Текст книги "Thirty Nights"

Автор книги: Ani Keating

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

“Teaching you chemistry?”

He shakes his head like he is arguing with a voice inside his head but his dimply smile is not listening.

“Almost there,” he says, taking an unmarked exit. There is only thick forest around as we start winding up the Cascades. The pressure of the ascent builds in my ears. He drives faster but there’s no anxiety in me now. Only exhilaration. Suddenly, we break through the forest onto an open field on the highest hilltop. The Rover comes to a screeching halt.

In the deafening silence, I press my nose against the window, squinting so I miss nothing. Moonlight floods the low grass, the soft rise of the peak, the contours of the craggy mountains above—turning them all silver. There is a soft glow some distance away, streaming between the sentinel trunks of ten or so evergreens.

Aiden rolls down the window. At first, I shiver. The winds are free up here. Then a sultry, floral scent stuns me. I sniff the air, trying to match it to any fragrance I know but cannot. It’s somewhere between gardenia, rose, coriander and brown sugar.

I turn to look at Aiden. He is facing me, his elbow propped on the steering wheel, his index finger pressing into his temple. There is a powerful emotion in his eyes, something I have no name for. His smile is soft. It hangs on his lips like the moonlight hangs on his lashes: enough to brighten them, but not enough to dim him. The tip of his middle finger brushes absentmindedly over his lower lip.

“Where are we?” I whisper.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Starry Skies

“I’ve never brought anyone here.” His voice is low, rough as though chafing against unspoken words.

Instantly, I know where we are. My pulse stutters, then starts throbbing, almost painfully. “This is your Alone Place!”

He smiles, eclipsing the moon, the hill and even the astonishing fragrance in the air. He looks so beautiful that I close my eyes. For only a few seconds. When I open them, his face is inches from mine. “I think you have wanted to see it since the Rose Garden.”

I nod, not exactly speechless. For once, the words are there but I’m having a tip-of-the-tongue moment. A stutter. Not in my pulse or in my brain, but somewhere deeper. So I kiss him hard, like the words I am searching for are in his mouth. He unbuckles my seat belt and rips me from my seat onto his lap. His fingers twist in my hair, pulling me close to him—so close that I feel his heartbeat against my corset.

He ends the kiss abruptly, holding my face in his hot hands. Then he smiles the full dimple-and-scar smile and reaches in the backseat, bringing out a soft cream blanket. He throws it over my shoulders.

“Come!” His voice is exhilarated.

We topple out and I clutch the blanket around me. Why did I need a dress and heels for this? Then again, we dress up for man-made affairs. Why shouldn’t we do the same for natural wonders?

“Look,” he says, pointing at the sky.

“Oh!” I gasp, gazing at the thousands of stars twinkling above us. Ursa Minor, Ursa Major, Draco, Cassiopeia—all closer, brighter.

“Of cloudless climes and starry skies,” he recites slowly.

“Oh!” I breathe again in understanding.

He scoops me in his arms easily—chuckling at my squeal—and starts heading to the edge of the cliff. I rest my head on his chest, listening to his strong heartbeat. It gallops in my ear just like mine. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

In fourteen heartbeats, he stops walking and sets me on my feet. “And now look here,” he says, turning me in his arms.

I follow his gaze…and scream. My own heart plummets in the ravenous depths below. We are at the start of a thin strip of land jutting out into the sky, nothing but air and stars around us.

“You’re okay,” he soothes, his arms tightening like steel around me. Then, he grins. “Hydrogen, 1.008. Helium, 4.003.”

A shaky laugh bursts from my lips.

“You’re not afraid of heights?”

“Not with you,” I say because right now, I’m afraid of nothing. Nothing except losing him.

He smiles. “Then welcome to my other home.”

