Page 44 of Indulging Temptation (Tempting the Heart #1)

“Lorena,” he says my name like it’s a preamble to a speech.

“Stop.” I cut him off, trying to ignore how much I love how he towers over me, consuming me with his presence. A presence that I miss when it’s not around me. A presence that I can’t seem to get out of my mind…or want to.

I lean forward just enough that I can fish my hand in his back pocket where I know he keeps his pre-roll case. Though today he has his vape on him instead.

“Take one hit. That’s it. Just to calm your nerves.

” I wave the vape pen in his face, and he takes it without question, bringing it to his lips.

He sucks in a long hit that would be the equivalent to two, maybe three hits, for me.

If he didn’t have such a high tolerance for weed, I’d stop him, but as his eyes draw closed, and relief starts softening his shoulders, I can tell I made the right decision.

Smoke filters between us as he hands me the vape.

“Here.”

“No, thanks.” I put out a hand between us, but he shakes his head.

“I mean, hold onto it for me.”

“Oh, sure.” I squeeze it in my palm, now feeling the unease transferring onto me. Pushing that aside, needing to focus all my efforts on Tino, I ignore my feelings. “Feel better?”

“I wish,” he huffs out, and all the tension that broke from him begins to pile up high, with shoulders stiffening and jawline tightening. “I should’ve texted you instead of disappearing.”

“It’s okay,” I begin to say, though Tino grows more agitated, tossing his hand up to stop me.

“No, it’s not okay. It’s not okay that I let you down again.

It’s not okay that I wasn’t able to make good on my promise and worship every inch of you.

” His voice cracks slightly at that last part, and without him elaborating, I can feel the preemptive weight of what he’s about to say pour onto me.

“Nothing is ever okay when it involves him .” The pure venom in his voice saying that last part, let’s me already know who he is likely referring to.

He lets out a constricted breath and reaches for the vape in my hand, sucking in another hit.

“Nothing is ever okay when it comes to my dad. He’s a fucking disease of a human, I swear to god.

” He shakes his head, blowing smoke into the air.

“For so fucking long I wish he’d change.

That he’d snap out of it, and put the bottle down, and quit drinking and making fucked up decisions, so he could be a dad to me and Dante.

” He pauses, as his chest expands, bracing himself to continue.

“And Emilio when he was still around. But he never changed. Not for the good. He only changed for the worse. Yet, even as his punching bag, I took every blow, physically and emotionally, hoping that maybe, if he let all his pain and anger out, he could move past it.”

A dry, smug chuckle erupts from him. “Clearly, I was. No, I am, delusional because that never happened, and yet when something happens and he finds himself in trouble, or in the hospital, I conveniently forget it, and run to him.” His head falls and a long, broken sigh falls from his lips.

“I run, Lorena. I run to him with open arms he doesn’t deserve.

Like an idiot, I run to the man, who ran away from me .

Fuck,” he gasps, taking another hit from his vape, closing his eyes this time as he does.

To say that Tino has a complicated relationship with his dad would be an understatement.

After their mom passed, their dad slipped into a depression that, after losing someone close to me I can understand, but it changed him so much, he forgot he was a father.

From what Tomás has told me, since it’s a sensitive topic that Tino and Dante don’t like to discuss, their dad would disappear for days, going off on drunk benders, leaving them to fend for themselves.

And when he was home, he would verbally and physically lash out at them.

My heart breaks for Tino just thinking about it.

I take the vape from him again and I rub his arm to comfort him. “It’s not that you forget. It’s that you cling onto what you remember, before things got bad. It means you have a big heart, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes having a big heart means that we bear the brunt of more pain, because that’s all that man has ever caused me.

Pain. Years worth of it. I hate him so much.

I hate him for changing and for what he’s become.

And I hate that even though I’m aware that he’ll never change back to the dad I knew, and at one time admired, I still have a soft spot for him.

I can’t stand that when Dante called me to tell me he was in the hospital, I conveniently forgot the abandonment and the beatings that came before it.

I pushed aside all the times when he would call me drunk off his ass to tell me that he saw me on TV, saying he was proud of me, only to give me a sob story that ended in me writing him a check.

