Page 29 of Matched

Relief whooshes through me and I could not be happier right now that the only thing on the line is forfeiting a few weekend hours to a good cause. “Count me in whenever my schedule allows. I’d be happy to help out again.”

The warm smile she flashes me lands a double punch, to my chest and my dick. “You sure?”

Like I could do anything else but agree when she’s beaming at me like that, for probably the first time ever. “Positive. I like doing things with my hands in my spare time.”

Our gazes connect. Some of that heat from the other night flares between us, and then Inara jumps to her feet. “Awesome. Great. Thank you so much, I’ll let Bennett know.”

She practically flees to the kitchen, leaving my head spinning once again and my groin aching. A situation not helped when she returns a few moments later, eating a peach and licking the juice off that’s collecting at the corner of her mouth. If that isn’t one of the most erotic things I’ve seen in a long time. She moves to pass me on the couch and hesitates, cocking a brow at me.

I blink and drag my attention away from her lips.

Now. I should bring up last night now.

Sweat prickles the back of my neck. I clear my throat and get ready to start again while she gazes at me with big, dark eyes. My phone rings while I’m still struggling to muster up the courage.

Without thinking I grab it from my pocket, not bothering to check the screen. One of my teammates—or a telemarketer—had picked the right time to call.

“Tony? Long time, son.”

The familiar masculine voice causes every muscle in my body to tense and my chest to constrict. Is it too late for a do-over? Because I’d rather have outed myself as a sexual failure than take this particular call. Guilt stabs me in the gut at the terrible thought. Even though it’s true.

Honestly, I’d pick subjecting myself to just about any unpleasant task over suffering through a call from my father any day of the week, which is why I limit the calls to quick birthday messages or happy whatever-holiday-it-is. Our longer phone call is reserved for Father’s Day when the guilt of not calling him more catches up with me. I suck in a deep breath. “What’s up, Apá?”

When she hears my greeting, Inara quietly escapes down the hall. And just as quickly, I jump off the couch and start pacing, my heart rate steadily increasing.

“Mijo, I miss you. How’s it going?”

“Been busy. How’s work?” According to Yelp, my dad’s a Zumba miracle instructor. People drive out over an hour sometimes to get to his class. I gotta say, I never expected a construction company owner to excel at something like Zumba. But we all have our things that keep us happy and this was what helped Apá keep my mother’s memory alive.

“Got your text you were back from deployment. You should’ve called instead of texting.” There was a long pause before he began again. “And work is going well. That’s why I’m calling, actually.”

“What’s up?” I fight to keep my tone pleasant, but it’s tough. Any kind of conversation with my pops only stirs up a dark stew of disappointment. It’s not that he was a bad father. In fact, he was a great father. At least, back when Mamá was still alive, when he was in a good enough mental place to parent at all. But after my mom’s death, he had a hard time, for too long. It took him forever to recover. For years after we buried Mamá, my sisters and I had to both battle our own grief and at the same time support our father while he succumbed to his.

Nothing had prepared me for parenting my own parent. I was a kid who was suddenly responsible for taking care of my younger siblings too. So, while I love my dad, I also resent him for not being there when we needed him most. Plus, talking to him always brings back sad memories of my mother.

“Well, I’m planning on holding a fundraiser in honor of your mother for early November of this year raise money for cancer research and having the donation be in her name.”

“Zumba’s not exactly my thing.” Both the hesitation in my own voice and my father’s silence cause an image of his disappointed face to flash in my mind. I lean over, my thumb and middle finger massaging my temples. “Look, I can’t make any promises, but I’ll think it over. I mean I would like to see your famous moves.”

My father chuckles. “It’s mostly choreography, but I can still dance you right off the floor, choreographed or not.”

The image brings a rush of memories. All of us—me, Apá, my sisters, and Mamá—diving into Zumba to help distract my mother from the diagnosis. I remember the pain on her face when she explained it to me and my sisters. I remember the fear racing through my veins when she uttered the words lump and breast, but mostly, I remember how her whole life changed after those stupid words. She loved being outdoors and used to spend hours gardening, but in the months before she told us, we’d seen her slow down, and grow pale and gray. Knowing why was only a small relief, and it did nothing to alleviate the terror that carved out a hole in my heart. It was hard to watch the woman I’d always looked up to, the one I had always seen as a rock, crumble bit by bit. That’s when my youngest sister, Vanessa, suggested Zumba.

My stomach twists and there’s a dull ache in my chest. I want to ignore him, to forget all the ways we failed her while she was alive and even after she passed. Her loss still weighs on me like a buried bullet that I’ll never be able to cut out.

“It’s for your mom, Tony.” My father’s voice, the pleading tone, shocks me back to the present. “There are a lot of details to work out still, but I’m hoping to host it in Virginia Beach, somewhere near the ocean.”

I straighten, panic setting in. This all sounded okay in theory when it was happening miles away from me. “Why here?”

“Your mom always loved the ocean.” There’s an undercurrent of grief in his reply. “I figure we could host the actual Zumba class on the beach and then head to a restaurant after for food and drinks. I don’t know, I haven’t worked out all the details, but I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Except talking about it is the last thing I want to do. Not when the topic of Mamá always brings this tsunami of emotions with it. So I do what I learned to do years ago—I smash all the unpleasant feelings into a tiny ball and ignore them. “Sounds like you have some good ideas. What do you want from me, though? You need a poster boy? A hottie for all the soccer moms to come gawk at?” I joke because joking is way better than the alternative.

“Mijo, they’d probably leave thinking it was a Mr. Clean event instead!” Apá laughs, and a sense of ease flows through me. I’m sure the distance I’ve put between us hasn’t been easy on him. But the loss of my mother carved out a piece of me I’ll never get back, so, though I love my father and sisters, I avoid all the things and people she loved. Being around them hurts too much.

I roll my eyes. Clearly my lowbrow sense of humor is genetic. Then a sad sigh comes across the line. “Anyway, I know thinking about her is hard for you. But I don’t want to do this without you, and your mother wouldn’t have wanted me to. Maybe this will be good for you?”

I flinch. I would have been able to dismiss it no problem, but my resolve weakens when he mentions my mother and what she would have wanted. Mostly because I know he’s right. Damn him.

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