Angel
The girls weren’t quite as daring as the guys. While all five guys decided to try the more challenging skiing trails, Sarah, Valerie, and Sofie opted for the easier, less treacherous ones.
Angel was glad that of the five guys he and Sal seemed to be at the closest level of skiing above the others. Eric was close behind, but Angel kept up closest to Sal. He was hoping to get a moment or two alone to talk to him while they waited for the other guys to catch up. Alex’s size and the fact that he went skiing least of all of them didn’t make him graceful on the slopes. Eric did the smart thing and took it slowly and easily down the trails. Romero was, as usual, a mess. The guy skied about as often as Alex, but he insisted on going twice as fast.
“Someone oughtta get a helmet on that guy,” Sal said as they watched Romero untangle his skis from the bush he’d just ended up in.
Eric made his way over to help Romero while Alex passed them slowly, wobbling a little. Angel laughed. “Those two should really be skiing with the girls.”
“No shit,” Sal said. “The last thing Alex needs is to mess with that ankle.”
Angel hadn’t even thought of that as he glanced back at Alex. At least he wasn’t like Romero, who already was headed off in another direction, arms flailing in the air and moving way too fast for his own good. Alex was taking his time being much more cautious, though his ankle probably did have a lot to do with it.
When they were far enough away and they stopped for a breather, Angel turned to Sal, pulling his goggles off then glancing away suddenly, not wanting to be looking at him when he asked what he wanted to ask him.
“So do you think a brother calling his sister baby girl, beautiful, or even baby is creepy?”
He glanced back at Sal, who was shaking the snow off his hair with his hand. He stopped for a moment to look at Angel and thought about it. “Hell yeah. Why?”
Angel shrugged. “It’s what Sarah’s brother calls her.”
Sal had started to put his own goggles back on then stopped to look at Angel. “Did you ever do your homework on this guy like I said you should?”
Frowning, Angel shook his head to make sure Alex and Romero weren’t nearby. He knew what those two would have to say about this, and he wasn’t in the mood to hear it. “Once her brother took off to Mexico,” he said, looking back at Sal, “I figured there was no rush.”
He explained how he knew Leo would be gone for months and even though Leo never did stop communicating with Sarah the whole time he was gone Angel had so much going on he put it on the back burner. Truth was Angel didn’t even know where to start. He did Google the guy’s name a few times, but it was overwhelming. Apparently, the name Leonardo Ortiz was a pretty common one. He’d gotten a ton of hits, but none of them had anything to do with Leo.
“I already told her I don’t want her alone with him,” he said emphatically.
“And how do you plan on keeping that from happening?”
Of course, Sal would bring up something he hadn’t even thought of. “She just won’t,” he said, feeling a little stupid. “He lives out of state. If he ever wants to get together with her, they’ll have to plan it. She’ll know not to plan anything unless I’m there.”
Sal’s puckered brow said it all. He wasn’t impressed with Angel’s half-baked plan. “Didn’t he already show up once unannounced? What’s to stop him from doing it again?”
Before Angel could respond to that, Sal went on and thankfully so because Angel had nothing. The idea that Leo might show up at her place one day and he wouldn’t be there hadn’t even occurred to him.
Look,” Sal said, shaking his head. “We’re not just talking about some dude who might be trying to move in on your chick. If that’s all this was—you know me—I’d tell you to get your head outta your ass and stop acting like Alex because you know you don’t have anything to worry about. You can trust Sarah. But it’s not. We’re talking about a guy who’s known to be violent. He has a brother in jail for murder and admits to having been in and out of jail himself. Think about it. Are you really just gonna buy that his brother was put away for fighting?”
“He killed the guy,” Angel reminded him.
“Yeah, well last I heard you don’t get life for self-defense. Technically, if the guy’s death resulted from injuries sustained in a fight—a fight the dead guy was a willing participant in—then his brother could’ve easily claimed self-defense. I’m no lawyer, and even I would’ve advised him to do that. He might’ve still gone to jail, but not for life.” Sal shook his head again as Romero flew by them and into a pile of snow, face first. He chuckled before looking back at Angel. “What did he go away to Mexico for anyway? You sure he wasn’t in jail?”
Angel’s eye widened as Sal made him feel stupider and stupider by the minute. Then he remembered. “They don’t let you skype from jail.” With the growing uncertainty in the pit of his gut, he added. “Right?”
Sal finished putting on his goggles and shrugged. “I have no idea. I would imagine they don’t, but it might depend on what kind of detention center you’re in and what you’re in for. What did he say he was gone for?”
“Construction work for family in Mexico.”
