled and took his hand away.
“I’m not like them,” I shared.
“I knew that before I shot my mouth off, babe, I was just searching for shit to set you against me. Definitely knew it after giving you that mushroom.”
I would treasure that mushroom until my dying day.
“Our pizza is getting cold,” I informed him.
“You gonna sleep beside me in my bed without giving me any lip?” he asked, and a surprised giggle erupted out of me.
“Are you going to use your tragic growing up years to get things you want out of me?” I teased.
He pulled me closer and dipped his face to mine. “Every chance I get.”
Another giggle slipped out of me.
“Has to be worth something,” he said through a grin.
He’d gutted me, totally and absolutely, with the little he gave me of his life story.
But since he was grinning, I was going to go with it.
“Totally,” I agreed.
His grin faded. “So, you gonna sleep beside me?”
I took in a breath before I gave in and nodded again.
“Good, baby,” he murmured, warmth and relief and a smidge of smug victory (I’d give him that last because of the first two) glowing in his golden eyes.
He dipped even further, pressed a hard kiss on my mouth, lifted nary an inch, and said, “Now, let’s eat.”
I pushed up, negating that nary an inch, and pressed my own hard kiss to his lips.
And then we ate.