“YOU LOOK SO fucking hot in that, I’ll be thinking about how to get you out of it the whole time we’re here,” Blake murmured in my ear, just before he eyed me hungrily. “How long do we have to stay?”
We were in the Uber car on our way between the hotel and the civic center my brother had rented for the big day. And this was precisely why I shouldn’t have let Dani talk me into wearing this dress to Paola’s quinceañera. Mama would have a cow, seeing me like this. I’d never hear the end of it.
“Probably only a couple of hours,” I said, tamping down the heat that was building within me again. If I could wangle it, we might escape even sooner—although my reasons for wanting to escape were far different than Blake’s. “It would’ve been longer, but Mama couldn’t arrange for the mass to be on the same day, so they had Paola’s mass yesterday.”
“Mass is part of it? Like a Catholic mass?”
“Traditionally. And my family is nothing if not traditional.”
“Huh. So do you go to church and stuff?”
“Not as often as I should. Don’t really have time for it these days.”
“We could make time,” Blake said. “I haven’t been to mass since I lived with Grandma.”
“I never would’ve pegged your grandmother for a regular church-goer.”
He grinned and winked at me. “She likes to be unpredictable.”
We’d flown down to San Bernardino this morning and checked into a hotel—a nicer one than I’d have chosen on my own, but Blake had insisted.
But after we’d checked in, Blake had continually pawed at me while we’d been getting ready to go. It was a miracle I’d managed to get my dress on and that my makeup and hair looked halfway decent, because he’d acted like a man on a mission to muss me up and leave me hot, sweaty, and aching for more.
This was going to be a quick trip. We were spending one night in the hotel tonight after the party, and our flight back to Portland left before lunch tomorrow. Frankly, I was glad we had the excuse of work (for me) and team obligations (for Blake) to keep the visit short and sweet.
So to speak.
I wasn’t convinced it would be overly sweet. Paola would be, of course, and it was her big day. She was the reason I was here. And my grandmother might not understand my dietary needs, but she loved me no matter what.
Everyone else, though? Debatable. I was hoping we could get away without a massive confrontation, since today was supposed to be about Paola and not me, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. I knew my family too well to risk death by familial asphyxiation.
“Do you wish you lived closer to them?” Blake asked, slipping his hand into mine in a practiced, comfortable manner. I could get used to that—him touching me like there was nothing else that would make sense for him to do.
I didn’t have a coat or jacket that would really go well with this dress, and it was a lot warmer here than it was back home—but it was a bit chilly for me, still. I kept hoping that one of these days, my internal thermostat would settle somewhere in the middle of where it had been before the weight loss and where it was now, but no luck as of yet.
“Not even remotely,” I replied. “I like having enough distance between us that they can’t randomly show up at my front door.”
“But they’re your family.”
“I think I told you before—they’re not like your grandma.”
“No one is.”
“True. But they’re really not like her. I needed some space after I got out of college. Some room to breathe.” I inadvertently shivered from the chill. This dress might make me look hot, but it was too flimsy to help keep me comfortable.
“Hmm,” was his reply. But he firmed up his grip on my hand, lending me some of his warmth.
I greedily inched closer to his side to soak up more of it. One of the many things I’d started to appreciate about having Blake in my life was that he was like my own personal heated blanket that required no electricity to operate. Especially when he held me snug to his side in bed at night. His body was always putting off the most delicious heat, which made me want to curl into him as often as possible.
Lucky for me, Blake seemed only too eager to allow it. The more he could touch me, the happier he was.
Before I was ready, we were walking inside the civic center my brother and sister-in-law had rented for the party, and we were slipping through a gaggle of overly excited teenaged girls in frilly dresses and pimpled boys who looked like they’d rather be anywhere else.
I tightened my grip on Blake’s hand for reassurance before skirting around the clot of teenagers. I dropped my gift for my niece on the appropriate table and headed straight to the kitchens, where I knew Abuelita and my parents would be, and possibly my brother and sister-in-law, too.
Sure enough, Mama looked up with a huge, welcoming smile the second we walked through the open entryway. She had an apron covering her dress to keep it clean. Her happy expression faded away as fast as it had come.