Glad for the distraction of having to put his own goggles back on, Angel didn’t look at his brother. He could only imagine what Sal was thinking. Angel sounded naïve even to himself. Now that Sal had opened the floodgates to all the other possibilities why a guy like Leo would be gone for months, all kinds of things came to mind. Maybe he was on the run. Maybe he was really in Mexico, but he was hiding out or laying low. Who knew? He might’ve even been doing illegal drug trafficking. The more he thought about it, the lamer he felt for not having questioned it in the first place. Construction work on a farm in the dead of winter?
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Romero was coming toward them now. Angel finished putting on his goggles but didn’t look at Sal as he readied himself to take off and said just under his breath, “Let’s not talk about this in front of this guy.”
“How fast do you think I was doing?” Romero asked with a pained smile as he reached them, his goggles all crooked and half his face covered in snow.
“Whatever it was, it was too fast obviously,” Sal said.
“And your nose is bleeding, ass,” Angel added.
“It is?” Romero touched his nose.
Eric and Alex caught up to them, and they all decided that once they made it down they were done for the day. None of them had been skiing in a long time, and they’d all likely be sore tomorrow if they overdid it. It was too late for Romero. He was already wincing as they reached the bottom.
Back at the cabin they all oohed and aahed at the smell of the menudo Sal had left cooking in the crock pot all day. They peeled off their layers of snow wear and hung them up. Angel watched as Sarah stepped aside to check her phone. Whatever she read made her smile, and he was instantly annoyed. He hated this level of paranoia. It was annoying enough to know Sydney could put a smile on her face or even tears in her eyes like he had the day he’d shown up. But to think maybe Leo could too, someone who Angel was fairly certain now had other intentions when it came Sarah, was beyond annoying.
The moment he got her alone he pulled her aside. They were the last two in the laundry room where everyone hung their wet gloves and beanies, so he closed the door when they were left alone. “Have you talked to him today?”
“Who?” She looked at him curiously.
“Leo.”
Her expression went blank, but she shook her head. “No, he texted me, but I haven’t responded.”
“What does he want?”
This was proof beyond a doubt that her relationship with Leo may become a serious problem for Angel and Sarah. Before yesterday, before hearing the asshole refer to his girl as baby girl and then having that insightful conversation on their way up to the cabin, Angel had been okay with her texting and chatting with him even late at night. Now just the thought of the guy texting her had him breaking his rule of discussing this further until their getaway was over. If he thought she wouldn’t protest, he’d demand she cut all communication with the guy. As far as Angel was concerned now, this wasn’t her brother they were dealing with anymore. This was some dude after Sarah, and he wasn’t having it.
“He just asked how my surprise turned out. I’d mentioned to him you were taking me somewhere but it was a surprise.”
Angel leaned against the washing machine and pulled her to him. He knew he shouldn’t do this now. He couldn’t just take her home like in the past when they’d had a quarrel or disagreement and they could both sleep on it. Neither was going anywhere tonight, and he didn’t want to make the rest of the night uncomfortable, nor did he have any intention of crawling in bed with her angry. But things had changed, and he was done standing aside, holding it all in for the sake of avoiding an argument. What Sal had said today had opened his eyes to other things. Just like the endless possibilities of why Leo might’ve left town for months Angel was now questioning everything. The only thing that calmed him was that she admitted she was too.
“All those times you and Leo chatted late into the night what, exactly, were you two chatting about?”
“First of all,” she said, looking him firmly in the eyes. “It wasn’t a lot of times. It was a couple, and we didn’t talk into the night. He happened to call late, so I chatted with him for a little, late at night. It was only that very first chat we had that we spoke for so long.” Her lips pulled to the side in a small frown as she ran her hand through his hair. “I know this whole thing’s been unsettling for you, but you’re getting it all twisted, babe. I promise you, you have nothing to be worried about.”
Angel closed his eyes, concentrating on the magical touch of her fingers against his scalp. She was massaging softly in that way she knew calmed him, so he took a deep breath but didn’t open his eyes. “What do you two talk about?”
“Just things in general,” she said in a voice so calming it made Angel open his eyes. He stared into her beautiful eyes, glad she’d taken this route in response to his questioning and not the exasperated one he was afraid she might. “He usually tells me about what he did that day. I tell him what I did. My school work. His odd jobs. That sort of stuff.”
“Just one thing,” he said cautiously. “And I promise I’ll drop this, okay?” She nodded with a smile, so he kissed her, grateful that she was being so patient with his paranoid ass. “Aside from the names he calls you, has he ever said anything else you thought was weird or made you uncomfortable? Anything else you kept from me because you didn’t want to upset me?”
