Chapter Three #2
I registered his nod in my peripheral vision. “Yes. I have second job also, but tonight and Saturday, I have to work in the club.”
“What’s your other job?”
“Mi tia y tio have store in downtown…Olvera Street. They sell things from Mexico and other place,” he replied.
“I work for them on weekend. Mi mamá, she work there too, but store closed today for them to do—” He paused as if searching for the English word before finally seeming to give up.
“They do, um…inventario, so she home today.” He glanced at me. “You know inventario?”
“Inventory?”
“Si. Inventory.” He repeated the word slowly. “She work very hard and need the time off.”
I smiled to myself. “It’s easy to tell how much she loves you. It’s real nice.”
“She’s great and we lucky to have such great familia. The house we live belong to Tio Francisco and Tia Carlotta. They buy when they come to the States. When we make decision to come here, they tell us we can move in. They give us jobs and make us feel at home.”
“That’s great.” I badly wished my family had been as loving toward me as Cachi’s was to him.
My mama still wrote me the occasional letter, but they didn’t come regular.
I never heard from my daddy who’d wanted me to stay in Texas and work on the family farm rather than join the military.
He’d never forgiven me for leaving, so we spoke very infrequently.
The army had given me purpose but not until hooking up with my team in Afghanistan over a decade ago, had I felt like I had brothers.
Captain Sorensen and the guys on my team were more like family to me than my own blood kin.
“You?” he asked. “You have family?”
I swallowed hard. Getting in my head about family was a bad thing to do and it generally took me to a dark place. “Back in Houston, yeah. That’s where I was born and raised.”
“I hear Texas in your accent.”
I chuckled. “And I hear Puerto Rico in yours.” I glanced over when he didn’t say anything as he turned big, brown eyes up to me. In the daylight, I could see bright gold flecks in them. “You know I’m not makin’ fun of you, right, sugar? I love your accent. Sounds like music when you speak to me.”
He smiled sweetly, making it hard to drag my eyes back to the road. “Thank you. Muy bien. That’s really nice, Rex.”
“You know, I think you’re probably the prettiest man I’ve ever seen. I’m just upset I have to keep my eyes on the road, because I’d sure like to look into them pretty eyes of yours when I talk to you.”
“You know, you a nice man, even if you are cop.”
I chuckled. “Gee, thanks, and by the way, I ain’t a cop. I’m FBI, remember?”
“Si, I remember now. You are nice, FBI man.”
I laughed out loud that time. “Are you pullin’ my leg?”
He snorted and I glanced over. He was staring at my leg, shaking his head as he held out a hand, waving it at my leg. “No. I no pull your leg, Rex. I sit here and wait for you to drive me to police station so I can give them report.”
“Give them a report,” I corrected.
“Is same!” He glared at me, and I realized I’d been rude. He spoke two languages while some might argue that a Texan barely spoke one. “Give the police a report…but I no pull your leg.” He waggled his finger at me, telling me off.
I chuckled, feeling utterly charmed by this delightful creature. “Pullin’ your leg means—” I had to think about it. “It means, uh, I wasn’t bein’ serious when I said that.”
“So, why you say it? I mean, I say you are nice FBI man, and you say you pullin’ my leg.”
I grinned. “It’s an idiom…an American sayin’ like…I don’t know…like don’t piss on me and tell me it’s rainin’.”
He scoffed. “I no understand this English of yours.”
I burst out laughing. “It’s not my English.
It’s everyone’s English.” When he didn’t say anything, I set my hand on his thigh, squeezing through his jeans before remembering his age and quickly letting go.
“Listen. I adore the way you speak English. But there’s more to our language than just what you learn in books.
We say a lot of things that mean somethin’ else. ”
“So…the FBI lies? That’s what you say?”
I burst out laughing. “We try not to, but it don’t mean all FBI guys tell the truth. What I meant was, Americans say things that mean somethin’ else sometimes. It’s…ah…what you call an idiom.”
“Un minuto.”
I glanced over as Cachi pulled out his phone and typed for a few seconds. An electronic voice suddenly said. “Idiom…modismo…idiom.”
“Ah! Entiendo. This is not a lie. This is…modismo…idiot.”
I burst out laughing again. “Idiom…idiom!” I said, gasping. “Idiot means someone who has their head up their ass.”
“Idiom,” he repeated slowly. “Si. Entiendo. I understand. Don’t be an idiom or Rex, the nice FBI man, he punch you in your big, fat nose.”
I was still laughing as we drove into the Hollywood police precinct’s parking lot.
An hour later, after giving my statement, I was sitting in a hard-backed chair in the lobby scrolling through my phone when Cachi came over. I immediately pocketed my phone and stood. “Are you all done?”
