Chapter 18
SOFIA
I shouldn’t feel this tired. Not after a shower.
Not after coming home safely. Not after he ensured my home was empty and secure.
Not after sleeping in my own bed last night.
Not after getting everything I wanted. More than I needed.
But I tossed and turned all night. Got the worst sleep in a long time when I needed it the most.
Yesterday feels like a fever dream. Today feels like the fever breaking, leaving sweaty sheets and the hazy memories of what I just went through.
Paco’s curled at my feet, snoring in that wheezy little way he always does.
His tiny body is warm against my ankle. Normally, that comforts me.
Makes me feel snug and happy as a dog mom.
But then I remember Emilio coming out with my baby strapped to his chest, singing that song. Utterly ridiculous and charming.
It wasn’t planned. He just did it. Took ownership of my dog without asking and then argued over custody and being a stepdad. It makes me smile as I lie here when I know I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t entertain them in my thoughts more than they already push in.
But that’s what the Dimas brothers do.
They push into places they don’t belong and wreak havoc. And in that swirl of wild energy, they mean well. Not at first, or not initially, could I tell that, but after having him as my patient and his brother by his side every day, that’s what I realized.
“Ay, estoy cansada,” I say to Paco, who buries his face deeper into the covers when I turn the light on. “So tired, mi amor.”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, convincing myself that coffee will make everything right.
My silent apartment presses against me like an unwanted weighted blanket as I pad into the kitchen.
Paco doesn’t follow. Too tired from his little sleepover.
I wonder what he’d say about it if he could talk. We could compare notes.
I push the button on my fancy coffee machine, which was a Christmas gift to myself last year. Got it on a black Friday sale at almost half the price, and it used to feel rich before I saw how the twins live. That’s a life so far beyond belief that I was uncomfortable.
“But the sex— ”
My face flames.
“Dios mío . . . fue increíble.”
The admission steals something out of me. Deepens the soreness between my legs. Leaves me a little ashamed and a lot wanting. I thought I would scratch the itch and be done with it. No, it emblazed my whole body, leaving me wanting more and more. Challenging both and loving every second of it.
My core tightens. Almost pulses with want. That much sex in such a short amount of time is criminal. A violation of some law somewhere. But how I feel now, wanting another day of it, well, that’s just not going to happen.
If this is how it would be with them, I’d turn into a sex addict.
I’m not one for just lying there. I love to be aggressive with a man, but those two have me beat.
I didn’t do a thing, and orgasms were spilling out of me.
Some of the best of my life. Even the ones on the counter.
I’ve never been curled into a ball, pounded like that, and exploded that way.
Could I get used to that level of attention?
Yes.
Absolutely. Especially after being so starved for the proper attention in my marriage.
Especially after having obligatory sex when I didn’t want to.
I’m almost certain I’d never have to have obligatory sex with those two.
They’d honor me after a long day. Not lie on top of me, take their fill, and get off without a care for my pleasure.
Paco’s toe beans join me in the kitchen. His tail whips the air like he’s recharged and ready for another day of solid napping.
“Ay, why did I grab that extra shift, mijo?”
I groan into my hands, palms over my eyes.
I need caffeine while the coffee finishes dripping into the cup I set up last night.
I know why I picked up an extra ICU shift today.
So I’m not sitting here, drowning in my own thoughts, rearranging my life into neat little boxes and pretending the twins aren’t a storm I want to stand in a little longer.
Like, I can’t hear Emilio yelling about what he wants for breakfast. Massimo telling him to shut the fuck up, like he always does. Two deep voices overlapping, bickering, filling every corner of that big modern house. I shouldn’t miss it. I barely know them. That’s what I try to tell myself.
But missing doesn’t care about logic. Missing happens because something mattered. They made me feel like I mattered. Like I was special, and that’s what trips me up. What if they are as good as it gets?
The thought of dating again is repulsive, but with them, it’s so much more than dating. It’s like being the object of someone’s obsession, and I know that sounds bad, but why is that so wrong? Why is it so wrong to be admired, cared for, and taken care of? Isn’t it what I do for everyone else?
“My little Paco, shut off my brain already. They occupy too much.”
He barks, as if answering. As if knowing.
