Page 70 of Tripped By Love
Marco
BETTER THAN I USED TO BE
“I can finally stand the man in the mirror I see
I ain’t as good as I’m gonna get
But I'm better than I used to be.”
Performed by Tim McGraw
Written by Simpson / Gorley
My throat was actually parched fromall the talking I’d done on the plane, rattling away about Maliyah and Maria Carmen and the group that surrounded her, all in an attempt to ease Cassidy’s worries. Even before my parents died and shit went to hell in the Fleet Marine Force, I’d never been a talker. I’d spoken to Cassidy more in the last handful of weeks than I’d done with anyone in months, including Trevor and Garner.
After all that, I still wasn’t sure how successful I’d been at alleviating her worries, because she clutched my hand in a death grip as the plane landed and had a somber face as we found our way to the luggage claim to retrieve her suitcase. Jonas barely looked up from the stream of messages he was sending on his phone. His expression was even grimmer than Cassidy’s. I wanted to fix things for both of them. To see only wide smiles on their faces. But I felt helpless to make it happen. Things I couldn’t control were driving their lives.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked, shoving Jonas’s shoulder with mine as we stood by the baggage carousel. He’d grown at least another inch in the weeks he’d been with me. It seemed impossible, and yet the evidence was there before me.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
I remembered that feeling as a teen, especially being new to Maliyah’s house and unsure of whether I could trust her. Would she duck and run if things in my world weren’t perfect? I’d had three years to get through before I could be on my own, enter the military, and make a life for myself. I’d focused on that, keeping everything as perfect as I could on the exterior. But it had taken a toll. It was still taking a toll. I didn’t want that for Jonas, and I certainly didn’t want him to think he couldn’t trust me.
“Jo-Jo…” He glared at me. “Jonas, you know you can tell me anything, right?”
His eyes met mine for a minute before he bent his head once more to the buzzing phone in his hand. “I know. There’s nothing to tell, Marco.”
When he continued to ignore my presence, my gaze moved back to Cassidy standing by the conveyor belt. She practically glowed. She wore one of her standard long, flowy skirts with flowers littered all over it and a gauzy loose tank that showed a skintight one beneath it. The light behind her outlined the curve of her breasts through the see-through material and made my entire body burn with a desire to touch her. She had her hair down today, and it hung well past her shoulder blades in thick, golden waves.
Like she’d somehow called to me, I’d already stepped toward her without even realizing it just as she bent to pull her suitcase from the belt. I pulled it from her grasp.
“I can get it,” she said and blew out a frustrated sigh.
“I know you can, but you shouldn’t have to,” I said. “Let someone take care of you once in a while.”
She snorted. “Like you do?”
My gut clenched as I thought about not only how right she was, but how it was likely the reason Jonas wouldn’t let others help him either. I’d been a bad role model, and Maliyah was even worse. She never let anyone do anything unless she had no choice. Maybe it was a scar from our days in foster care when we’d had to count on ourselves and no one else. I had the least reason of any of us to be that way. I’d been in a loving home for fifteen years. I’d lived mere months in the true foster system before Maliyah had taken me in, and she’d never been anything but loving and kind. Still, it was there, built inside me?the need to count on just myself. To not be a burden.
I looked down into Cassidy’s face. Her eyes still held the worry she’d been going through on the plane. I smoothed a thumb over the bend between her brows. “I’ll try, if you try,” I said quietly.
Her eyes widened.
“I mean it,” I said. “What do you say?”
She swallowed and nodded.
We turned back to Jonas who was waiting with the backpack he’d carried on the plane thrown over his shoulder. I picked up my duffel that had seen better days, and we made our way out to the rental car agency before heading to Maria Carmen’s house with heavy emotions filling all of us.
Whereas Maria Carmen and Maliyah had once lived blocks away from each other, Maria Carmen now lived on the other side of Austin. She’d moved into a new development when the city had started to expand as the Hollywood folks invaded Texas and grew the place like a dam breaking across it. The fact that we were several miles away from Maliyah’s neighborhood brought me a small comfort. It meant we were also farther away from Mel and her gang boyfriend. Hopefully, it would keep Jonas out of the thick of things.
Maria Carmen greeted us at the door. Her frame was as lean as Maliyah’s. They were both wiry and muscled from the workouts they did together, but Maria Carmen had tan skin with almost black hair and deep-brown eyes compared to the lighter tones of chestnut and hazel that were all Maliyah. As different as they were, they were still sisters?soul sisters.
“Mijos!” Maria Carmen said, coming out the front door and wrapping first Jonas and then me in hugs.
“Let them go,querida, so I can hug my boys,” Maliyah said as she approached using a cane and moving at a snail’s pace. It was ten thousand times better than how she’d looked when we’d left Austin, but it was still a long way from the bundle of energy that she normally was.
Maria Carmen laughed and stepped back so Maliyah could drape her arms around both Jonas and me at the same time. She didn’t hug often, but when she did, you could feel the love wafting off of her. She backed up and patted Jonas’s cheek. “You’ve grown again.”
