Page 18 of The Crush
“Well, are you taking the vitamins I gave you?” she asks, wandering away to check the oven for the tenth time in as many minutes. “You need to take one every morning.”
“I’m not sure a vitamin will—”
“Muñequita.” My father picks that moment to stride into the kitchen, grabbing the plate of raw steaks from the counter that he then hands off to Aarón behind him. “Listen to your mamá.”
Typical.If she had told me to stand on my head for an hour, he would say the same thing, and I briefly contemplate pointing that out before I hear the doorbell ring.
“I got it!” Gabe’s voice calls through the house, and I wait through the sound of the opening door for Tadeo’s familiar baritone. Holding my breath until…
“Good to see you, Gabe.”
Danny. He actually came.
“The prodigal son returns,” Aarón mutters, rolling his eyes and walking off rather than going down to greet them. Something he receives zero criticism for while my mother taps her foot at me from the kitchen archway.
“Mija, are you coming?”
It’s a dinner, I remind myself as I fidget with the hem of my pastel dress and follow her.How bad can it be?
Apparently that depends on who you ask. As usual, my father dominates the conversation through most of the meal, talking about everything from terrible livestock prices to disastrous weather to how badly Clinton is already screwing things up.
For his part, Tadeo keeps pace with him, his counterpoints always seeming to underline my father’s inability to take things in stride. If Tadeo is the calm in the storm then my father is the hurricane gales, and I often wonder if they would have even become friends if their wives hadn’t been so close.
As for Daniel, he somehow managed to snag the seat next to me in the chaos of eight people descending on the dinner table and is now half listening to the conversation, occasionally throwing out a sardonic comment when he can’t seem to help himself any longer.
The rest of his attention, however, is focused elsewhere. Under the table, what started as a covert brush of fingers on the inside of my palm has now evolved to the inside of my thigh.
I’m trying not to squirm, to broadcast, even to him, that I’m turned on out of my mind. However, when his fingers drift a little higher, I note the exact moment when he realizes that where heshould be grazing the edge of my underwear, there is in fact more skin.
I may not have figured out how to secretly go shopping yet, but another idea had occurred to me in the meantime.
Daniel suddenly seems to have trouble chewing his food, his eyes dark when he risks a quick glance my way to confirm. I smile sweetly at him.
“You okay, Danny?” my mother asks from the other side of the table. “Do you need some water?”
“No,” he replies, sounding a little hoarse and taking a few long pulls from his beer.
“Mija, get Danny some water.” I start to rise before Daniel’s hand grips my thigh, either unwilling or unable to let go.
“No, no, I’m fine,” Daniel assures her. “Just so good—thefoodis so good.”
My mother beams at him. “Well, you and Tadeo will have to take some home.”
“That would be lovely. Thank you,” Tadeo responds, thumping Daniel on the back from his other side and smiling before he turns back to my father. “You know Jack is thinking of running in the next election for mayor? He told me when I ran into him at the feed store.”
“Thatidiot?” my father exclaims. “I’d never vote for him in a million years.”
After everyone has eaten and my mother has at last given up on getting Daniel to take a third helping, everyone files out back for a bonfire. Everyone except me, who, as expected, stays inside to clean up the massive amount of cookware and plates left behind.
Eager to get outside as soon as possible, I scrub at a frantic pace until I hear the back door reopen and a purposeful stride I recognize move down the hall.
“What?” I ask when I see Daniel appear in the doorway. “Did something happen?”
He nods before crossing to me, calmly takes the brush out of my hands, pulls off my gloves, and then tugs me behind him by the hand down the hall.
“Danny, what happened?” I ask again, but his only answer is to nudge me into the guest bathroom and shut us both inside before he finally turns to me.
“Whathappenedis you didn’t wear a damn thing under that dress, did you, Isabel?”