He walks slowly onto the strip, holding me tight. He sits away from the edge, cocooning me in his arms and legs and the soft blanket. I grip his neck, tucking my head in his chest again. We stay like this an immeasurable moment. Minutes, maybe even hours. I try to commit everything to memory. For once, I don’t want to photograph even a blade of grass. This place seems so intimate that any eyes other than ours—even artificial camera eyes—would spoil it.

“What do you think about when you come here?” I say after a while.

“Everything. This is where Hale Holdings was born. Where most of my decisions are made. And since I saw your painting, I’ve thought only of you.”

I almost take off the edge and start flying. “Me?”

“Yes, you,” he whispers in my ear. I shiver.

“I’ve only thought of you too.” My face burns as I admit this out loud.

He doesn’t say anything. The silence makes me shiver in a different way so I start talking. “Do you come here often?”

“About twice a week.” He tears his eyes from the sky and looks at me. “Sometimes I sleep here.”

“S-sleep here?” I look at the little meadow behind us.

He nods. “The ground still feels more natural at times.”

I grip him closer, trying to repel the image of him on cold ground. “I like it better when you sleep next to me.”

His muscles flex around me. “That can’t happen again, Elisa,” he says in a low voice.

My heartbeat stops, then starts racing in terror. “What?” My voice trembles.

He cups my cheek. “I can’t take that risk. What if the next nightmare is not as mild?”

Mild? That was mild? “I don’t care. I want to fall asleep next to you…see your face when I wake up.” I shut my mouth because my voice is approaching near hysteria.

“If you wake up.” His voice is hard.

I need to move away from this. Right now. “What is that light behind the trees?”

His eyebrows arch in surprise at my sudden change in direction. Then he shakes his head and smiles. “Well, now, I’m glad you asked, Elisa. Come, let me show you.” He emphasizes the word as though it should mean something more.

He rises, pulling me up. I start to stumble in my heels but he picks me up and strides across the meadow toward the soft glow in the trees. A few more days with him and I bet walking will start feeling alien. Good riddance.

“How often do you work out?” I ask, fascinated by the fact that I can barely feel him move.

“About two hours a day. I’m a wimp by my gunny’s standards.”

I laugh at the ludicrousness of Aiden as a wimp. “How do you work out if you don’t like anyone sneaking behind you?”

“I have my own gym.”

See? Simple. “What was your rank by the way?”

“Lieutenant. Now, close your eyes,” he orders in a tone befitting his grade. I obey but open wide the rest of my senses. The stunning scent is getting stronger. Twigs crack under his quiet feet. He comes to a stop and I feel his lips press gently on my eyelids.

“Open,” he says.

I open my eyes. And they almost fly off my face. My breath whooshes out of me, sharper than the hilltop wind.

“Oh!” I gasp for the third time this evening.

We are on a small, round paddock, the evergreens surrounding us. In the center is a pergola tent. The white curtains are drawn but something glimmers and flickers behind them. I’m having another tip-of-the-tongue moment so I point at the tent, my finger tapping the air impatiently.

Aiden laughs, pulling me closer to his body. “Yes, ma’am,” he says, and starts marching with his infallible Marine step. At the tent, he sets me down and opens the curtains.

“After you,” he whispers in that way that means for you.

I step inside…and freeze. Even the “oh” that is singing in my brain stops on my lips. I watch the impossible sight, unable to blink or breathe. Flameless candles. A low sini table made of wood. Covered silver plates. Ivory silk pillows for chairs. A small polished dance floor. And everywhere else, from the table top to the clusters of crystal vases surrounding the floor, are hundreds upon hundreds of the rose I never thought I would see. Aeternum romantica.

“Oh my God!” I cover my mouth with my hand as hot tears brim over and roll down my cheeks. I walk to the closest roses in a trance. They are more beautiful than even in pictures. The large, cupped rosettes are open, an infinity of neatly clustered petals nestling within. They are the palest of apricot, their hearts deepening to copper and the edges fading to vintage pearl. And their scent!

