“What are you thinking?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on. I know how you are. You tend to be impulsive and I want to see how I can talk you out of whatever new plan you’ve thought up.”
“What if I applied for a job at the coffee shop he owns?”
“How do you know that he owns a coffee shop?”
“Umm… I followed him around yesterday after our phone call.”
Brooke whistles. “Damn, girl. You’re breaking all kinds of laws now. First, you were a peeping tom, then you got accused of some good, old-fashioned breaking and entering, and now you’re stalking someone? Where was this rebellious streak when we were sixteen and I begged you to sneak out to Jack Gibson’s party with me?”
“I didn’t want to get kicked out of another home.”
“Yet now you’re on a path to a more permanent house. The big house, if you get me.”
I laugh. “Well, it’s done. I’m putting my illegal past behind me. I’m not that girl anymore.”
“Wow, you have a quick turnaround time for changing yourself.”
“Brooke…”
“Okay! God, you’re really serious lately. So back to you working at the coffee shop.”
I tap my foot against the ground. “How does that plan sound?”
“Awful. You don’t like coffee.”
“Well, working at a coffee shop doesn’t require ‘liking coffee’ as a prerequisite. All I have to do is sell it.”
“And make it.”
“That’s nothing YouTube can’t fix.”
Brooke giggles. “So I gather that you plan on staying there a lot longer than the original two weeks we planned.”
I bite my lip. “Yes. I can set up an ad for someone to sublease my apartment that way we’re not struggling to pay the rent while I’m gone.”
Brooke clucks her tongue. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I can find someone from school who needs a place to crash.”
“Thank you.”
“You can thank me by sharing all the dirty details of this adventure. I seriously can’t wait for future developments of how you try to sneak in your real identity while working for your dad.”
I sigh, pressing my head into the cool metal of the gate. I can’t remember the last time I second-guessed myself like this. And I’m not sure if I’m capable of achieving the one thing I always dreamed of.
A family to call my own.
9
Santiago
There are certain things I want to forget about my life. The first is what it felt like to walk with two normal legs. The second is the feeling of adrenaline pumping through my veins as I raced in a Prix. And the third is the way Chloe kissed me like she needed to resuscitate the damaged part of my heart I thought was long gone.
The third memory is the one that keeps troubling me no matter how busy I get taking care of Marko. It assaults me at the most inconvenient times. And it’s not like my nephew helps with my cause of trying to move past the kiss. He doesn’t stop talking about Chloe as he protects his castle, claiming he needs to wait for his princess.
It seems like she not only has my nephew enraptured but me as well. The woman is an enigma. Everything from the way lies flow past her lips about our “relationship” to how she shatters the preconceived notion I had about her finding me repulsive.
It’s not even the way she kissed me that has my brain going haywire. More like it’s everything that kiss meant to her and what she wanted to prove. Chloe challenged me and my idea of her being disgusted by me and my impairment. She took a gamble, and it worked. It worked so damn well, I respect her more because of it. In fact, I wish I could ask if she wants to repeat it under a different circumstance without my nephew nearby. But like the idiot I’ve been around Chloe, I realize I never got her number.
Instead of allowing disappointment to settle in my gut, I take the issue for what it is. A sign to not pursue her. Fate has a way of intervening in my life without my consent, and it’s about damn time I listened.
“Where’s my Monkey?” Maya calls out through the FaceTime call.
Marko giggles behind the couch.
Noah smiles into the camera. “I don’t know. I hear something that sounds like Marko, but maybe it’s someone else. Santiago, did you lose Marko?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. The tickle dragon might’ve eaten him.”
Marko’s giggles stop. He jumps up from behind the couch. “Boo!”
Maya gasps and Noah hoots for Marko like he achieved the biggest award.