34. Cruz
Chapter 34
Cruz
D espite our best intentions, it’s almost one o’clock by the time we make it to the beachside villa on Isla Verde where the Kellys are staying. I park behind the three rental cars in the driveway and turn to look at Maeve, who’s smoothing the skirt of her wrinkled, little blue dress.
She tugs at the hem with a goofy smile. “Yes, I am walk-of-shaming it by showing up in yesterday’s clothes but it can’t be helped.”
“It’s better than showing up in my clothes,” I tease.
“You’re not nervous, right?” she asks, checking her appearance in the visor’s mirror. “If you are, don’t be. They’re dying to meet you.”
Meeting Maeve’s family probably should make me nervous, but it seems pretty tame in comparison to everything else we’ve been through. This, I can handle. I think. “They can’t be any worse than Lucky, and I’ve already met him.”
She snorts. “That’s true. Not even Dad is as much of a hard-ass as Lucky.”
I follow her to the front door, where Maeve keys in the code and lets us inside. “I’m back,” she calls. No one’s around, but I hear voices nearby. A lot of voices.
A little kid in swim trunks and an Avengers t-shirt speeds into the room, skidding to a stop when he sees me. “Dad, Aunt Maeve’s here with her boyfriend!” he hollers.
“Okay, loudmouth,” Maeve gripes, rolling her eyes at me as she grabs him in a hug. “Liam, this is Cruz. Cruz, my nephew Liam.”
“Hey, man,” I say, leaning down to give him a fist bump.
He knocks his fist to mine and jets off again, leaving us to follow him into the kitchen. The very loud, very busy kitchen where it seems all of Maeve’s family has congregated. They crowd us the second we walk through the door, talking over each other as they pelt us with questions and introductions.
“Good to see you, Cruz,” Lucky says, nodding at me with an expression considerably warmer than the first time we met.
I nod back. “You too?—”
“So, this is Cruz? Oh honey.” A petite woman who must be their mother darts over, her gray eyes tearing up. “I’m Maeve’s mom, Sloane. Can I hug you?”
“Sure.” I shoot Maeve an amused grin as her mom tiptoes to give me a hug.
“Sorry, I’m a hugger,” she says, patting my back. “It’s just so good to finally meet you.”
“It’s great to meet you, too,” I say, hugging her back. Tristan’s eyes meet mine from across the room, where he raises his hand in a wave. “There’s still time to run,” he quips. Evie giggles, punching his arm, but she waves, too.
“Everybody, chill out,” Maeve cries. “You guys! This is Cruz.”
She turns to me, lowering her voice. “I wanted you to meet Bria, too, but she just had the baby. Her mom’s staying with them until Lucky gets back in a couple days.”
“It’s cool that he came at all.”
She nods, her eyes finding her brother. “He wanted to be here for me.”
“Do you like Batman or Spiderman better?” demands Liam, shoving two action figures at me.
Before I can respond, Maeve tugs on my arm, pulling me closer like she’s shielding me from the onslaught of attention. “Cruz is starving,” she announces. “Let’s get some food in him before you all scare him away. ”
“I’ll have you know that lunch has been ready,” Mrs. Kelly says, her eyebrows lifted as she gives her daughter a pointed look. “You two were supposed to be here an hour ago.”
An hour ago Maeve was coming on my cock again. Good thing I’m too brown to blush. “It smells fantastic in here,” I say, giving her mother what I hope is a sincere smile. “Thanks for having me.”
“Of course! We’re glad you’re here. Maeve’s been really missing you,” she says with a gentle smile. “Anyway, we have quite the spread. I made a roast, and we picked up some beautiful mahi at a market this morning, too. And the produce! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.”
“She bought enough fruit to last a month,” Tristan adds.
“I helped make cookies,” Liam calls over. “Do you like peanut butter or chocolate chip better?”
Mr. Kelly clears his throat, stepping forward, and the room quiets a bit. His kids really take after him, especially Tristan. “Cruz, it’s great to meet you. Thanks for—” He stops suddenly, and I realize he’s gathering himself. “Thank you for taking care of my daughter when I couldn’t. You risked your life for her, and that’s a debt we can never repay.”
Well, shit . I wasn’t expecting that. “There’s no debt. I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” I reply quietly, my heart thumping when Maeve slips her hand into mine. I wonder if they know just how bad it was, how close we came to dying. They must, if they’re treating me like this.
“I know you would, son,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re a good man.”