I wipe my tears because they are blurring the sight and turn to look at Aiden. He is watching me with a vivid smile, his eyes the stillest blue.

“Aiden, this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Except you,” I breathe in awe, stumbling back to him.

“Hmm, I have to disagree.” He arches me to him. For a while, we are only kissing. A slow, potent kiss full of unsaid things. Then, he pulls away, his eyes blinking once or twice like shutters.

“Wherever did you find them?” I marvel, taking his hand and tiptoeing through the vases.

“They arrived from Nairobi late this afternoon.”

I stop, almost colliding with the table. “W-what?”

He chuckles. “Well, you were right. They really don’t grow anywhere else. I researched them after the Rose Garden.”

“B-b-but how did they get here?”

He laughs now. “In a private jet. Then in Benson’s Rover to here, with Cora’s help.”

“Bloody hell!” I shout.

He tenses, looking panicked. “What’s wrong?”

“Aiden, how much did this cost?” I’m still shouting.

“Ah, fuck,” he says but his shoulders relax. “You’re not going to do that now, are you?”

I look at the roses, the pillows, the Baci on the table. He is right. “No, not right now. I’ll yell at you later. And don’t say fuck around the roses.”

He laughs his rare waterfall laughter. I throw myself at him.

“Thank you,” I say, hating the words for their inadequacy. That tip-of-the-tongue feeling tickles my mouth again. “I love, love, love every part of this,” I mumble, looking up at him.

A deep V forms between his eyebrows. His Adam’s apple rolls once, as though he swallowed hard. The tectonic plates shift, then still again. For a moment, I’m terrified that this is the end. That this is his send-off gift to me.

But he reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a tiny silver remote. A song I know—one of my favorites—floods the tent. “Amado Mio”, by Pink Martini. It’s flowing from a wireless set of speakers in the corner that I had apparently missed in my astonishment.

“May I have this dance?” he asks, holding his hand out to me.

“You tango?” I squeal. Bloody hell, I’m melting. Inert gases have more substance than I do right now.

My favorite dimple puckers on his cheek. “Since this afternoon.”

“You learned tango…in one afternoon?” Where is my jaw? It was here somewhere, around the Aeternum.

He chuckles at my incredulous expression. “In the ninety-two minutes it took you to get ready, to be precise.”

When I open and close my mouth a few times, unable to produce sound, he smiles, tapping his temple. “There are some benefits to this beast and YouTube.”

I blink and close my mouth. “That’s just…just…” Brilliant? Stunning? No, I can only think of one word. “That’s just Aiden.”

His chuckle becomes a true laugh as he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me into a close embrace. He starts moving. At first a slow cadencia, then the caminada, his long legs parting mine. Aiden leads in his dominant, protective way, but the real change is in me. For the first time in my life, tango does for me what tango does for women. I am not a daughter. I am not a sister. I am not a friend. I am a woman. Aiden’s woman. My leg hooks and wraps around his with a new confidence, sultry, feminine and powerful. I watch our entwined shadows on the tent’s curtains, looking very much like Mum and Dad’s when they danced. Yet, in this moment, I’m discovering a new bliss that belongs to me alone. Not to ghosts, and not to memories.

I bury my face in his chest, inhaling the Aiden-and-Aeternum scent.

“Are you going to distill the fragrance?” he asks, his thigh pressing between mine.

“You already have it bottled,” I mumble, embarrassed to be caught sniffing.

He chuckles. “I meant the roses, but it’s good to know I don’t smell the way I did after training with my gunny.”

I blush enough to turn the roses red. “Oh! Umm, yes. They’re perfume grade—that’s why I like them. Only six varieties out of five hundred meet that threshold. Plus, they promote fair trade in Kenya and support the wildlife there.”

He slows down to cadencia. “Responsible even about the type of rose you like but not about the kind of man you give yourself to.”

My fingers clutch his arm and neck. “Not now, Aiden.” Not ever, in fact.