He nodded. “I finish, yes. You too? Now you take me to my car?”
I shook my head. “First we gotta go pick up Lola and then I’ll drop you off at your car if you want?”
He shrugged looking suddenly uneasy. “Okay, Rex.”
I smiled at him, sorely tempted to throw my arm around his shoulders as we headed for the double glass doors that led to the parking lot.
As soon as we walked out, I noticed how hot the day had gotten.
It was only May, but summer had come early this year, starting way back in March when we’d had a week of temperatures in the mid-nineties.
The hospital was just around the block, and I hoped the car had time to cool off before I picked my girl up. As soon as we got to the car, I rolled the back windows down as Cachi climbed into the passenger seat. I bent over to look at him as he fastened his seatbelt.
“Please roll your window down. It’s gonna be hot in the car for my girl otherwise.”
Cachi instantly nodded. “Okay, Rex.”
I smiled. “Thanks, sugar.” I jogged around to my side, excited to be picking up my little Lola.
I slipped behind the wheel, and started the car with a roar, before turning on the air conditioner.
It chugged to life and I reminded myself that it would need replacing soon.
Keeping up with maintenance on the fifty-year-old car was a constant battle but one I was determined to win.
I loved the old girl, even if she was ugly as hell and the guys constantly poked fun at me about her.
As I drove toward the animal hospital to pick up my baby, I turned to Cachi. “How’d it go?”
“Good. I tell them what they did and how you help me, Rex,” he said quietly. “I tell them you are hero.”
I swallowed hard before looking over. “I’m no hero, Cachi. I did what I’m trained to do, stoppin’ a few drunks from bein’ assholes, that’s all.”
“We both know they kill me if they catch me, Rex.”
“I don’t think they would’ve been that stupid, but I’m glad I walked out of the bar when I did.” In my peripheral vision I saw him nod.
“Si.”
I reached over to take his hand and then drew it back quickly, hoping he hadn’t seen. Touching him was a very bad idea since I knew it would eventually lead to other things. I had to constantly remind myself that he was much too young for me.
“Lola. What test she have?”
“Huh?” I was thrown for a minute by the abrupt change in topic. “Oh, she’s been feelin’ lousy for a while now, so I brought her into the doc’s office. He gave her some tests but the medicine they gave her to relax, made her sick.”
“What is lousy?” he asked.
“I mean she hasn’t been eatin’ right, and she’s had some problems with her belly…you know, a tummy ache.”
“Oh. What did the doctor say?”
“He told me that everything looks normal. He says he’s not sure but he thinks maybe the food I give her makes her sick. He suggested a different one.”
When Cachi said nothing, I glanced over at him. His brow was furrowed as if he was trying hard to parse what I’d said. “What you mean, he suggest different food? What kind of food you give her?”
I was about a block from the vet hospital, so I pulled into the right lane, preparing to turn into the lot. “I give her food with mostly meat. A lot of food is made with grain and that’s not good for her.”
“I think grain is healthy.”
I thinned my lips, trying not to smile. I wanted to say grain—when used as fillers in cheap dog food—was the farthest thing from healthy for man’s best friend, but I bit my tongue.
“Well, some people can’t eat grain, even little people.
” I signaled as the driveway came into sight and pulled into a space to park.
I glanced over at Cachi and he was looking all over the place, trying to figure out just what kind of hospital this was.
The single-story building in a strip mall on Sunset wasn’t exactly Cedars-Sinai or the Henry Mayo Clinic.
I realized exactly when he figured out what was going on when he looked up at a large sign rotating on a pole.
The West Side Animal Emergency Hospital sign showed a smiling pooch with his tongue hanging out right beside the lettering.
Cachi turned to me with a big grin on his face.
“This is doggie hospital.”
I smiled back, reaching up to cup his smooth cheek. “Yep. That’s because my girl, Lola, is the most perfect little doggie you ever did see.”
“You made fun of me.”
He didn’t look angry. In fact, his eyes were dancing with mirth.
I watched them for a few seconds, admiring the beauty in the brown depths before dropping my gaze to his gorgeous full lips, noticing how he was trying desperately not to smile.
“I didn’t make fun of you. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth, sugar. ”
He hauled off and hit me on the bicep with a balled fist. “Shit head!”
“Oww!” I said, laughing as I rubbed my arm. “I’m sorry but there’s no excuse for usin’ physical violence on my person.”
He turned to look out the windshield, crossed his arms over his chest, and stuck out his lower lip. “I no understand this English.”
I laughed harder. “You understand more English than you let on, and I’m pretty sure your terrible grammar is a put on.”
He blinked. “A put…on?”
I pointed at him. “That’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about.” I canted my head toward the door. “Come on, brat. I can’t wait for you to meet my girl.”