Page 75 of Tripped By Love
Cassidy
JUST FOR NOW
“Don’t need a savior, I'm just sayin’,
I don’t wanna say goodnight.”
Performed by Maren Morris
Written by Hurd / Busbee / Morris
Marco was quiet as we drovenorth out of Austin. The city lights faded away into the suburbs that then faded away into the dark of a freeway with only headlights and taillights filling the sky. My body was still humming from the soft press of lips we’d exchanged in the kitchen. So light it could almost have been nonexistent, but instead it had been filled with fire and flames.
Seeing Marco in a home filled with people who knew him, who laughed and teased and sent love in his direction, had surprised me even after learning about Jonas, Maliyah, and Maria Carmen. Marco had been such a solitary figure in my mind for so long that it was hard to catch up with the idea of him being part of a family. I wondered if he even realized that they saw him that way—as part of them.
“Can I ask you something?” I threw out as we drove.
He looked over at me quickly and then back at the road. “Sure.”
“What were your parents like?”
His eyes closed for a millisecond as if it still hurt, years later, to talk about them. To hear them mentioned out loud.
“My mom was a pharmacist, and my dad was an accountant. They both came to the States after Operation Just Cause. My dad was an orphan, but my mom had lost her family in Noriega’s reign of fire. That was how they met…both helping the American government. My dad was tangled up in it the most, following some of Noriega’s money men, so it wasn’t safe for them there after it all went down.”
The surprise hit me in the center of my chest. “They were heroes.”
Marco laughed. “My dad would have objected profoundly, and many of his countrymen wouldn’t agree with that statement either. But he did what he thought was right.”
I waited, wondering if he realized how much of them he’d inherited. Like humbly denying the good they’d done.
“They were really good people and good parents,” he said softly. “I never once doubted they loved me. We were a happy, normal, everyday family who went to work and school during the week and spent our weekends and holidays traveling. Dad wanted to see as much of the United States as he could.”
There was a sadness in his voice that made my heart hurt.
“I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have…”
He gripped my hand, raised it to his lips, and kissed the back much as he had at Maria Carmen’s.
“No. It’s been too long since I’ve talked about them,” he said quietly, but the pain still radiated through him. I wanted to take it away. I lifted his hand holding mine and returned the kiss he’d given me. When he spoke again, there was a tremor in it. “We went to the fair that night. I was fifteen, so I would have preferred to be there with my friends, but I also didn’t mind being with my parents.”
“Maybe you would have preferred being there with a girlfriend?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow.
He chuckled. “I didn’t have one, but there was a girl I’d been mooning after.”
“Mooning?” I teased.
He shrugged with a self-deprecating smile and then returned to his story. “My dad won this huge bear at one of the carnival games. It was so big you couldn’t even see my dad’s head as he carried it. It was completely ridiculous. The more embarrassed I got, the bigger scene he made. He was actually waltzing with it as we walked out to the car at the end of the night.”
His lips were turned up, thinking about it, and I could just imagine how red and embarrassed Marco had been. If my dad had done that when I was fifteen, I would have run as fast as my uncoordinated legs could carry me.
“What a great memory,” I said.
His smile slowly faded. “It was. The stupid bear barely fit into the back of the Explorer. It was actually leering over the back of the seat I was sitting in.”
“Leering?” I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah. Leering.” His lips tilted up momentarily before disappearing again. “The semi-truck driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. He crossed the divide, flipped the semi, and it landed on the Explorer. I don’t remember any of it other than the lights heading our way and waking up in the hospital pretty beat up.”
