Chapter 20

 

Chris

 

Waking up in my old bed at my mother’s house wasn’t my favorite thing in the world. It was even worse that I was sporting major wood from a dream about Mary, and my little brother was sleeping in the bunk bed above me so I couldn’t take care of it.

At least not being able to sleep any longer meant I could get up early and see the text from Mary.

 

Mary: Be there at noon. Convinced Brian and Lance to go to the shore, so sorry if you’ll miss them.

 

Finally, Mary without any bodyguards. Though we’d still be with my entire family, which could go horribly wrong.

After relieving myself in the shower, I headed down the narrow stairs to the tiny, outdated yellow kitchen where Mom and Aunt Rosie were already chopping peppers and seasoning meat to go on the grill.

“Mijo! You’re awake! Good! You can help your father and uncle set up the tables and chairs out back!” Mom said, barely looking up from her chopping.

“Yeah, I guess I can do that,” I grumbled, sliding on my shoes and heading out the squeaky door to the backyard.

Most of the area was covered with cement except for the tiny patch of grass where Abuela planted as many flowers as she could. She also tried and failed, multiple times, to plant an avocado tree that never got past infancy.

I’d strung lights from the house to the chain length fence that led to the alleyway by the garage along with some colorful crepe paper. Now, dad stood on a ladder, putting up a piñata in the old maple tree.

“Here, Pops lemme help you with that.” I rushed over and held the rickety ladder in place so Dad could hang the brightly colored paper donkey from one of the branches.

“Thanks, son. Why your abuela needed a piñata, I’ll never know. I guess she wanted something to keep all of your little cousins busy,” Dad said, taking a few steps down from the ladder.

I didn’t see my dad often and not just because I lived in the city now. The man was a workaholic and not because he wanted to be.

He came to New York with my mom after he turned eighteen, since his older sister, my Aunt Rosie, was already here. He’s worked dozens of odd jobs in the last thirty years he’s been in this country, and I don’t remember him ever being without an aching back that Mom was putting some chili powder on, something they swore helped, or being gone from sun up to sun down on a job.

He did it so that my brother and I could have a better life. I always felt like I was disappointing him when I didn’t go off to college and instead went to New York to pursue a career as a model. When that failed, I knew I couldn’t go back if I didn’t make something of myself. Moving up to a senior associate would hopefully do that. That is if I could still get the position.

I’d barely even thought about the promotion since I started talking to Mary, though that’s all my relationship was supposed to be with her. To get her some good press, then move up to the next position in the company with a corner office.

Now that she was getting the job in LA, what did that mean for me? For us?

“Your mama tells me that you have a girlfriend coming today,” Dad said, wiping his worn hands on his faded jeans.

“Uh. Yeah. She’s not really a girlfriend, per say.”

Dad’s eyes widened, his graying, bushy eyebrows raised. “You’re bringing a fun buddy to your abuela’s birthday?”

I couldn’t help the laugh that escaped my throat as I shook my head. “First off, that’s not the right term. Second of all, no, she’s not that kind of friend either. She’s kind of my client. The actress Mary James.”

If I didn’t think Dad’s eyes could widen anymore, they did. “The one with the sex tape?”

“I don’t even want to know how you know about that, but yeah, that’s the one. But it wasn’t actually a real sex tape. Anyway…she’s kind of my client. I was tagged to be her PR person and Mom called in the middle of our first meeting, then one thing lead to another, and we decided to do this whole ‘let’s be a couple for the media sort of thing.'” I put my hands in my pockets, unsure why I was spilling all of this to my dad, but I guess keeping it in for so long was starting to wear on me.

“But you like her? At least I assume you do because no one brings a girl to meet their abuela unless they’re really sure about her.”

I sighed. “Yeah. I do. I really do. But I don’t know if it’ll actually amount to anything. I think I’m something to pass the time for her.”

“Like that Eddie Justice song! He has such a beautiful voice that country singer! Some of the houses I’ve worked on like to play that music and I never thought I liked it until I heard him sing-talk,” Dad said, talking enthusiastically with his hands.

I cringed, thinking of the fact that Eddie was Mary’s ex-fiancé. The one who she wanted to make jealous with a fake sex tape. It turns out he was still hung up on his high school girlfriend and that song about passing the time with someone else while he was waiting for his dream girl was probably about Mary. At least that’s what social media said.

“Yeah. I guess you can say that ” I muttered.

Dad clasped his hand on my shoulder. “Son, no girl who is just passing the time is going to come meet your family. She would make up an excuse or anything she can. The senorita likes you, Mijo. Maybe even loves you.”

Every hair on my arms stood on end. I’d never thought about the love word. Hell, I don’t think I’d ever said those words to anyone.

But the feeling I had when I was with Mary when I even thought about her, was unlike anything that I’ve ever felt before. Not that I was going to tell her that, or my dad for that matter.

“Well, we should probably stop chatting and get this stuff set up. Your mama likes to boss me around when I’m home, and if she see’s us standing here, she’ll get to yelling soon,” Dad said, nodding.

“Sounds good to me, Dad.”