It’s pathetic. I literally ruined my evening with you to go see him, like a fucking asshole.

And the worst part, when I got to the hospital, and he finally woke up, the first fucking thing he asked was if I was paying for his hospital bill like any good son would. ”

My heart breaks for Tino. Seeing the anger he holds for his dad, already knowing it, but hearing it for myself and witnessing the way it makes his entire body clench up with hurt, is unbearable.

I know what it’s like to lose a parent. I, too, had to witness my mom lose parts of herself throughout the grieving process, as she struggled to adapt to a new normal.

But what Tino and his brothers went through?

Having their dad become so wrapped up in his loss that he essentially made them lose another parent, it’s unfathomable.

Especially when the scars of his father’s betrayal run deep.

If anything, the more time that passes has the wounds exposed and open, with no clear way of truly healing.

Still rubbing his arm, he shifts slightly, reaching for the gold chain he always wears.

Usually he keeps it tucked beneath the neckline of whatever shirt he’s wearing, so it isn’t noticeable.

A small chili pepper looking charm becomes visible as he rubs it in his palm.

With each stroke of his thumb gliding back and forth on it, it seems to bring him a sense of comfort.

“You know what’s fucking crazy? This was his.

He always wore it. It was my grandfather’s, his dad’s, it was given to him when my papa died.

He never took it off once he received it.

Everyday he’d wake up and grab a cup of coffee and like clockwork before he’d have his first sip and he’d hold the cornicello in his hand and kiss it, looking up at the ceiling, muttering to god, or who fucking ever he thought he was talking to, saying thank you for another day. ”

“What’s a cornicello?”

“People call it the Italian horn, but the proper term is a cornicello. It’s supposed to bring good luck, protection, and able to ward off evil.” He scoffs. “Too bad it didn’t deter whatever evil infected him. Sorry motherfucker he is.”

“I see. So how did you get it?” The question slips my lips faster than I could process if I really should be asking such a question, especially since I can see the clock straight ahead on the other wall, and we are running out of time.

“It fell off him the last time he got arrested before we put him in the rehab facility that he’s been at for what feels like forever now.

I delayed calling after I told my brothers I would.

I thought, maybe he’d change. Maybe we’d be able to have one parent home with us.

But he got so drunk one night, when they visited home.

He was absolutely out of control. He was ripping pictures off the goddamn walls, throwing them and screaming.

Dante tried to get him under control, but the neighbors could hear the commotion and fed up with his outbursts, they called the cops.

It didn’t help that Dante had a black eye from where he punched him.

When he was carried off in the squad car, I saw it on the ground.

Neither of my brothers wanted it, so I took it.

Out of respect to my grandfather’s memory, but also, in some weird, twisted way, as a reminder to not be like him, while also holding onto what he was.

Fuck this,” Tino yelps out. “I can’t. I should’ve called you this morning and told you to cancel.

I can’t cook like this. I can barely fucking think straight. ”

He’s right. He can’t cook like this. I need to do something, and fast, to get him to be able to leave all that he confided in me, here, in this room, and get out there and do what we came here for him to do.

I don’t know if it’s the fact that he opened up to me, or that we’re finally alone, but an idea sparks as to what I can do that to help him, and if I’m being honest, will help myself too.

He’s still rambling on a bit, but I cut him off, abruptly.

“Stop!” I shout.

He looks at me a bit surprised. “Sorry, I know that was a lot.”

“No, it wasn’t. I didn’t mean it like that. Thank you, by the way.”

Now I’m the one rambling.

“For what? Trauma dumping?”

“No, I know that was a lot for you to go through, and it means a lot that you felt comfortable telling me.”

“Of course, I mean, you’re my…” He stops himself, not sure how to label what I am to him. All the titles I have, publicist, best friend’s sister, roommate, friend, fuck buddy, cloud my mind, confusing me as I’m sure they are him. “Anyway, you know what I mean.”

I nod my head, moving forward. He keeps his eyes on mine for a second, before trailing them down my body.

I don’t tell him what to do, but he picks up on my body language.

Every step I take forward, he takes one step back until he’s back on the chair he was sitting on by the vanity, and I’m on my knees.

“Lorena,” he breathes, “what are you…”