“Beatriz!” she chided. “What are you wearing? Go change before Maria sees you.”
Maria was my sister-in-law.
I said a silent prayer for patience. “If you want me to come back in my pj’s, I can change. Otherwise, this is what you get.” I arched a brow in challenge, but she just stood there, spluttering indignantly.
Then I headed to the stove so I could kiss Abuelita’s cheek, with Blake trailing behind me. He hadn’t let go of my hand, and I got the sense it was more to keep me calm than it was for his own sake. I had to lean down to kiss her, and I wasn’t an overly tall woman—my grandmother was tiny and growing smaller with age. The footstool she always kept in her kitchen had been brought here for her use so she could reach the counters and stove.
She reached up and patted my cheek absentmindedly with one hand and then went back to putting the finishing touches on the trés léchês.
Papa came barreling in through the other door, but he stopped cold when he saw Blake standing next to me. Or, more likely, he stopped cold when he saw Blake’s hand on mine, our fingers threaded together.
“Who is this?” he boomed into the cavernous, echoing space. His voice was as big as he was—there wasn’t any doubt as to where my issues with my weight had come from. Everyone on his side of the family weighed upwards of three hundred pounds, and he might very well be the largest of them all.
Well, everyone but me, at least. Not anymore.
I steeled my spine to answer, but Blake spoke up before I could.
He reached out his right hand to shake my father’s. “I’m Bea’s boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend,” Mama spluttered. “But…but…you’re not—” She couldn’t seem to bring herself to say what she was thinking.
Hispanic? Old enough? Someone they knew?
I honestly wasn’t sure which statement she was aiming for, but it didn’t matter.
“No, he’s not,” I said emphatically. Then I turned to Blake as calmly as I could, silently begging him with my eyes for patience, before facing my parents again. Granted, he seemed to be taking everything in stride; I was the one who was a jumbled mess of nerves.
“Papa, Mama,” I said. “This is Blake Kozlow. Blake, my parents, Jose and Isabella Castillo, and my grandmother, Guadalupe Vasquez.” Abuelita waved a hand over her shoulder without bothering to turn from her cooking. She’d never been one to say much, especially not when my father was in one of his moods, which was often.
“Pleased to meet you all,” Blake said, still holding out his hand.
But my father didn’t reciprocate, Papa’s face turning a dangerous shade of red that almost matched my dress. Mama immediately launched into a tirade about how inconsiderate I was, bringing a gringo to my niece’s big day just to upset everyone—all in Spanish, of course, so Blake couldn’t understand a lick of it.
I couldn’t decide whether I was glad about that or not. He probably deserved to know what she thought of him.
Of us.
But it might be better for me to fill him in later, when we were alone.
Paola chose that moment to race into the kitchens and wrap me up in a hug. “I worried you weren’t going to be here when you didn’t make it to mass yesterday!”
“I wouldn’t want to let you down,” I said, patting her on the back. Too bad she and Abuelita were the only reasons I had to come. I hooked my arm with hers and led her away from everyone else, catching Blake’s eye and nudging my head in that direction so he’d know he should come with us. Leaving him in my parents’ clutches seemed like a disaster waiting to happen.
When he reached us, Paola’s eyes went wide. She cupped a hand over my ear and whispered, “He’s hot.”
I burst out laughing. “I know.”
“And he’s famous.”
“I know that, too.”
“Are you two…you know?” She shrugged.
“Dating?” Blake supplied.
Paola nodded.
He winked at her. “Yeah. You could say that.”
“You’re seriously dating Blake Kozlow?” she spluttered. “And you didn’t tell me until now?”
“Sorry?” I supplied.
She batted at my arm playfully. “You should be. You’re holding out on me, Aunt Beatriz.”
“Well, now you know.”
Her eyes turned wicked, and she glanced over at Blake. “So are you friends with Austin Cooper, then?”
“Coop?” he said, scratching his head in confusion.
I recalled one of my students asking Riley Jezek about Austin Cooper last year, when Riley and his wife had been coming to read to them. “He’s too old for you, so don’t even bother,” I quickly interjected.