Then trots to his food bowl, sniffs it, and looks back at me like I’ve failed him as a mother.
Which I have this morning. I go through the motions of getting his breakfast together, mine too.
When he’s happily chowing down, I turn my attention to my usual standby on long days.
“Alright, alright,” I sigh, grabbing the crockpot from the cabinet. “Let’s get some chicken cooking for both of us. Then you, my spoiled little prince, can have some for dinner tonight.”
I pull everything out of the fridge and prep it while sipping my coffee.
Finally, dump in the stock, chicken thighs, garlic, onions, and other flavors, then click it on.
The smell will fill the apartment by the time I get back from my shift.
It’s how I’ll make up for abandoning him today.
Just as I’m about to sit down to eat my toast and relish my coffee before getting ready, my phone rings in my bedroom. At this hour, I already know who it is.
Mami.
Seconds pass as I debate running to get it. By the fourth ring, guilt drives my steps into my room, and I collapse on the bed. Lying back down to answer it.
“Hola.”
“Mi hija! You sound sick. Are you sick? Did the people make you ill? What did I tell you about drinking the root, leak, and lemon tea every day? Did you add the honey to coat your throat?”
And this is why I debated answering her. She thinks every island remedy is a cure rather than real medicine. But there is no cure for what I’m feeling.
“Mami, I’m not sick.”
She continues with more home remedies. All from my childhood, not knowing the real reason.
How would I even explain this weekend? That I was railed by twin brothers a decade younger than me.
Even saying that in my mind sounds so bad.
Made worse when I think of Emilio blurting out Massimo’s confession. He loves me.
It screams across my mind.
Mami would die if she knew. Would be spilling prayers all over her rosary in church and lighting every candle in the place. Be praying to every saint and rebuking every demon out there.
“Why did you never date again?” My question cuts through her nagging, sharp and clear. Never remembering me asking or her telling until now.
Silence.
Not the annoyed kind. Nor a dramatic gasp. And not a scolding one. A dangerous one. The kind that lingers so long, I almost wish I hadn’t asked. Almost.
“Why are you asking me that?” I stare at the ceiling. At the tiny crack in the paint, I’ve never asked the landlord to fix it. But is the tiny crack enough to make a fuss over? Like this question, do I really need to know after my father was never in my life to begin with?
“No reason,” I lie. “Just something I heard at work that got me wondering.”
Vague enough if she wants to drop it. Noncommittal enough for me not to be grilled by it. The silence grows. The need for her to answer grows with it. Until she lets out a long breath. Until it sounds like twenty years of regret or guilt were about to be unloaded.
“I didn’t want to repeat my mistake,” she says finally, which shocks me. Mami never admits to making a mistake. Not ever. She’ll say she changed her mind before admitting she’s wrong.
“Mistake?” My throat tightens. Did she just call me a mistake? “Me?”
Calling our life a mistake? An ugly panic slips under my skin.
“No, no, no, Mija,” she rushes, horrified. The panic I feel is bleeding through her words and into my phone. “Not you. No! You are the best thing I’ve ever done. You hear me? The best.”
My shoulders drop, but the tension doesn’t ease. Not fully. The word mistake still hums in the air, like an alarm I can’t turn off.
“Then what?” My voice is too small. Too much little girl and not enough independent woman. “What was the mistake?”
She sighs again. But this one is weary. Like I’ve asked her to open a door she boarded up and set fire to a long time ago.
“My mistake was loving a man who didn’t know how to love me back,” she says. “Loving too blindly. Loving too completely. Loving with no protection. No boundaries. I gave him everything, Mija. And he still left with more than he came with.”
My jaw clenches. How does history repeat itself? Isn’t it enough to have an ex who did this too? Took pieces of me I didn’t realize I was offering. Took so much that when I left him, it felt like leaving without any part of me. Like he sucked the life force from me, and I was hollowed to the core.
“And then,” she adds, when I’m still lost in my thoughts. “I found out he had other women. Other families. I was not the only one. I may have been the first, but I wasn’t the last.”
That panic climbs up my throat. A bitter taste rises into my mouth. Other families.
“Mami,” My voice cracks, too scared to ask but needing to know. “Do I have half brothers and sisters out there? Ones I don’t know about?”