He kisses my hair. I shiver because I sense that he is simply waiting. Biding his time to end this.

“Why did you do all this?” I ask to distract myself and him. “I love it but I would have been happy here with just hot chocolate and you.”

I start the ochos but he stops. He watches me with that unnamed emotion again, the V between his eyebrows deepening. He lowers our intertwined hands.

“You asked me today to show you what it would be like to be with me,” he starts in an even voice.

Blood drains from my face as he confirms my worst fear: this lovely evening was simply a means to an end.

“Please, don’t!” The words whoosh from my mouth like a final breath. I try, really, really try to fight the tears brimming in my eyes. How can he take all this away? All this life teeming inside me, it will go dark if he is not around. And the calmness I give him, that will go away, too.

“Elisa, look around you,” he says. “What do you see?”

“The most beautiful night of my life,” I answer with no hesitation.

He nods as though that’s the answer he expected. “That’s what I hoped it would be. But, baby, this here—this is the best that it would ever get for us.”

I frown, trying to see where he is leading me. “If this is the best, you’re failing miserably at showing me why I shouldn’t be with you.”

He shakes his head. “No, I’m not. I can do all this for you. Ship roses across the world, buy you dresses that no one but me will see, rent bookstores for you. But that’s all I can give.”

I open my mouth to protest but he clamps his hand on it gently. His fingers are cold.

“Listen, please. At the end of each night, no matter how beautiful I make it, you will sleep alone and it will hurt more because the evening was so perfect. And during the days, you will be torn in half, choosing between your family and me. It will be graduation parties and holidays and birthdays first. Then gradually, you will get sucked in my world, camping here on this hilltop with me. I cannot give you your own family. I won’t give you children just so that Daddy can break them by accident. One by one, you will lose everything. And this is the best scenario, if I don’t hurt you first. I cannot give up my structure, Elisa, and I refuse to buy you life just so that I can steal it.”

His eyes are focused, determined. His hand presses firmly on my mouth but for once, he does not need to silence me. I am stunned on my own. The world has gone strangely blank. No Pink Martini, no wind. Even the scent of Aeternum has faded. The ice from his hand spreads to the rest of me and I shudder.

It may seem odd that none of his warnings about physical danger have deterred me, yet this image of isolation finally breaks through. But when I think about it, it really is not odd for a girl like me. There is nothing injury or death can give me that I have not survived, and even craved before. But losing the only semblance of a family—losing my second chance—how can I go through that again?

Of its own volition, the silver heel of a Louboutin slides back a step. Away from him. He closes his eyes and removes his hand. Maybe he saw the change in me or maybe he is having a change of his own. Whatever it is, I need to think. I turn away from him and run out of the tent.

The wind whips my hair on my face as I try to calm my breathing. I look at his Alone Place. Can I be with him on these terms? And what happens if I do? I will lose the Solises, Reagan, new friends I have not yet met, and in the end, even him. No! I should go. I should leave right now.

I try with all my strength to take a step forward on the hilltop. My muscles recoil from the idea. The world goes blank again as if my senses register Aiden’s impending absence and refuse to acknowledge anything else but him. All I can see in the dark night is a beautiful, tormented man who has moved roses across continents for me, who has brought me to life in every sense of the word. My heels sink in the grass. I can’t leave. I have to at least try. Maybe if he allows himself some normal, happy memories, they will balance out the bad ones, and with time, replace them.

I take a shuddering breath and enter the tent. He has not moved an inch—his face still grave. I stride across the dance floor to him, surprised my knees can support me.

“Should I drive you home?” he asks, his voice almost hoarse.

I take his hand. “Not tonight. I want to find out on my own.”

His lips press in a thin line and he closes his eyes.

“I learn by trying, not by telling, Aiden.”

When he opens his eyes, they start lightening to turquoise. His lips lift into a defeated smile.

“Scientist through and through.”

“A major genetic flaw, according to my mum.”