“But he’s—”
“Not looking to end up in jail for corrupting a minor,” I cut in. “You’re fifteen, but that doesn’t make you an adult. And I don’t know how old he is, but he’s too old for you. Got it?”
“You don’t have to be mean about it,” my niece said sulkily, but then she grinned so I’d know she was just giving me a hard time.
I glanced up at the clock on the wall. “It’s almost time. Are you ready?” I asked her, tucking a curl of her hair back into place and inspecting her corsage.
Just like that, all her nerves and excitement were back. She nodded eagerly.
“We’ll leave you to it, then.” I hooked my arm through Blake’s. “See you in there?”
“You’d better,” Paola replied.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Blake and I headed out into the ballroom, which had been decked out better than my senior prom. Flowers and candles lined every table, and the ceiling was covered with a balloon canopy, which made the lighting atmospheric.
I waved and smiled at a few familiar faces, and Blake found seats for the pair of us.
“I have no idea what’s going on,” Blake murmured in my ear.
“It’s okay. Just sit back and enjoy it. Or try to, at least.” To be honest, I didn’t understand many of the traditions associated with the quinceañera, and I’d been through one, myself. “Here she comes,” I whispered as my niece was being escorted into the ballroom by four young men—her chambelanes.
Once they were all present, the music started, and she danced with the boys.
Everyone applauded them profusely, and my niece curtseyed when they were done.
Then my brother got up to present her with la última muñeca—her last doll.
“This symbolizes her journey from childhood to womanhood,” I whispered in Blake’s ear.
“At fifteen?”
“Yeah. Tradition.” I shrugged.
Then one of the boys who’d been among her chambelanes brought her a bouquet of flowers, and she blushed profusely. I made a mental note to ask her if she had a crush on him, or maybe they were already dating and no one had told me she had a boyfriend. It was possible. After all, I was dating someone and hadn’t bothered to tell any of them until I’d arrived with Blake at my side—well, I’d kind of told Mama, but not really. She knew I was dating someone, but she didn’t know any details.
Finally, it was time for the piñatas. Fifteen of them. “She’s got to break a piñata for every year of her life,” I explained to Blake as she took the baton and started swinging.
It took her a while. A long while. My niece was a delicate little thing and didn’t have much upper-body strength.
“I wish I could go help her,” Blake whispered in my ear.
“She’d probably love that. But no, you can’t. She’s got to do it on her own.”
Suddenly, I realized that Blake and I weren’t the only ones in the ballroom whispering amongst ourselves. All around us, tables of guests were bending their heads together and having heated conversations while my niece swung her baton—and several of them were pointing in our direction.
This…couldn’t be good.
At all.
My spine stiffened as my brain whirled at a rapid pace, trying to determine what they were whispering about.
Was it my dress? Or the fact that I was here with a man that they felt wasn’t good enough for me at the same time as they felt I wasn’t good enough for him?
I itched to escape, to run out of that room, dragging Blake with me, and never look back. But I wouldn’t do that to Paola. My niece hadn’t done anything to deserve it. So, despite my unease, I forced myself to stay put as the whispers grew louder, the fingers pointing in our direction more numerous.
Paola swung again and connected, effectively bursting her fourth piñata. Hundreds of pieces of candy spilled to the floor, and she moved on to the next one in line.
“Why are they all talking about us?” Blake murmured in my ear.
That was when I knew that it wasn’t all in my head, and it was really happening. Blake wasn’t terribly perceptive about these things. If he was picking up on it, then it was far worse than I’d initially imagined.
I shook my head, shrugging.
“Do you want to leave?” he whispered. “You look miserable.”
I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. “Let’s stick it out awhile longer,” I insisted. “At least until the cake.”
“You’re not going to eat any of it, though.”
“No, but you can.” I angled myself away from him, determined not to draw any more attention our way, and watched Paola swing at her next piñata.
