Page 37 of Never Say Die
“You need, like, eighteen candles. You good? I don’t want you here if you’re spun out.”
“Fuck you,” he said, stepping into the house. Truthfully, a bump of coke would’ve made this situation entirely less awful. She snatched his hand and pulled him backward, hissingheythrough her teeth. He whipped around, met her eyes and stayed there, unblinking, before his top lip curled back. “See?” he snarled, “Totally sober.”
Camila flexed her jaw, nodding toward the kitchen. “Be nice, yeah? I don’t have time for your attitude today, it’s Mama’s birthday.”
“No promises.” He dipped through the archway on the leftand walked into the busy kitchen, crowded with extended family. “Hey Mama, feliz cumpleaños,” he said, laughing as Blanca Ramírez wrapped her arms around him. She smelled the same, like cinnamon, rosemary, and fabric softener. Silver streaked her widow’s peak, and the hot kitchen flushed her chestnut skin. Her smile thinned, dark eyes flicking from his slip-on Vans to the tunnels punched through his earlobes. Hands, small like his, felt across the shaved sides of his head. He offered an honest smile. “What’re we cookin’?”
“Oh, you know. Brisket, stuffed peppers, arroz, elote—the good stuff.” She paused, patting his cheek. “You look tired, mijo.”
He leaned into her palm. “I’m okay, Mama. Don’t worry about me.”
A sunny dress swept around her ankles, and her tightly woven braid, tied with one of Camila’s velvet scrunchies, flopped over her shoulder. She pointed to a pile of uncut avocados. “Help me with the guacamole.”
Aiden stood beside her, scooping green meat into the bowl, chopping cilantro and purple onion, squeezing limes and licking chili powder off his fingers. He kissed Silvia, his tía, on the cheek when she finally acknowledged him, and nodded to his tío, who sipped a beer at the table. Cousins and family friends swept through the house, bumping their knuckles against Aiden’s fist as they passed. No one mentioned the tour. No one asked about his luxury four-day-stay in rehab either. But he saw their eyes come and go. Recognized the judgmental tick of Silvia’s sculpted eyebrow when she glanced from Blanca to Aiden, assessing him like a cracked egg or an unsteady chair.
Familyhad become synonymous withcage. Something stable and enclosed. A thing to deadbolt and break open. His love for them stuck to his ribs, immovable and claustrophobic. Unleavable, too. Whenever he’d been told to go—get out of my house!Who do you think you are? I can’t do this. I won’t do this—he’d left until their absence needled him, and returned, sniffing at the door like a coyote, wondering if pain or relief had taken residence in his empty bedroom. He’d moved out for good at seventeen. Crashed with Shay for a while, started hormones, spent an assload of money on top surgery, made ends meet, rented his own place, grew thorns, and stubble, and a deeper, scratchier voice.
Camila and Blanca loved him, mostly. But they mourned him the same way they mourned his father. Like a man who had left one night, chasing unattainable dreams. Except Aiden had returned, changed and not, familiar and not, and David Ramírez hadn’t.
Unlike his deadbeat dad, Aiden Moore hadn’t tucked tail and disappeared. Regret be damned, he’d seized his body, his life, his name and his dreams by the fucking throat.
The screen door squeaked and clanked.
“Knock, knock.” Georgia rounded the corner. She made an appropriately giddy noise, as did Blanca, and rushed into the kitchen. “Happy Birthday, Mamacita! Oh my gosh, it smells so good in here.”
Blanca flapped her lips. “Mamacita? No, no, honey. I’m much too old for that. How are you, sweetheart?”
Family was overwhelming. A cage, yeah. A thing with roots, too. Wedging through cracks and crawling into friendships, latching around all the precious people he’d found outside that house. His family had become Georgia’s family, and Dylan’s family, and Shay’s family, and there was no undoing that. Aiden just hoped Knight’s Blood washisfamily first.
“I’m really good, yeah. Excited for the tour,” Georgia said.
The screen door opened again. Shay walked into the kitchen, carrying a puffy bouquet. Sunflowers, roses, baby’s breath, and lilies sprouted from the plastic-wrapped stems. Hesmiled, dressed in a collared shirt and fitted jeans, and kissed Blanca on the cheek.
“Good to see you, Blanca,” he said, breaking a sudden, merciless silence.
Aiden shot Georgia a furious glare and took out his phone.
Aiden Moore: NOT COOL.
Georgia Williams: He told me you knew!
Aiden Moore: he’s a lying liar
Georgia Williams: It’s probably better if we get this over sooner than later, right?
Aiden Moore: tell that to Cami
“Shay Bennett,” Blanca said, snipping his name like a pair of scissors. She glanced at Aiden. Shifted her gaze back to Shay. “I haven’t seen you in quite some time, mijo.”
“Yeah, the last year has been a, uh… a whirlwind, I guess.”
“Aiden, find a vase,” Blanca said.
Aiden lifted his brows, pinning Shay with a hard look.Careful, he said with his eyes.Her teeth are sharper than yours.He put his phone away and stood on his tiptoes, pawing through the cabinet above the fridge until he felt glass. Fingertips graced his lower back. Aiden stilled, heat brewing in his cheeks, as Shay reached over him and grabbed the dusty vase. He wanted to saydon’t touch me like that, he wanted to sayalways touch me like that.
Shay filled the vase at the sink, dipped each stem into fresh water, and set the bright bouquet in the window-shelf behind the faucet. The house let out a breath. Cousins whispered again. Silvia busied herself with the slow-cooker, sneaking glances and collecting gossip. The oven-timer beeped.
“They’re beautiful,” Blanca said. She eyed Shay suspiciously before flicking her wrist. “Go on, let us finish cooking.”
