Page 3 of Kilo's Edge

I closed down my register, grabbed my stuff out of the back, and headed to the grade school nearby. Sitting in the carpool lane gave me time to look up motorcycle clubs on my phone. I frowned down at the screen as I read.

It said that some clubs were one percenters, which meant they committed crimes. Others didn’t and they just liked to ride their motorcycles with like-minded people. I didn’t know what kind of club Kilo was in, but considering my luck? I wasn’t holding my breath thinking it was the second kind of club.

I was too much like my mama, which meant trouble followed us everywhere we went. And we already had more trouble than we could handle. I didn’t want to have to move again. It was getting tiring. I was hoping that Phoenix would be our permanent home. That the city would swallow us up and we couldn’t be found. I looked up and honked the horn, watching as my sister ran toward the car.

“Hi, Mija,” I told her as she got into the back seat and buckled up. “How was school?”

“Great,” she said, her dark brown eyes shining with excitement. She talked my ear off the whole way home. She was taking summer courses to catch up on missing the last few weeks of classes at her last school. We’d had to run again and pulled her out before summer started. She was also taking additional classes to help her get ahead in case the same thing happened again.

It took too much willpower to keep my eyes from landing on the motorcycle in the driveway next to ours as I pulled up toour house. Just because he wasn’t right for me, didn’t mean Kilo wasn’t tempting.

I went inside with Carmen and started dinner as she continued to tell me what she learned in her summer school classes that day. It relieved me to see the spark coming back into her eyes. For too long she was withdrawn and quiet.

“When is Mama going to be home?” she asked.

“In a few hours,” I told her as I chopped vegetables. “Why don’t you get started on your homework?”

A few hours passed in silence as she worked, and I was just coming back from pulling the carne asada off of the grill in our backyard, when there was a knock on the door.

I froze, then looked over at Carmen. She wasn’t moving in her chair, eyes wide, as she stared at me. Forcing myself to relax, I gave her a smile and set the tray of meat on top of the stove, then went to the kitchen window and looked out. My sigh was heavy as I wiped my hands on the apron around my hips and went to the front door. “It’s okay. It’s a…friend,” I told her. I waved in her direction. “Homework.”

Her now curious eyes dropped down to her math book, but there was still a spark of fear in them.

Opening the door, I stared at Kilo. A grin stretched over his face and it made me wonder if he was always smiling. I wasn’t sure I’d seen him without one yet. It had a way of setting me at ease. Which was probably his plan. Not that I thought everyone was out to get me, but when someonewasactually trying to find you, it was hard to remember that some people were just nice.

“Hey there, Cami,” he said.

I frowned at the nickname. “Hi.”

His smile got even bigger, then he held up his hand. From his fingers a keychain was dangling. “Found these after you drove off,” he told me. “Must have dropped out of your purse.”

I narrowed my eyes on the house keys I’d been trying to find earlier. We’d ended up having to use Carmen’s to get inside. Reaching out, I went to grab them, but Kilo pulled his hand out of the way. He was holding my keys up too high for me to reach. I was five-six, a whole four inches taller than my mama, but this man had to be at least six foot or more. Hard to tell from down here.

“What smells so good?”

“What?” I asked, too shocked that he’d just yanked the keys away from me to focus on his question.

He sniffed the air. “What’re you making?”

I stared at him in disbelief. “Carne asada,” I answered when he just watched me with an amused look.

He groaned. “I love carne asada.” He took a step forward, about to invite himself in. He must have seen the expression on my face, because he seemed to realize that I was ready to bolt. Not from him—though he couldn’t know that—but from a man barging into my home.

Instead he moved his foot back and kept the smile on, easing my nerves. He dangled the keys playfully. “I skipped lunch today. Makes a man a bit hungry.”

I relaxed at the playfulness. My mama would kill me, full on murder me in my sleep, if I invited this man to have dinner with us. But the mannersshe’dtaught me were also nagging at me. “Oh. Um…”

“One set of keys for one taco?” he asked, bringing the keys down. They were lying in his huge palm.

I stared at them, then looked up at him and opened my mouth to tell him that I was sorry, but he couldn’t stay. “Would you like to have dinner with us?”

Sucking in a breath, my eyes widened.Wherehad that come from?

You. It came from you. Mama is going to kill you.

Great. He had me so twisted I was arguing with myself.

“Thank you, Camila,” he rumbled, using my full name in a way that had heat unfurling inside my stomach. He handed me the keys, then put his hands on my shoulders and gently moved me to the side. Then this sexy, overbearing man walked into my house. I was in deep trouble. In more ways than one.

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