The smile disappeared, and she broke the eye contact, looking away for just a moment, but then her eyes were back on his. “Angel, he says a lot of things I think are odd, not just about me about everything. He’s just different.”
“Like what?” Angel pressed.
“Like how he refers to all his close friends as his brothers and how much he loves them even though they’re not blood brothers. He calls his mom his queen and just the way he words things in general.”
“That’s not what I mean, Sarah.” Angel lifted a brow. “What else has he said to you?”
She broke eye contact again, and her sudden discomfort was palpable. This time she didn’t look at him when she began to speak. “He’s got this way of expressing himself, deeper than most people.” She looked up at him now. “I think what makes it seem so odd or weird is his tough exterior. I mean let’s just be honest, Angel. It’s not like his confessing to having been in a gang and done jail time came as a real surprise, right? It’s what you’d expect from a guy who looks like he does, a guy with the word fiera tattooed on his body. What you don’t expect is to hear him say the things he says in the way he says them.”
Angel continued to stare at her without saying a word, bracing himself for what she might say next because that’s what it felt like she was doing—preparing him.
“He says he feels like he has this connection with me, one he’s never felt with anyone else.” Sarah’s eyes seemed to search Angel’s for a reaction as she continued to speak. “He says he can’t explain it, but he felt it before we ever exchanged an email, just from the photos and videos he watched of me online. It’s why he was so anxious to meet me.”
“And, again, you kept all this from me because—”
“No!” she said, and finally the exasperation was beginning to seep through the otherwise calm demeanor she’d managed to keep up until then. “I wasn’t keeping anything from you. You can’t expect me to remember everything he says to me and then pass it on to you verbatim. And he didn’t say it all this at once. I’m trying to think of all the things he’s said over the past few months I know you’d find odd, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I thought they were. Maybe it’s because I’m getting used to his unusually frank way of saying things.” She shrugged. “He’s a deep thinker, and he doesn’t keep what he’s feeling or thinking to himself.” Her fingers caressed his scalp again, tilting her head with a sweet smile. “Maybe if you’d hear the way he talks about everyone else in life—how he calls the older lady who’s lived in the back house behind his mom’s since before he was born, grandma because that’s how connected he feels to her—maybe then the things he says to me wouldn’t seem so alarmingly weird to you.”
Angel didn’t know how she did it, but somehow she always said the perfect thing at the very moment he needed to hear it. Just when his inner ref was blowing whistles like a crazy man and throwing penalty flags in every fucking direction, because hearing that this dude was feeling a connection with Sarah had done it, she goes and adds that last part.
Pulling her to him and holding her tightly, he kept his promise of letting it go after that last question. Truth was it was pointless to argue with Sarah about this, and he didn’t want to anymore. He knew damn well that, aside from being concerned about her spending time with someone so unpredictable and possibly dangerous who they still didn’t know enough about, Sal was right. He had nothing else to be worried about. Even if the guy ever dared cross the line, he trusted Sarah would set boundaries.
The main reason he’d asked Sarah to tell him about anything else this guy might’ve said to her that was weird was to assure himself he wasn’t crazy. For as much as she assured him the guy was just different but that she was still aware there might be more to him, Angel’s gut feeling knew there was more.
The secondary reason and one he was almost ashamed to admit to himself was he wanted further confirmation that he could trust Sarah to tell him the whole truth regardless of how much she thought it might upset him, and, of course, he’d gotten it.
After promising once again that he’d try to be less paranoid about Leo, he overcompensated a bit for the guilt he had by kissing her almost into a frenzy. They stopped and both took deep breaths. If everyone else weren’t just a few doors away, he might’ve taken her right there on the washing machine. Instead, they walked back into the other room where everyone was eating and raving about the hot menudo.
Romero and Eric were arguing about what movie they’d all be watching.
“Great,” Angel said as they walked into the kitchen. “Even more opinions this time to weigh in on what we should all watch.”
“It’s not a chick flick,” Romero said.
“What’s the big deal?” Eric smirked, plopping down on the sofa next to Sofie. “I didn’t say I don’t wanna watch it. I’m just saying you chose a three-hour love story. A chick flick.”
Romero turned to Sal, who was sitting on the other sofa with a tray in front of him. “You think Titanic is a chick flick? People die and shit. There’s all kinds of drama and it’s not boring.” He turned back to Eric. “I didn’t even know it was three hours because it didn’t seem that long.”
Sal shrugged. “Technically, it is a love story, but it’s cool. I don’t mind watching it.”
