Page 31

CHAPTER 31

MIRIAM

Even before we pull up to my papá’s house, I know Richard is staying the night. There’s no way I could force him to leave. The roads grew so bad that we had to drop our speed down within the first half of the drive, which turned the drive into over two and a half hours. Sitting next to him as we idle in the driveway, we both stare at the small house I grew up in.

“You should come in,” I murmur, and he jerks his head toward me.

“You don’t need to do that. I’ll be fine getting back.” He and I both know he’s full of shit.

Giving him a look so he knows I don’t buy it, I turn toward him. “Don’t be stubborn. I wasn’t when I accepted the ride. It’d be stupid to go back out into that mess and you’ll end up spending the night in a ditch.” Turning to face the house, I add, “It doesn’t look like much, but it’s better than sleeping in your car waiting to get towed.”

Giving in, he nods and shuts off the engine. “Well, thank you. I’ll do my best to stay out of the way.”

A laugh bursts out of me. “Yeah, that won’t happen. They’re all going to be on you the moment you step inside with lots and lots of questions.”

His lip curls up in a half smile. “Who’s they, again?”

Holding up my fist, I lift a finger as I name all of my brothers from oldest to youngest. “We’ve got Cristián, Alejandro, César, Lorenzo, and little Damián. Then,” I say with great dramatic effect and lift my other hand with two more fingers up, “there’s my papá and Tito, aka Lucifer, the cat born in the pits of hell. You’ll love him.”

“Good God, woman. It has to smell like a locker room in there!”

Laughing, I get out after cheerfully saying, “It does! Careful on the driveway. They never remember to lay salt.”

With a curse, he jumps out and rushes to my side. “Christ, Miriam. At least wait so I can make sure you don’t fall.” It’s perfectly scripted when he slips the moment he says fall and whips his arm out to catch himself on the hood of his car.

I press my lips together to stifle my laugh, watching the always perfectly put together man stumble. Reaching out, I grab his hand, but he moves at the same time and we bump into each other. This time, we both go down.

He doesn’t reach for the car again, choosing to wrap an arm around me to tug me over him and buffer my fall. Landing on his chest, my breath comes out in a whoosh and I stare dumbly at his face. Who’d have known Richard could be so caring?

“Are you okay?” he rushes to ask, cupping my cheek and running his gaze over my face. Pushing me up, he glances down my body to check my stomach. “The baby.”

Patting his chest, I pull away and find my feet, brushing off the snow as I find it. “Totally fine. I’ve got lots of padding and my jacket. Turn around, your whole back is covered.”

He obliges and turns. I quickly brush off the freshly fallen snow from his, I assume, fairly expensive coat. “There. Okay, you ready to go in?”

“Not really, but I’d rather you not fall again. Are you sure you didn’t land on your stomach? The roads aren’t too bad. I can run you to the clinic to get checked out.”

Waving him off, I let him put his arm around my waist as we head to the side door. “I’m okay. Also, just so you’re prepared, they’re terrible with upkeep and cleaning. It’s probably a mess in there, so I’m apologizing ahead of time.”

“I don’t care about that,” he says just as I yank the door open. Bracing it with a hand, he stops it from swinging back into us when the wind catches it, leaving me to walk in first.

A blast of warm air hits my cheeks just before my baby brother comes flying toward us. “ Hermana !” he screeches, running full throttle toward us.

Richard’s arm flies out to stop him just before he slams into me. “Careful there, buddy.” He’s gentle in his scolding, and I bite my lip when Damián glares at him with the most vicious look he can muster.

“Who the hell are you, mister?”

“Damián! Dios mio . You’ve got to stop with the language!” We both take off our coats and hang them on the overloaded hooks, then slip off our shoes. The entryway is small, so we dance around each other, trying to give the other one space, but it’s practically impossible with Damián standing in the middle spinning around to keep Richard in his line of sight.

“ Hermana , who’s he?” Damián asks again, pointing a sticky finger at Richard.