“So where does that leave us?”

I lock my fingers with his. “I believe you called it a ceasefire.” I reach on my tiptoes to kiss his scar.

He sighs, whether in pleasure or frustration I don’t know. And for now, I don’t want to find out. I trail kisses along his tense jaw to the corner of his mouth.

“Kiss me,” I say.

He truly smiles now. “One temporary victory and you’re already giving me orders?”

“Yes.” I fist my hands in his hair, pulling him close. “Now, no more talking from you tonight unless it’s dirty!”

That’s it for Aiden. His mouth parts for a full Pink Martini stanza. Then his eyes darken and he pulls me roughly to him. With a groan like surrender, his mouth is on mine. His tongue and lips start a deadly tango of their own. He grips my face so tightly that I feel his strength down to my bones.

“You want dirty, Elisa, but I can’t say fuck around the roses,” he says between kisses. “So now, you’ve made this harder on yourself.”

In my pounding ears, I register Pink Martini singing about whispering amado mio. Maybe it’s the song or Aiden’s tongue tip tracing my lips but the last vestiges of my brain resolve the stutter and go up in flames. And just like that, I know the words that have been taunting me since I first saw this place.

I grip his face and kiss him with all their power because I cannot say them out loud. But with every stroke of my tongue, my mind says, I love you. I love you. I love you.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Work of Art

One week has passed. It felt like a day…and like a lifetime. It felt like a day because no matter how many hours I have with Aiden, they fly too fast. It felt like a lifetime because I’ve never lived more than I am living now.

“You shouldn’t look so stunning. It will attract police attention,” Aiden says, caging me in his arms as Benson hauls me to my graduation party. We’ve discovered that if Aiden holds me in the car, his customary traffic tension eases a fraction.

“You don’t mind that I’m wearing my mum’s dress?” I ask, fluffing the sea gray skirt.

“Elisa, wear whatever makes you smile like this. And in any event, I think your mother should be at this party.”

As should you.

I stare out of the window to distract myself from the void that flares in my chest every time things like work or sleep pull us apart. Hydrogen, oxygen, radium—I race through them as I watch the world go by. In the opposite direction of Casa Solis.

“Umm, Aiden, I think we’re going the wrong way. Casa Solis is in North Portland.”

He gives me a dimply smile. “You’re not going to Casa Solis, Elisa.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Benson smiles in the mirror too, but my pulse starts racing in terror. Last time Aiden planned a surprise, he was trying to expel me from his life. Nothing has changed in that department—we’re still on ceasefire.

He kisses my temple. “Not that kind of surprise.”

I deflate and slump in his arms. “Do the Solises and Reagan know?”

“Yes, they’re waiting for you—your roommate not at all graciously, I might add.”

“Don’t worry about Reagan. She’s just protective. She’ll come around.” I kiss his scar, and watch every turn Benson makes. We seem to be going toward Portland State University.

At last, the Rover stops smoothly in front of—I cannot believe it—the Portland Art Museum! On the curb is a white sign:

ELISA’S GRADUATION PARTY

THE ENGLISH SILVER GALLERY

BELLUSCHI BUILDING

My hand flies to my mouth as though to stop my jaw from zipping out of the window and landing next to Monet’s Waterlilies.

“You rented the whole museum?” I whisper through my fingers, half-horrified, half-awed. From my peripheral vision, I register Benson getting out of the car.

“No, not all of it. Just one gallery, which as we know, is an improvement for me.”

I meet his calm eyes. What’s the point of arguing with dreams? “Yes, it is,” I say. “And beautiful. And hideously expens—”

He presses his index finger to my lips, shaking his head. “Please don’t make this a money issue. I want it to be everything you want.”

His voice is so soft that it lingers on my skin much like his touch. But how can this party be everything I want when everything I want is here in this car with me and will not come inside?

“Won’t you come?” The words burst from my mouth.

