Page 109 of The Crush
“You better watch the next words out of your mouth, bonita,” I shoot back. “Or you’re the one who’s going to be begging for a brea—”
She kisses me right on the mouth. In front of God and the gossips, but right now, it feels like we’re back in that booth in Austin. I grin, brushing my thumb across her cheek when she pulls away.
“You okay?” she murmurs. “Any regrets now that it’s done?”
I shake my head, completely honest when I say, “Nope.”
She lights up from the inside out, and I’m about to kiss her again before I catch movement over her shoulder and freeze.
“What?” she asks, about to glance around. “Is he coming back?”
“Worse.” I raise a hand in greeting. “Hello, Mrs. Diaz.”
Eighty-Seven
Isabel
Not long after Daniel drops me back off at home to go run some errands, I’m stepping out onto the front porch as a dark-blue truck pulls into the driveway.
“Hey, Isa,” Gabe says as he climbs out into the otherwise empty drive, wrapping me in a bear hug as soon as I reach him. “Where is everybody?”
“Danny and Tadeo will be back in a bit. Eli went out to survey the south fields earlier for the new rotation thing he’s been doing, and judging by how excited he was, we will be lucky to ever see him again.” My smile turns to a speculative frown as I look at Gabe’s vacant passenger seat. “I thought Aarón was coming over with you?”
“Oh, he’s on his way,” Gabe says, his grin a mile wide at the sound of another vehicle zipping down the road.
“Is that…” I say, my eyes going wide at the familiar sound. “Is that mycar?”
Two weeks ago now, Daniel and I had taken advantage of an Ag Hall night and my father’s dependable absence to go collect the rest of my things from my parents’ house. Aarón and Eli helping by keeping him out of the house for a bit longer, Gabe helping by hauling things out, and my mamá helping bytrying not to completely dissolve into tears. A fight she seemed to have lost during one of my trips to the truck since I had returned to see her crying into Daniel’s jacket.
Later, when the tears dried, the only thing I hadn’t managed to grab had been my car, the old VW simply refusing to start up from its resting place in the back of the garage no matter how many times we tried.
“What do you want to do, bonita?” Daniel had already offered to try to push it until he and Gabe could hitch it to his truck and tow it out, but by then time had been running short, and while I was no longer afraid to face my father, I also wasn’t in the mood to have him ruin a night that I would rather celebrate.
Even if I had already been living with Daniel for a little while, moving the rest of my belongings added an extra element of permanence to the situation. One that Daniel seemed equally as ready to start given that he was the one who suggested it in the first place, right in the middle of a movie while Tadeo was spending the evening out, and we were spending the night curled up on the couch.
I can’t remember now what the movie was, although I suppose I hadn’t really been watching in the first place.
The car lurches violently as Aarón shifts gears, the engine revving as he guns it down the final stretch and I look to Gabe for an explanation.
“Thought we would save you another covert mission,” he explains. “Eli, Aarón, and I fixed it up for you. And then we made Aarón drive it.”
When my eldest brother pulls into the driveway and gets out, he practically has to unfold himself from the small interior, hislong limbs extending out awkwardly while his expression remains deeply unamused.
“Thisgoddamncar is a—” Aarón starts once he’s fully upright, glaring accusingly back at the vehicle in question before preparing to launch into an oncoming tirade. However, his words stutter out when Gabe clears his throat. “—is sofunto drive,” Aarón says instead. “I can see why you love it.”
He stops again, still visibly annoyed, but his voice is full of real concern when he asks, “Hermanita, do you know how bad of shape this thing was in? What if it had broken down, and you’d been on your own? And what is so wrong with a Chevy? Do you know how hard it is to work on these damn things? I don’t like the idea of you driving it. It’s—”
I step forward and hug him, one quick squeeze. “Thank you for bringing it to me, hermano. That was very nice of you.”
He seems slightly stunned, but he’s smiling when I release him. “Oh, um, sure. You’re welcome.”
“He’s growing upsofast,” Gabe says, throwing an arm around my shoulders as he feigns tears.
Aarón’s short-lived smile gives way as he rolls his eyes, dropping the car keys in my outstretched hand and heading for Gabe’s truck bed. He lowers the gate and makes a grab for the large cooler, apparently unable to wait any longer to begin what is starting to become a Friday night tradition.
“You going to help me unload everything or are you going to keep being a smartass?”
Gabe is very quick to prove that it is possible to do both.
