Page 26 of South Beach Bodyguards

“Yes. Listen to what he says.”

For some reason that made my cheeks heat up. I was going to blame it on the hike across the campus. But I knew that was crap because I went running almost every day in an effort to contain my bigger than I preferred booty. “I am, Mom. But this is just all insane, seriously. Did you know Mickey does stuff that is illegal?” I lowered my voice to a whisper.

“What? I can’t hear you. By the way, why on earth were you calling yourself Julia?” she asked.

“How should I know?” I lied. “I hit my head, remember? Maybe I thought I was Julia Roberts.”

“In which movie? Pretty Woman? God, I love that movie.” My mother sighed in delight. “Why didn’t that ever happen to me? All those years on the pole I only had millionaires buy me drinks and jewelry. I never got carte blanche at a designer clothing store and a marriage proposal.”

“You’re doing better than me, Mom. All I’ve gotten in the last year is a couple of dinners and a picture of Juan’s penis. No millionaires.”

My mother snorted. “What a pig.” Then curiosity crept into her voice. “Was it a good penis?”

“I’m not really sure,” I told her truthfully. It was an ugly son of a gun, that was certain. But what constituted a good penis versus a bad penis? I didn’t know. Given what I had seen of Ryan naked, his was bigger, but he had a good six inches or more on Juan height wise, so that wasn’t unexpected. Width wise it was hard to say. There had been nothing in the picture of Juan to give me the proper scale. And of course, I didn’t have much experience with penises in person. I’d seen a couple, but I hadn’t lingered.

“I would say send it to me, but maybe that would be weird.”

“Yes. Yes, it would.” I loved my mother, but sometimes she forgot that I wasn’t her sister, I was her daughter. Boundaries. I needed them. So I circled back to the movie comment. Watching romantic comedies was our thing. Given that it had always been just the two of us my mother had loved to put me on the couch with her, our feet soaking in plastic tubs full of bubble bath, facial masks plastered on, while we ran through every romantic movie ever filmed. “I think I was Julia Roberts in Sleeping With the Enemy.” I didn’t really believe that, given that according to my hazy memories and Ryan’s confession, I had kept stripping off my clothes in a ballsy move more reminiscent of Julia as Erin Brokovich, but it would distract my mother.

“What? No! That’s terrifying. That only confirms that someone hurt you, because she was an abused wife in that movie.”

Great. That was not my intention. “But she escaped.”

“I suppose. Plus she met a cute neighbor guy. Too bad we don’t have any cute neighbors. The man next door is about a hundred and twelve years old and his kids are ingrates who never visit him.”

“Yeah, I don’t have hopes on the neighbor front.” I darted a glance behind me. Ryan was there, just a few feet away. The girl had disappeared. “But I have other hopes.”

My mother was silent. Then she sighed. “You’re talking about Ryan aren’t you?”

“Yes.” There was no pretending otherwise.

“That’s not the man I see you with. You need a nice boy.”

That offended me on Ryan’s behalf. “He is a nice boy.” My voice was low, so he wouldn’t hear me.

“He is. I’m not disputing that. But some men can give you their heart but not their loyalty. Some can give their loyalty but not their heart. Ryan is the latter. He would never cheat on you but he will never give you his heart, princesita.”

My mother was serious when she called me little princess. It was a childhood nickname she rarely trotted out now. It didn’t make me feel any better considering she was telling me precisely what I did not want to hear. “That’s why I want to just go home, Mom. And I have to go. I’m at my class.”

It had been a mistake to call her. She made me feel melancholy.

After ending the call, I turned to Ryan. “This is my building. You can’t go in with me.”

“Don’t use the restroom or go in any empty classrooms or hallways.”

That amused me. “There are dozens of people around me. I’m not in an alley at three in the morning.”

“Be serious,” he said. “This is a big deal.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall by the doors. “I’ll be right here when you get out.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You’re just going to stand there for fifty minutes? That’s not at all weird or creepy.”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Are you calling me creepy?”

“Yes.” I fished around in my bag. “Here. Hold a book. You’ll look less conspicuous.” I shoved my microbiology book into his hands.

It didn’t help. He looked awkward as hell. He didn’t know what to do with it. He kept shifting it back and forth between his baseball mitt hands. I burst out laughing. “See you later.”

His nostrils flared. “Have a good class.”

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