Page 38 of Finding Love on the Slopes

“No worries on that front. Minor concussion, you know how hard this skull is. Outside of a massive headache and decent bump, I’m in full control of my faculties. Your sister’s honor and well-being are safe in my hands,” Enrique assured his friend.

“Glad to hear it. Keep it that way. We may be best friends, but I will still have something to say if you put her in danger. And that includes the danger she was in when she had to ski down the out-of-bounds to save your sorry hide.”

“Understood. Stay safe.” Enrique disconnected the line and, after checking the battery level, left the phone on so they could receive the call with details of their rescue. He placed it on the mantle above the fireplace before taking his usual seat at the end of the couch.

“Well, I’m assuming he gave you some kind of warning. What was it?” Leigh asked a little defensively.

Chuckling at her annoyance, Enrique replied, “He did. You know each other very well. He wanted to make sure I wasn’t putting you in any more danger and assured me I would be answering to him for the danger I had already caused. Speaking of which, I truly am sorry for all of this…”

“I don’t want to hear another apology. What I want to know is why?” Leigh saw the hesitation in his eyes an instant before a veil of detachment fell over his face that she had never seen before. Whatever it was that put him on that black slope was big. She wasn’t leaving here until she knew what it was. She deservedthat much. “If that question is too hard for the moment, then describe to me how you treat those around you on a daily basis. I need to know moving forward that you are not going to treat me like a doormat to scuff your boots on.”

A smile lifted the corner of his lips at her wording.

“Tell me what the smile is for. It seems like a pleasant thought. That might be a good place to start this conversation,” Leigh suggested, trying to soften the situation but refusing to back down.

“When you said, ‘Wipe your boots,’ I thought of my older brother Julio. He just retired from the Marines and is home now, hopefully for good. The only time I have seen him not in boots was when he was in his dress uniform. I don’t even own a pair of boots. Hannah was always telling us to wipe our feet when we came in, and we always forgot, so Anthony instituted a no-shoes-in-the-house rule because she was so exhausted from having to clean up after all of us boys. That didn’t last long either; we learned how to clean and help around the house pretty quickly. Those were good times.”

“You have boots if you go on outdoor adventures with my brother. He doesn’t allow anyone who doesn’t have broken-in hiking boots to participate,” Leigh corrected.

“Oh, well, in that regard, yes. I was imagining regular footwear.” Enrique looked up and noticed Leigh’s triumphant smile. “What?”

“I wanted to know how you reacted when corrected over something trivial. If you were an arrogant jerk through andthrough, that would have rubbed you wrong, and you would have responded rudely. I know the type well. They areneverwrong.”

“I’m not a jerk to everyone all the time, but I do have my moments. No one is going to put me up for sainthood like your brother.”

“Care to elaborate on that?”

Enrique knew she wasn’t going to move on without answers. If he wanted to explore what was between them, he had to open himself up and let her in. It wouldn’t be easy, but he hoped it was worth it.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Taking a deep breath and focusing on his inner calm, Enrique began, “Not really, but I will. I understand why it’s important to you. Something you need to understand, Leighann, is that I’m not an easy man. Many who knew me in the past would say I’m not even a good one. My brothers and I have worked hard to reform ourselves, but even though most of them were misjudged and labeled bad boys erroneously, I was not. Iwasa bad boy. I was a thief. I was angry, violent, and mean to my very core. That isn’t something you wake up one day and change. It’s a constant fight to be better. My family put in the time and effort to help me become the man I am today, but I still struggle with those darker emotions. I am also wealthy now. Even though I didn’t grow up in a fancy house, I grew up knowing I belonged in one just like the fancy folks that occupiedthem, and I imitated the behavior I saw so that one day I would fit in. When Anthony met me as a child, he said I had a chip on my shoulder the size of Texas, and anyone who walked by it was going to get cut. That was pretty much it. If a person looked at me wrong, said something I didn’t like, did something I thought was a threat in even the slightest way, like bumping into me… I would punch them. Attack them even. I was in fights all the time. Didn’t matter the size or the number. I was bad news. My brothers in the Bad Boy’s Club had no reason to take me in and try to polish me up. I brought them nothing but trouble. And my brother Julio, we were oil and water. From the wrong sides of the same streets, and I constantly pushed his buttons to get him to fight with me. The other brothers never quite understood our dynamic; you can’t unless you lived it. But we regularly tried to kill each other, sometimes literally, but we would kill anyone who even thought of harming the other. It’s a street code that few understand. I’m loyal to a fault and stubborn. Nothing is impossible. The harder the challenge, the harder I will fight to conquer it.”