He straightens immediately and drops his hand from my lips, all tenderness gone from his eyes. “Not this again.”

“But what if we just sit in the corner and make out the whole time? No one will dare come near us.”

He shakes his head, not finding my joke funny. “No.”

He holds my eyes with the forceful glare I have come to know well. I cannot argue with him. And if I do, he will become convinced that he is depriving me of major life moments and try to leave again.

I nod, forcing a smile on my face. “Right, safety first. I understand, Lieutenant.” I try to execute a Marine salute but my hand just plops to the side.

He watches me for a long moment and then his glare relents. “Good. Now, do you have all your presents for your family?”

“Yes, all wrapped in turquoise and ready to go.”

He smiles. “Turquoise? Interesting choice.”

Unable to resist his smile, I grin too. “My new favorite color. Do you want to see your present?” My voice cracks a little when I think of what I’m about to do.

“My present?” He frowns as though he does not think he deserves a present.

“Yes. And before you argue, you’ve been giving me a new Margolis outfit every day. Now it’s my turn.”

The dimple puckers in his weekend stubble. “Yes, ma’am.”

I dig inside my purse for the purple-and-turquoise box. When I find it, I hold it one last time, my fingers clutching it tightly.

“Here,” I say, giving it to him with both hands. It has a dried Aeternum taped on top. The rest of the roses are in the cooler in the chemistry building undergoing geraniol extraction.

He takes the box with a boyish grin.

“I’m not sure when was the last time I got a present,” he says. “Actually, I do know. January eighth, at 1:34 p.m. A bottle of Balvenie from Benson.”

I laugh, the sound quivering with emotion. “Belated Christmas present?”

“Yes. Even though I’ve told him twenty-four times not to get me anything.”

He tucks the Aeternum in the breast pocket of his shirt, and starts unwrapping the paper. But when he takes out the double frame, the box drops from his hand and his mouth pops open.

I follow his gaze even though I know what he is seeing. On one side is a photo of his home and on the other, my one-way ticket to America the day he bought his house. I would have never parted with this ticket but ever since I met him, it seems I came here for him alone.

He looks at me with a strong emotion on his face, the one without name that I saw at his Alone Place.

“Is this the real ticket?” he asks, his voice low.

I nod, swallowing so that tears don’t rise to my eyes.

He looks at it again even though I know he has memorized it. His Adam’s apple rolls once in his lovely throat. “Why are you giving it to me?”

In a way, giving Aiden anything that belongs in a frame is silly. But this is not a picture—it’s a connection.

“Because this whole journey was worth it just to meet you. Even if it is only now.”

He leans in and kisses my temple. “Thank you.” His voice is new, humbled.

I smile. “You’re welcome. And now, you have a frame!”

He chuckles. “So I do. I think I’ll put it on my desk in the library. It will shock the hell out of Cora and Benson.”

I almost float like a helium balloon. I love you, I love you, I love you. I snap a picture of the moment lest the words break through my locked teeth.

He rests the frame on his knee and strokes my cheek. “You didn’t get a single present for yourself, Elisa.”

I shrug. “They didn’t have what I wanted.”

The V breaks between his eyebrows and his jaw flexes, probably plotting the demise of all Portland retailers who failed me in such a manner. “What did you want?”

I climb on his lap, wrapping my arms around him.

“Sleep with me tonight,” I say, trying not to let the sharp ache of his absence enter my voice. Every night since the hilltop, Aiden waits for me to pass out—usually a matter of seconds after his sexcapades—and then goes to sleep in the guest room down the hall.

He pries my hands from his neck immediately. “No, Elisa. We discussed this.” His voice is unyielding.

“Please?” My neuropsychology professor was wrong when he told us we lack awareness in deep sleep. I miss Aiden from the second I close my eyes to the moment I open them. I know his absence in the cold bed that doesn’t warm up no matter how many blankets he throws on me, in the goose bumps that don’t go away despite Margolis’s finest silk, in the dreams that are always a shade of turquoise.