My throat thickens. Maeve’s father barely knows me, but he accepts me. I didn’t realize I even needed that.
Growing up, it was just my mom and me, and I was fine with that. But there’s something undeniably appealing about this loud, chaotic brood of people who love each other. They remind me of my family down here, and it’s easy to see why Maeve missed them so much when she was separated from them.
Lucky hands his father and me glasses of what looks like whiskey. Seems everyone’s got a glass. “I’d like to make a toast,” he says.
Maeve beams, giving me an encouraging smile as she lifts her glass.
“To family and the bonds that tie us together, even when we’re apart,” he says. “You’re family now, Cruz.”
“Like it not,” Tristan adds, and the group titters .
It’s easy to see how Maeve came from these people. They’re genuine and devoted to each other, and they’re not afraid to say what they feel. After a life of duplicity, that’s refreshing.
“I’ll take it,” I say, cracking a smile.
Lucky smiles too, tapping his glass to mine. “Sláinte!”
“Sláinte!” everyone echoes, even me. I’m not familiar with the phrase, but I understand it.
“All right, enough of that,” Mrs. Kelly announces, clapping her hands together. “Let’s eat before the food gets any colder.”
We make our way to the dining room, where there’s a long, rectangular table packed with so much food that I can barely see the wood beneath. I see Mrs. Kelly’s roast and the mahi she’d been raving about, surrounded by pasta salad, fruit, rolls, asparagus … and a lot of other stuff. I must look dazed because Maeve snorts. “Now you see why my mom was so insistent on you coming over. She loves nothing more than to feed a crowd.”
“I can see that.”
I take a seat next to Maeve, our knees brushing under the table. For the next couple of hours, conversation flows easily as everyone passes around the food, laughter punctuating the stories.
Witnessing Maeve in this context, with her family, fills in blank spots I didn’t even know existed. This is the softest version of her I’ve ever seen—she’s so loved here. No wonder she was a shell of herself in Oakland. She was like a plant deprived of sun and water.
She catches me staring like she has a thousand times, and this time she doesn’t look away. It’s hard not to fall a little deeper when she looks at me like this.
“How’d you get this?” Maeve asks, touching a scar by my right eyebrow.
“Fell out of a tree when I was nine.”
She grimaces. “Ouch.”
It’s Sunday. The past six days have been a crash course in getting to know the Kellys, and in turn, I’ve done my best to show them who I am and the Puerto Rico I know. I even brought them to Tita’s, which apparently was all the proof Yomaris needed that I’m marrying Maeve.
Lucky and Liam were only here for two days, but it was good spending time with them. I really respect Lucky. He juggles a lot of plates, but everything he does is for his family.
Now we’re hanging out on the deck behind their villa, drinking beer and playing 20 Questions. Mr. and Mrs. Kelly, who insist I call them Owen and Sloane, went for a walk down the beach.
“And this is from falling off my bike.” I pull up my sleeve, showing her another scar on my elbow. “I was racing this kid around the block and some asshole threw a water balloon at me.”
“That’s diabolical!”
“That was Brooklyn in the summer when I was growing up.” And far from the worst story I could tell her.
“Well, I broke my wrist when I was thirteen,” she says. “It sucked, but at least I could still dance.”
“You got me there. I’ve never had a broken bone,” I say. “Besides my nose.”
“Consider yourself lucky, then.”
“I do,” I say, gazing at her, and her lips curl into a smile.
“Good.” Leaning close, she kisses me. She tastes like the guanábanas we bought at the store earlier. We’ve been nibbling on them all afternoon.
“Keep it PG, young lady,” calls Tristan.
Snickering, I squeeze Maeve’s thigh on the sly. “Yeah, Maeve. Keep it PG.”
“That’s not what you said last night,” she says smugly.
“I wasn’t saying much of anything last night,” I remind her. “My mouth was busy doing something else.”
Her eyes flare, and she grins. “You are so bad.”
“You like bad,” I shoot back before asking the question we’ve been dancing around. “So, when do you think you’ll head back to the States?”
“I don’t know. My parents do what they want these days, but the rest of us do need to get back to reality soon,” she says with a heavy sigh, her eyes drifting to the pool. “Lucky and Tristan especially. They have a lot of stuff going on. ”
“I bet.”
Her eyes dart back. “Is that weird for you?”
“What?”
“You know what they do,” she says, dropping her voice as she leans in. “You devoted years of your life bringing down families like mine.”