“Is it a matter of pride? Or a way to get recognition and approval? To say, ‘Hey, look what I just did!’ Or is it something else?” Leigh questioned.

“It may have started out as a way to get my parents’ or teachers’ attention when I was little, but it became a beast of its own as I got older. So many people had counted me out because of my small stature, my difficulty reading, my clumsiness, my poor behavior, or whatever other reason they had. At some point, Iwould hear someone say I couldn’t do something, and it became a challenge. I would achieve it or die trying. That got turned into a weapon used against me by my parents and other kids. It got me into a lot of trouble. As you noticed with the slope, it is still getting me into trouble. As soon as I hear someone say I can’t do something, it triggers something inside me, and I can’t see or hear reason anymore. I have tunnel vision and a single-minded focus. That is how I managed to become a billionaire by age thirty-two, but it has also put me in significant danger. Like now.”

Leighann was starting to understand what happened that day. “So, when I told you that you weren’t ready and that you couldn’t do black slopes this trip, I triggered you. You wound up tuning me out, only hearing the echoes from your past telling you that you weren’t good enough, smart enough, would never amount to anything, and had to prove them wrong. It wasn’t about not listening to me. It was about proving me, and by me, it was really the ghosts from your childhood, wrong. Am I understanding this correctly?”

Enrique looked at her, stunned by just how clearly she was understanding. He’d had so few people even try and even fewer succeed. He felt for the first time in a long time that someone was looking past his outer shell and into his soul, getting him at the fundamental level.

“Yes, that sums it up pretty well.”

“I bet the other boys, the other truly troubled ones, had a field day when they discovered this…”

“Weakness. The gaping hole in my otherwise impenetrable armor. Oh, they did, and so did my parents. For some, it became a sport to see how much danger they could put me in before I would refuse. The answer was there was no limit. I almost died a number of times. Or like my parents, who weaponized it and got me to do some really bad stuff. And then there were people like my brothers and Hannah who used it to help me.”

“How did they use it to help you?” Leigh asked incredulously.

“Well, I’m sure a psychologist would have a field day psychoanalyzing me, but I have a really hard time saying no to a challenge, especially if it is worded as something I can’t do. My brothers were desperate to help me turn a corner into a “good boy” instead of the “bad boy” the nuns had labeled me. So, they would challenge me to make good choices. Over time, as I began to value their opinion of me more than my reputation as the worst boy in the house, I would shift my behavior to meet their challenge, which always had my best interest at heart. All my brothers had power over me in that way, but Julio, man, he could pull me out of rip-roaring rage with his taunts. He knew just how to word them to make them true challenges. Like, “You can’t walk away from Toad Face without giving him the shiner he deserves. He pushed your little bro down, and there is no way you are walking away from that disrespect. I see you; you can’t do it!’ Fernando stood beside him, saying, ‘Enrique, I challenge you not to punch Toad Face.’ but that didn’t really work. Not when I was mad, anyway. Part of me always wondered if Juliojust really knew me and knew what to say or if he really, truly doubted my ability to walk away. Either way, it worked. Over time, the real bad boys in the home lost their power over me.”

Enrique leaned back further into the corner and stretched his arm along the back of the couch, relaxing after the worst of his confession was told.

“But you still struggle with the triggers?”

“Yeah, every once in a while, something pops up and catches me by surprise, and I lose control, like the black slope. There was so much going on in my head that day. That is one reason I never left New York. I live two hours away from my brother Anthony, Hannah, and their girls. If I am struggling, I stop by. Hannah has a special radar for her boys. She can read us like newspapers. If I am really just stopping by to say hello, she knows. If I’m stopping by because the darkness is getting too close and I am losing the fight, she knows. She knows when to ask questions, to insist I go for a walk, to talk to a brother, or just give me a hug. I never had a hug until Hannah hugged me, and it rocked my world. I knew if I ever moved away, I would be lost. God sent them to me, all of them, for a purpose. I was never shown unconditional love, any love, actually, until my family found me. They changed me, but I still have pretty rough edges.”

“Well, that explains a lot. Does my brother know about this particular challenge?”

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