Page 65 of The Last Sunrise

Julián cracks a smile that makes my insides melt. “He does. It’s ridiculous. Dogs too.”

“And charming.”

“I guess so. But they never come back, they just take what they need from him and go on their way. Just like everyone else.” Julián’s tone turns serious, and my stomach twists.

Like my mom.

“Don’t think that way. It has nothing to do with you,” he says, literally reading my mind for the zillionth time.

“We aren’t going to pay for our parents’ mistakes.” He presses his lips against my forehead, and I close my eyes. He’s so much like his father, it and continues to show in the best way.

I try not to think about how lonely my mother has been for the last twenty-something years, or how different her life could have been if she had chosen Mateo over herself. Julián’s lips cover mine, drowning out the fading image of my mom’s alternative life, and I’m grateful that I’m choosing to embrace this feeling, however temporary, however painful it may be for both of us in the end. My mom will suffer, too, but she’s had twenty-three years to spend time with me and has chosen not to, and like Julián said, I’m not responsible for her mistakes.

Julián kisses down my bare body, stopping at my lower stomach.

“Can I ask what happened here?” he says, touching the ragged puffy scar on my lower abdomen. “I wanted to before… but I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He touches hislips against it and I hold my breath. I’ve never had a boy, or a man, even see my scar, let alone touch and kiss it. I’m not embarrassed by it one bit, I just don’t know how much of the can of worms I want to open by telling him, but I also don’t want to hide anything else from him.

“I got into a knife fight in San Antonio.” I try to make a joke out it, my go-to when I’m unsure what to say. I use humor to deal with my trauma; it’s the only way I can stay afloat.

“Not funny,” he says with a contradictory smile. “You don’t have to tell me,” he adds, sympathy in his eyes.

“I’ll tell you if you stop looking at me like that.”

His brow rises. “Like what?”

“Like you feel sorry for me. It makes me feel awful. I hate sympathy and have had enough in my life to last ten more.”

Julián adjusts his expression and leans himself up onto his elbows at the side of my hips. “I definitely don’t feel sorry for you. Epilepsy or not, you’re still a spoiled rich girl,” he teases me.

“I had a kidney transplant when I was thirteen.” I brace myself for a dramatic reaction from him, but it doesn’t come. He studies my eyes and my scar, without a single trace of weirdness or panic on his face.

“Hmm, they must have really gotten you with that knife, what a badass you are.” He smiles.

I breathe, not realizing I hadn’t in a while.

“They really did.” I laugh, appreciating that Julián can handle way more than I had ever expected anyone to.

“I have something to tell you. I wasn’t going to, but I opened your locket when you slept when we first met, so I suspected something was going on. Most people don’t always have theirblood type and emergency contact on them. You started to stir awake before I could read the rest, which I guess was the epilepsy.” His fingertips brush along the apple of my cheek, down the plane of my nose.

“I really am sorry I didn’t tell you earlier.”

Shaking his head, he says, “As traumatic as the way I saw it firsthand was, you weren’t ready to tell me and that was your choice.”

“Yeah, I guess seeing me fall into a pool was probably pretty traumatic.” I cover my dark humor with a small smile.

He nods. “Sure as hell was. I kept waiting for the anger to come, to feel like you lied to me or purposely deceived me, but I guess my love for you outweighs any anger I could muster.”

“How poetic.” I touch the tip of his nose, and he grins.

“You can tell me the bloody details of your kidney transplant later. We have all the time in the world,” he says with a smile.

My heart sinks and soars, from the deeply understanding way he handles me and his naïve optimism when it comes to time.

“What if we didn’t?” I clear my throat, elaborating, teetering on the edge of honesty. “Have the time, I mean?”

“Don’t you worry about time. I haven’t told you, but…” He sits up, back straight and proud. “There’s a legend here, that the first-born son of Mateo Garcia can start, stop, and re-create time. So you, my mortal love, have nothing to worry about—”

“For research purposes,” I interrupt with an ironic laugh, “what if we only had a limited time together, what would you do then?”

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