His jaw flexes. “It’s not—worth—the risk.”

“But I won’t touch you at all, I promise.”

“Please, stop!”

He closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. When he opens them again, he cups my face gently.

“Elisa, baby, don’t you think I want to sleep next to you? Do you think I don’t see how you clutch my pillow when you sleep? I spend hours watching you at night.”

“You do?”

He smiles. “Of course, I do, you silly, beautiful, reckless woman.”

I smile, too, fighting some rather ludicrous tears. I love you. “Maybe I need an exact replica of you, like an Aiden-bear?”

“That sounds horrific.” He pretends to shudder but kisses me, his lips soft, his tongue angry. I fist my hands in his hair, not caring at all that we are in a public street with Benson right outside the window. I’d probably lose all sense of British modesty and do a lot more but he pulls away with a chuckle.

“If you keep this up, we’ll end up arrested and that would endanger your green card.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” I say, aware of my pout. “I can’t wait to be free of these stupid public decency restrictions.”

He laughs his waterfall laughter. “Tonight,” he promises, pinching my chin.

Tonight is too far away. I start kissing him again but Benson decides that this is the moment to knock on our window. I look out and see Javier skipping down the museum stairs.

The change in Aiden is instant. The tension snaps back around his shoulders, and I see that flicker of anger in his eyes as his memory retrieves his first reaction to Javier. But he leashes it back, the plates shifting until they find their natural, guarded spot.

“Good job,” I say, kissing his cheek.

He nods once, no humor on his face. We get out of the car, Aiden keeping his back firmly against the Rover. Benson steps forward, taking his permanent spot to Aiden’s right.

Javier crosses the street and jogs to us. He is wearing the same shiny shoes, dark jeans and blue shirt that he wore for the painting session.

“Hey, girl of the hour!” He ruffles my hair, giving me a tight hug. I hug him back awkwardly because Aiden is holding my other hand, not at all gently.

“Mr. Hale, good to see you again,” Javier says politely, extending his hand.

“Mr. Solis,” Aiden responds in his most even tone, releasing my hand and shaking Javier’s.

“It was really good of you to help us out. We’d have been fine with carnitas but Isa will like this more.” Javier smiles, tilting his head to me. There is a strange tightness in his smile.

“My pleasure,” Aiden says. Javier nods, looking back at me with that same smile. He arches his brows once and glances at his shoes. He looks almost self-conscious.

“Well, I, for one, hope Maria’s carnitas are there,” I say in case this is a reaction to Aiden’s wealth, much like my own. “Otherwise, I’m not even coming in.”

Aiden and Javier both smile, Aiden politely, Javier awkwardly. Javier recovers first. “Well, Mr. Hale, come on in, try the carnitas for yourself. Isa, let’s go. The girls are in a tizzy.”

I look at Aiden. His face is hard steel, his shoulders radiating thermonuclear tension.

“Umm, Javier, actually, it’s going to be just me. Aiden has to work…something came up with one of his Tokyo deals…time difference and all.” I try to keep my voice as even as possible but inside I feel like fermenting sulfur—smelly and slightly toxic. I hate lying to Javier.

His eyebrows knit together—one big, bushy painting brush. He stands straighter. My palms start sweating as I recognize his big-brother stance. It’s the same one he adopts when he hears about someone bullying Bel at school.

He frowns at Aiden. “But this is her party! You’re the big boss, you can’t change things around so you can come? She’s worked really hard for this.”

Aiden’s jaw locks, the snap of his teeth almost audible. His eyes darken with fury and narrow at the corners. Did Javier notice the clenched fists?

“No, I cannot change my prior commitments, Mr. Solis.” His voice is glacial. “I trust that she will be in good hands with you,” he adds, commanding—not asking.

Javier moves a step close to me. “She’s been in good hands with us for four years, Mr. Hale,” he says, both like a promise and a rebuff.