Holding out a hand, Damián reluctantly takes it. “I’m Richard, a friend of your sister. You okay with me hanging out for a bit?”

“Not really,” my brother says, unapologetically. I laugh when our unexpected guest raises his eyes to me in question.

“He hasn’t been tamed yet. Come on inside, I’ll introduce you to papá .” He follows with Damián trailing behind. I catch sight of the kitchen and shudder, then lead us to the living room where I can hear the TV blaring. When we walk in, every eye in the room turns to us.

“Miri, uhh…” Cristián starts, then trails off. No one is smiling and I feel sort of bad for Richard. My family isn’t rude per se, but they’re protective and we normally don’t have people over because of how small the space is and there are already a lot of bodies.

My dad turns down the TV and stands up, wiping his hands on his pant legs. “So, this is my friend,” I choke over the word friend, which has Richard raising a brow. “Richard. My friend Richard. He gave me a ride because of the weather, but it hit early, so he’s going to stay the night.”

Clearing his throat, Richard offers a hand to my dad, who takes it tentatively, throwing me a questioning look. “Nice to meet you, Richard. I’m Rolando.” Releasing his hand quickly, he scratches the back of his head. “Where we gonna put him up? Not that we mind,” he quickly adds, realizing he sounded rude.

Shit. I hadn’t even thought of that. Quickly deciding I’ll just sleep on the couch, I say, “He can have the futon in the guest room.”

“But where—” Lorenzo starts up, but I cut him off.

“The guest room will work out great. Richard, these are my brothers.” Pointing them out one by one, I name them and he shakes each one of their hands in turn.

Glancing back toward the kitchen, I ask my papá from the side of my mouth, “What’s the plan for dinner?”

“We were doing a leftover night. Was gonna let everyone find whatever they wanted to eat.” When I give him a hard look, he just shrugs. “Sorry, Miri. We didn’t know we were going to have a guest.”

With a sigh, knowing I’m going to have to throw something together, I head into the mess. Not one of my brothers has moved to offer Richard a place to sit, so I softly ask, “Would you like to come into the kitchen? I need to clean up a bit and I’ll find us something to eat. Otherwise, I can show you where the room is if you wanted to hide away from them.”

“I’ll come with you.” I can tell Richard feels awkward, but there’s nothing I can do about it without a few minutes alone with my family to deliver a scolding in private.

Pointing at the table, I head straight for the sink. “You can sit over there. Want anything to drink?”

He shakes his head, pulls out a chair and sits down, back ramrod straight.

Unsure what else to say, I shove up my sleeves and start moving dirty dishes out of the way to create a space so I can wash. I barely have the water heated before I feel his body move in next to mine.

“What are you doing?”

He’s busy rolling back his sleeves, past his elbows, simply saying, “Helping you. I’ll wash since I don’t know where anything goes.”

“Richard, I really don’t want you to?—”

He drops his head to give me a hard look. “You’re not going to stand here for two hours washing their dishes without help. I’ll wash.”

Gulping, I nod, then whisper, “Thank you.”

We manage to wash everything in less than an hour in complete silence. I finally convince him to sit while I throw together a quick pasta dish. Basically spaghetti, but with spiral noodles instead of spaghetti noodles, since there aren’t any in here.

I can’t bring myself to look at Richard as he eats his meal with impeccable manners, while my brothers surround him and shovel food in their mouths noisily.

It’s not until César, of all my brothers, is the first to address the elephant in the room. “So, you the reason our big sister’s got a baby on the way?”

My mouth drops open, but Cristián butts in. “Naw, man. That’s a different guy. He’s a cop! ” I snort, wanting to laugh, but Richard’s face turns pale.

“We aren’t going to talk about that. Mind your business and eat,” I say, pointing my fork at César. He’s watching Richard closely, then nods once and dives back in.

I’m relieved I was able to nip the topic before things devolved, but freaking Loren chimes in.

“ You’re not a cop, right? You’d have a lot of explaining to do if you were and knocked Miri up. Because you’re kinda old.” He shovels a massive fork full of food into his mouth and keeps speaking. “Bet they’d be pissed at you.”