It’s the first time we’ve broached the subject, but I’ve thought about it a lot. “What they do has nothing to do with me.”
Maeve cocks her head. “You really are good at compartmentalizing, huh?”
“It’s more like … that was my old life.” I look past the patio and the beach beyond, out at the ocean. “I’m not that guy anymore.”
“Because of how things went down in Oakland?”
“Because of you.”
She blinks, looking down. “I thought you said you would’ve retired anyway.”
“I knew I was done with undercover work, but I was open to working in law enforcement again. In a different capacity, a different place. But by the time I left California, all I could think about was you.” I duck down, trying to catch her eyes. “I knew if there was even a sliver of a chance, I’d choose you.”
Maeve nods slowly. “What are you saying?”
“That I want to be with you.”
“I want to be with you, too, but I’ll never leave my family,” she warns. “I might not always agree with everything they do, but I’d die before I go against them. Do you understand? I’ll never let anyone come between us again.”
“I know that.” The joy Maeve has with her family is a stark contrast to the haunted look she wore when we first met, when the weight of the world seemed to rest on her slender shoulders. Now, she looks free, unburdened. How could I ever take that from her? “And I respect it. Family is important.”
“So, our life doesn’t bother you?” she presses.
“Look, your family is nothing like the families I took down. They’re nothing like Cal and the De Leons,” I say. “You guys are genuine. You love each other.”
“That’s true,” she says, taking my hand. “Dario ruled through fear more than love. I always felt like his affection was conditional, even with Callum.”
“That kind of leadership works for a while, but eventually the cracks start to show. You start seeing power plays, infighting and jealousy,” I say. “If we hadn’t taken the De Leons down, they probably would’ve done it to themselves eventually.”
“I can see that,” she says thoughtfully.
“Even the dynamic between your brothers seems healthy. I never get the feeling that Tristan resents Lucky.”
“I never thought about that,” she says. “But yeah, they’re really close. Like annoyingly close.”
“That’s a testament to how they were raised.”
“Speaking of which, it always really bothered me how dismissive Dario was of women. It was like we were just commodities.” Maeve frowns. “And the more time Callum spent around him, the more he began acting like that. It was gross.”
“It’s pretty common in that world.”
“Maybe, but I didn’t grow up like that. My dad treats my mom like his queen, not his servant or his whore.” I follow her gaze to her parents, who are just coming back from their stroll on the beach. Their hands are linked loosely between them, and Owen’s listening to whatever Sloane is saying.
What would it be like to have a relationship like that? Still looking at each other with love and respect through decades and kids and grandkids?
“Like I said, your family is different.” I bring my eyes back to Maeve. “They’re good people, full stop. And trust me, I’ve dealt with all kinds of people in my line of work—criminals, cops, and everything in between. Just because someone’s got a badge, it doesn’t make them good. And just because someone operates on the other side, it doesn’t make them bad.”
“Glad you realize that,” she teases, her eyes gleaming. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into, Officer Franco.”
“I’m just a civilian now,” I remind her. “I’m not about that life anymore.”
“But it’ll always be in you, won’t it? Something attracted you to that profession. ”
“My mom was a drug addict for years,” I say. “She got clean when I was in high school, but I watched her go through so much bullshit and knew I wanted to dedicate my life to righting those kinds of wrongs. I felt like if I could strike these people at the source—the drug dealers, the abusive assholes—then maybe I could save another kid from seeing the things I saw growing up. Very idealistic, I know. Very na?ve.”
“Maybe, but very honorable as well.” Maeve searches my eyes. “This makes so much sense. I knew you were different, Jamie.” She sucks in a sharp breath, like she’s startled. “I mean, Cruz. Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say with a chuckle. “I’m surprised you haven’t slipped before now.”
“I still have so much affection for him,” she says, her eyes going glossy. “I fell in love with that guy. And I know that he’s you, and you’re who I actually fell in love with, but sometimes it still feels like you’re two people.”
“I get it. Imagine being that guy, always having to keep your shit straight.”
She laughs a little, shaking her head. “I can’t.”
“Well, we can role play any time you want.” I give her a wolfish grin. “Just let me know.”
Just then a loud, hysterical laugh floats across the patio followed by splashes. Tristan and Evie are in the pool now, fully clothed.
“Look at these goofballs,” Maeve says affectionately. “They dropped everything to be here. Even Lucky.”
“They came because they have your back. That’s why I don’t mind if they’re part of the deal,” I say. “I don’t mind your family. I just don’t want to lose you.”