A faint buzzing sounded from the general vicinity of Blake’s pocket. He took out his cell phone. And then, “Fuck,” he muttered beneath his breath, but it still carried through the ballroom. Dozens of eyes turned in our direction. I wanted to sink beneath the table and disappear. I wanted to be invisible again, like I had been when I’d weighed more than three hundred pounds. But wearing a dress like this, and with a man like Blake at my side, there was no chance of invisibility.
I steeled my spine and tried to ignore the whispers and stares.
“I have to go make a phone call,” Blake whispered in my ear.
“What? Now?” My voice was sharper than I’d intended. More heads turned to stare in our direction.
“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.” And in truth, he sounded absolutely devastated. “Sorrier than I can ever say.”
“Is it your grandma?” I asked, but he was already halfway to the exit. I couldn’t get up and follow him without creating a huge scene and drawing Paola’s attention in the bargain.
So I stayed put, watching her swing at her seventh piñata, and worried.
But the whispers and pointing only increased in Blake’s absence, and my feet itched to book it out the door behind him—more due to my own discomfort than worrying about him, though.
When Paola started on her eighth piñata, my brother sat in Blake’s empty seat, his expression a combination of fury and concern.
“What?” I demanded in a heated whisper.
Instead of speaking, he wordlessly passed me his cell phone, with the screen open to one of the photos from the shoot I’d done with Blake and Mia—me wearing a sexy negligee, the strap falling off my bare shoulder, Blake in nothing but his briefs, his tongue darting out to lick my bare skin.
“What? I don’t—” My throat swelled closed, and no more words would come out.
“It’s all over social media—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Blowing up as we speak. He’s been tagged in them, and they’re trying to figure out your name.”
“But I don’t understand. Those were supposed to be private.” My eyes burned with unshed tears—both because of the betrayal and the fact that if the school board got wind of this, I’d lose my job faster than I could blink.
“Probably why he just booked it out of here,” Miguel groused. “If I get my hands on him…”
I didn’t want my brother to get his hands on Blake, though.
That was all for me.
Or at least it would be, as soon as I could pull myself together again.
“Tell Paola I’m sorry,” I said with as much composure as I could muster. Then, with a modicum of dignity and a pinch of get-the-heck-out-of-Dodge, I slipped out the side exit of the ballroom and burst into tears.
“YOU’RE THE ONLY person I sent them to,” I shouted into the phone.
I’d never yelled at a teammate’s wife before, but neither had I ever felt so much panic before. This could ruin everything I’d built with Bea, everything I’d been working toward.
“You never sent them to me,” Brie Burns insisted again. She’d already sworn the same thing twice, but I didn’t believe her. How could I? No one else had access to them, so it had to have been Brie. “Keith said you were going to,” she said, “but I never got them. I never got anything from you. No text. No email. No phone call. Nothing.”
“Bullshit. I texted you the link as soon as he brought it up and Bea gave me the go-ahead.”
“Well, maybe you should check your phone, then. Did you send them to the right number?”
In my fury and panic, that thought hadn’t crossed my mind. I put Brie on speakerphone so I could scroll through my messages. Shit. Nothing there. But then I remembered I’d forwarded her an email. I pulled up the email client on my phone and found it in my sent messages. “It was an email, not a text message.” I rattled off the email address I’d used.
“My email address is Brie dot Burns at mail dot com, Blake,” she said calmly. “There’s a dot between my first and last names.”
Fuck. While I still had her on speaker, I checked the address I’d sent it to, again. “So who the hell has that email address without the dot?”
“No idea, but I’d guess they’re your leak. Just call Jim and let him know so he can get the PR team on it ASAP. It’ll be okay. They managed to dig Harry out of whatever mess he found himself in last year, so they’ll dig you out of this one, too.”
“I’m not worried about me. I don’t care if people see me like that. I’m worried about Bea. She didn’t want anyone else to see them. No one. And now the whole world is seeing them, and it’s all my fault. Or at least she’s going to assume it is.”
“Oh,” Brie said. “Ouch. Yeah, that’s a bit touchier.”
“She’s going to kill me. She’s going to murder me.”
“I’m sure she’ll understand it was an honest mistake,” Brie insisted, but she didn’t sound overly convincing.
