Page 67 of Storm

“Not really, but I’d rather you not fall again. Are you sure you didn’t land on your stomach? The roads aren’ttoobad. I can run you to the clinic to get checked out.”

Waving him off, I let him put his arm around my waist as we head to the side door. “I’m okay. Also, just so you’re prepared, they’re terrible with upkeep and cleaning. It’s probably a mess in there, so I’m apologizing ahead of time.”

“I don’t care about that,” he says just as I yank the door open. Bracing it with a hand, he stops it from swinging back into us when the wind catches it, leaving me to walk in first.

A blast of warm air hits my cheeks just before my baby brother comes flying toward us. “Hermana!” he screeches, running full throttle toward us.

Richard’s arm flies out to stop him just before he slams into me. “Careful there, buddy.” He’s gentle in his scolding, and I bite my lip when Damián glares at him with the most vicious look he can muster.

“Who the hell are you, mister?”

“Damián!Dios mio. You’ve got to stop with the language!” We both take off our coats and hang them on the overloaded hooks, then slip off our shoes. The entryway is small, so we dance around each other, trying to give the other one space, but it’s practically impossible with Damián standing in the middle spinning around to keep Richard in his line of sight.

“Hermana, who’s he?” Damián asks again, pointing a sticky finger at Richard.

Holding out a hand, Damián reluctantly takes it. “I’m Richard, a friend of your sister. You okay with me hanging out for a bit?”

“Not really,” my brother says, unapologetically. I laugh when our unexpected guest raises his eyes to me in question.

“He hasn’t been tamed yet. Come on inside, I’ll introduce you topapá.” He follows with Damián trailing behind. I catchsight of the kitchen and shudder, then lead us to the living room where I can hear the TV blaring. When we walk in, every eye in the room turns to us.

“Miri, uhh…” Cristián starts, then trails off. No one is smiling and I feel sort of bad for Richard. My family isn’t rude per se, but they’re protective and we normally don’t have people over because of how small the space is and there are already a lot of bodies.

My dad turns down the TV and stands up, wiping his hands on his pant legs. “So, this is my friend,” I choke over the wordfriend,which has Richard raising a brow. “Richard. My friend Richard. He gave me a ride because of the weather, but it hit early, so he’s going to stay the night.”

Clearing his throat, Richard offers a hand to my dad, who takes it tentatively, throwing me a questioning look. “Nice to meet you, Richard. I’m Rolando.” Releasing his hand quickly, he scratches the back of his head. “Where we gonna put him up? Not that we mind,” he quickly adds, realizing he sounded rude.

Shit.I hadn’t even thought of that. Quickly deciding I’ll just sleep on the couch, I say, “He can have the futon in the guest room.”

“But where—” Lorenzo starts up, but I cut him off.

“The guest room will work out great. Richard, these are my brothers.” Pointing them out one by one, I name them and he shakes each one of their hands in turn.

Glancing back toward the kitchen, I ask my papá from the side of my mouth, “What’s the plan for dinner?”

“We were doing a leftover night. Was gonna let everyone find whatever they wanted to eat.” When I give him a hard look, he just shrugs. “Sorry, Miri. We didn’t know we were going to have a guest.”

With a sigh, knowing I’m going to have to throw something together, I head into the mess. Not one of my brothers hasmoved to offer Richard a place to sit, so I softly ask, “Would you like to come into the kitchen? I need to clean up a bit and I’ll find us something to eat. Otherwise, I can show you where the room is if you wanted to hide away from them.”

“I’ll come with you.” I can tell Richard feels awkward, but there’s nothing I can do about it without a few minutes alone with my family to deliver a scolding in private.

Pointing at the table, I head straight for the sink. “You can sit over there. Want anything to drink?”

He shakes his head, pulls out a chair and sits down, back ramrod straight.

Unsure what else to say, I shove up my sleeves and start moving dirty dishes out of the way to create a space so I can wash. I barely have the water heated before I feel his body move in next to mine.

“What are you doing?”

He’s busy rolling back his sleeves, past his elbows, simply saying, “Helping you. I’ll wash since I don’t know where anything goes.”

“Richard, I really don’t want you to?—”

He drops his head to give me a hard look. “You’re not going to stand here for two hours washing their dishes without help. I’ll wash.”

Gulping, I nod, then whisper, “Thank you.”

We manage to wash everything in less than an hour in complete silence. I finally convince him to sit while I throw together a quick pasta dish. Basically spaghetti, but with spiral noodles instead of spaghetti noodles, since there aren’t any in here.

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