“Other guy was older,” Cristián adds unhelpfully.

My dad drops his hand on the table, rattling everyone’s dishes. “This is not the time to discuss this.”

Richard has completely stopped eating and looks lost over what to say. Furious at everyone, I pick up Richard’s plate along with mine. “We’re going to eat upstairs. Pull your shit together and stop being freaking rude.” To my dad, I add, “Their mouths are out of control. You need to get a handle on it. It’s not my job anymore.”

Stepping on the first step, I hiss when I see Tito sitting halfway up, his tail whipping side to say. “Lucifer, I’ll end you here and now if you fucking move.”

Chuckling, Richard puts a hand on my hip and guides me to the side. Climbing the stairs, he picks up the cat, who of course , immediately starts purring, then finishes the journey to the second floor. I follow, then nod toward the guest room.

Letting Tito jump down, we go in and shut the door on his face.

“So, your family?—”

“Are filled with a bunch of fucking assholes. I’m really sorry about them. Here.” I shove his plate in his hand and move over to the wall and sit on the floor, leaving the futon for him.

In a surprise move, he chooses to sit on the floor next to me, stretching his legs out and crossing them at his ankles. Poking at his food, he gathers another bite.

“This is really good, considering you made it from nothing. Thank you for cooking.”

I’m no longer hungry, so I set my plate to my side and lean my head against the wall. “You’re welcome.”

I listen to him polish off his meal, then open my eyes when he sets his plate to the side as well. “Where are you going to sleep, Miriam?”

“Oh. Let me make up the bed for you. I promise you, you won’t sleep well on it, but it’s better than nothing.” I go to stand up, but he puts his hand on my thigh to stop me.

“Miriam.” His tone is full of warning, and I meet his gaze.

“Richard,” I respond, just as seriously. He doesn’t fall for it. “I’m going to sleep on the couch downstairs.” My statement is punctuated with a loud crash that vibrates the floor under our asses.

He shakes his head sharply. “Absolutely not. If we pull that out, it’ll easily fit the both of us. I won’t let you sleep down there. This is where you normally sleep when you visit, correct?”

“Maybe,” I bite out. “But it’s not appropriate.”

With a huff, he stands and holds out a hand to me. “Miriam, I’ve fucked you plenty of times and seen you naked. I think we can handle sleeping on a lumpy mattress together for one night.”

“You never slept next to me,” I point out, and he raises a brow.

“Blankets?”

Lifting my chin, I direct him to where they’re at. He grabs them and carries them to the bed, his large arms wrapped around a decades-old comforter.

Dropping everything on the mattress, he pulls the bed out and flattens it. “Maybe not, but I am tonight. Don’t worry about it though, I don’t snore too badly.”

“I do,” I tease.

We work together to make up the bed, then stare at each other. Without looking away, he lifts his chin toward the bed. “Crawl in, Miriam.”

“Stop ordering me around, Dick .”

He responds with a slowly growing smile.

“Whatever,” I mumble, then pull off my socks and crawl as far to the other side as possible, laying down with my back to him.

I can’t stand the feel of socks on my feet while I’m sleeping, no matter how cold it is. He laughs softly and follows me in. Instead of keeping his distance, he shifts his body against mine and tugs me closer to him.

“What the hell are you doing?” I snap out, louder than I should because of little ears in the house.

He rests his lips against my ear to say softly, “It’s fucking cold in the house. I refuse to freeze because you needed a ride.”

I twist my head around to glare at him, but that damn fucking smile is still planted on his lips I one hundred percent don’t want to kiss right now.

Growling, I turn away and shove my arm under my head. “I’m still fucking pissed at you.”

“I know, Miriam. I’m still going to keep apologizing and I plan to tell you again tomorrow.”

Neither of us falls asleep for well over an hour, but we both stay silent until I finally let my body relax and I melt into his body, absorbing his warmth.

“Goodnight, Miriam.”

“Night, Dick.”