Romero frowned and continued scrolling through the rest of the list of movies On Demand. A few minutes later, everyone agreed they’d watch Titanic. Once Angel and Sarah finished eating their soup about a quarter of the way into the movie, they snuck upstairs to their room.
Angel’s reasoning for trying to coax Sarah away was partly true. He really couldn’t wait to get under the warm blankets and cuddle with her. But he kept the other reason to himself. Titanic and any other Leonardo DiCaprio film would be coming off the list of movies he would watch ever again. Anytime the guy was on screen Angel couldn’t help but think of Sarah’s damn brother and the connection he felt with her.
~*~
Sarah
The entire time they’d been up in Big Bear, Sarah kept her contact with Leonardo to a minimum. There was no denying now how troubled Angel was by him even though he’d kept his promise of not obsessing and being paranoid. The few times he saw her texting or checking her phone after that talk in the laundry room he hadn’t even asked her about it. It didn’t seem like just an act either; he really had eased up and genuinely seemed to have enjoyed the rest of their time up there after their talk. Still, she’d waited until she was home to respond to Leo’s texts.
Angel had been so good about letting it go ever since that day they hadn’t addressed the subject of her brother at all, and it’d been two weeks. Of course, it could also be because Sarah hadn’t much to report either. When she’d gotten back from the cabin, she’d finally been able to chat with Leonardo online in the privacy of her own room, but she’d noticed his weird mood immediately. Not wanting him to assume in any way that her ignoring his texts and even calls while she’d been up in Big Bear had anything to do with Angel, she explained that the wireless and Internet signal was spotty up there at best. It wasn’t exactly true, but she figured being up so deep in the mountains the excuse might fly. She just figured with Angel already not caring much for Leonardo the last thing she needed was for the animosity to go both ways.
Unlike all the other times when they chatted and he kept her on the phone longer than she usually planned, he’d cut her off quickly, saying he had things to do. Then she didn’t hear from him again until a few days later when she got the call. It was a normal call by any measure. He asked her how her day had been, told her a little bit about his, and then dropped the news. “I’m leaving for Mexico,” he said out of the blue. “This time it’s gonna be for a longer period, and I won’t have Internet service for sure. So I guess this is goodbye.”
Sarah felt that same hollowness she’d felt that first time he told her he was leaving. Once again, it sounded so final. The expression he wore was also a grim one she so rarely saw on him.
“Goodbye?” she asked, trying not to sound as clingy as she suddenly felt. “You’re coming back eventually, right? How long will you be gone?”
He sat back, and she’d noticed how fidgety he’d been from the moment their chat began—just like that first chat they’d had months ago. “You know my situation, Sarah. I gotta take every job I can get, and this one is a longer one, so I don’t know. A few months? Maybe longer.”
“But you’ll, uh . . .” She swallowed hard, trying to hold back the emotion. Just like the first time, this felt so final only it was worse now. This time he’d actually said the words she hadn’t heard but felt last time—this is goodbye. From the tone of his voice, he meant it. “You’ll call me once you’re back?” She was almost afraid to ask, but she wanted to know now instead of wondering later because it really felt like this was it. “This isn’t goodbye forever . . . right?”
He crossed his arms in front of him, staring straight ahead and didn’t say anything for too long. Then he sat up suddenly. “Nah . . . nah, of course not. I’ll be back eventually. It’s just that, you know, this is something I gotta do.”
She nodded again almost afraid to talk. What she’d finally been able to squash, after months of trying, suddenly resurfaced and nearly suffocated her: the doubt that Leonardo even with all his imperfections, questionable behavior, and appearance was actually real. He was her brother, and unlike her dad, he wanted to remain a part of her life—make up for all the years they’d lost. Now he was saying goodbye. This really had been too good to be true.
This time she didn’t hold back saying what she wanted to because something in her gut told her this really was the last time she’d be speaking to him. “I’ll miss you,” she managed to whisper.
His head dropped, and he stared at his desk without saying anything for a moment, and that’s when she knew. This was really goodbye. She wanted to ask him why. Why didn’t he at least want to try to stay in touch? Did he think it’d be too much of a chore to keep a relationship with his sister?
She didn’t understand what had happened. If she could speak, she’d ask him. Ask him why he’d been so impatient and anxious to meet her and now he was ending things? But with the boulder-sized knot in her throat, she couldn’t.
Finally, he looked up, his eyes as pained as she felt. “I’ll miss you too, baby girl.”
Sarah didn’t respond to that, and she knew there was no way he couldn’t see the pain in her flooded eyes. That’s why when he said goodbye one last time and cut their chat so abruptly, leaving her staring at a black screen, it felt like an even colder slap in the face.