“Maybe she will, but will her school district? She could get fired over this.” Holy fuck. The thought of Bea losing her job because of something stupid I’d done burned in my gut. She loved her job. She adored those kids. And she was fucking good at it, too.
I probably just got Bea fired.
“But can they prove it’s her?” Brie suggested hopefully.
“You tell me,” I said. “The pictures are everywhere. What do you think?”
“I haven’t met her,” she pointed out.
Well, there was that. “Do they really need to prove it?”
“To fire her? I’d hope they need to prove it.”
“Hoping doesn’t do much good in the real world,” I said. Grandma’s health was enough proof of that. “Besides, aren’t school districts more concerned about the kids? They can always find another teacher.” Just like a hockey team could always find another player to fill a hole. Maybe someone with a different skill set, but there was always someone else coming along to take someone else’s place.
Brie started to say something else, but Bea raced out of the building just then, so I cut my teammate’s wife off mid-sentence. “Got to go.”
“Keith and I’ll get Jim and the PR team on it,” she said just before I hung up.
I shoved my phone into my pocket and power-walked over to where Bea had flung herself down onto the curb, her arms wrapped tight around her knees, her head buried against them. Her shoulders were shaking, and I couldn’t fool myself into thinking it was due to laughter.
“Bea?” I said cautiously.
Her head shot up at the sound of my voice. She glared at me with red, wet eyes.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”
“Why?” she cut in before I could get another word out. “Why would you do something like this? I was right all along, wasn’t I? You were just using me for—”
“I wasn’t using you,” I insisted. “I would never use you.”
“Oh, sure, Blake. Whatever you say.”
“I’m not using you,” I repeated. “I love you. It’s killing me that I did something to hurt you.”
“Just stop, already.”
I sat down next to her and tried to put an arm around her shoulders, but she tore away from my grasp, leaping to her feet. She was halfway across the parking lot before she stopped, dropping to her knees on the pavement.
“I sent the link to the wrong email address,” I called out, slowly inching my way toward her.
“You really think—"
“I thought I was sending them to Brie Burns, just like you said I could. But apparently I got a digit wrong.”
“You seriously expect me to believe—”
“It was an honest mistake, Bea,” I cut in again. I hated to keep interrupting her, but it seemed to be the only way I could get a word in edgewise. “I know you don’t want to believe it, but it was. Look, I can show you.” I held my phone out like a peace offering.
“Why do you always think I’ll give in to you?” she shot back.
“Why do you always assume the worst of me?” I countered.
“Because everyone always gives me the worst.”
“Not everyone.” I took a chance and crossed the parking lot to join her, dropping to my ass beside her. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s killing me that I hurt you. You’ve got enough people in your life who’re doing that already.”
“Don’t bring my family into this.”
“I didn’t. You did,” I pointed out. “But are you seriously going to try to argue that they’re better for you than I am?”
“You can’t—”
“You’ve told me yourself that they want to keep you how you’ve always been. They’ve got you in a box and expect you to stay there, and they don’t like it when you do anything outside of the norm. I’m the one trying to help you bust out of that box.”
“Yeah, by getting me fired.”
“Have you been fired already?” I asked, my stomach sinking all the way to my toes.
“Already got a call from my principal. I’ve been suspended pending a formal disciplinary hearing.”
Fuck fuck fuckity fuck. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing that it happened,” she said. “Now, I mean. Before it was too late. Before things got too serious between us.”
“Things are already too serious between us.”
“We can end it now without causing too much pain,” she continued, as if she’d never heard me. “It’ll be better this way.”
End it? This was worse than I’d imagined.
“Better for who?”
“For everyone.”
“Bullshit.”
“I think you should leave now,” she said. “You should go back to the hotel. I’ll stay with my parents tonight—”
“Bea,” I cut in, tipping her chin so she’d have to look up at me. The pools of tears in her eyes nearly broke me. But then again, I was already broken. “Please,” I croaked.
She blinked hard a couple of times, somehow keeping her tears from spilling over. “You should leave, Blake. I’ve got to go back in there and do damage control with my family.”