“Let’s go home,” I said to Miranda hours later. We were at the police station and all the paperwork had been filed and all the questions answered. I was pissed off and tired and us being inside the apartment next door had complicated matters and led to suspicions about our right to be there.

Miranda had explained that she had a permit to carry and that she hadn’t seen Max in five years. She had also explained that Max had been involved with drug dealers and that he had disappeared without telling her where he was going, but that she had known what he was doing.

I had sat there in disbelief. Sweet, innocent Miranda wasn’t so damn sweet after all. It also made me understand her stubborn and staunch support of the idea that Max was alive. It was because his living was no surprise to her. She had known all about it.

Seeing him touch her, maul her breast with his filthy asshole grip, had made a rage explode inside me that I had never experienced before. I’d been waiting for the moment when Max was distracted enough that I could take him, but I had never expected to hear her whisper, “Kiss me, Max.” Or for him to touch her like that.

This had all been such a fucking mistake. I should have never made her mine after she had already been his.

Miranda glanced at me. She looked exhausted. There were dark smudges under her eyes and her mascara was smeared. Her cheeks were pale and she had her arms crossed over her chest, rubbing her elbows. “Can you just take me to my parents’, please? I don’t want to go back there tonight.”

I opened the door to the parking lot for her and hesitated, not sure what to say. But then I decided after all of this I deserved more than her cool politeness. “No. I’ll take you to Lola’s. We can stop and pick the cat up.”

She shot me a glare. “I don’t think it’s up to you. I can go where I want.”

I had her gun and mine, both released back to us in my waistband and I adjusted them. “Miranda. I’m not going to argue about this and I’m not going to roll over and go quietly. We have a few things to talk about.”

“I’m exhausted,” she snapped as she went through the door, chin up.

“And you might be pregnant,” I said baldly. “So you can give me five fucking minutes. You gave Max five years.”

Miranda opened her mouth, then promptly shut it again. She got into the car silently and I did the same. I didn’t even know where to begin with this conversation.

But then suddenly she spoke as I pulled out of the parking lot. “Go to Peacock Park. I want to see the water.”

It seemed like a weird request to me. “You can see the water at Lola’s house.”

The look she gave me made my balls tighten.

“Just do it.”

“Damn,” I said, suddenly amused. “I’m not used to you being bossy. I kind of like it.”

“None of this is funny.”

That was a huge understatement. “No, it’s not.”

At the park she didn’t wait for me but just started walking towards the water. The sailboats docked at the marina were a cluttered white backdrop against the deep blue of the water. I struggled to find the right words. I was the guy who had never wanted a relationship because I had been waiting—for this woman. For Miranda. So I had learned the language of loving women temporarily. For a night. Maybe two. I knew how to charm and coax and cajole and laugh with a woman. I knew how to make her scream in pleasure.

What I didn’t know was how to communicate truth. Genuine emotions.

So I didn’t know what to say to Miranda to express the depth of what was going on in my damn heart. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could identity all that jumbled mess myself.

She didn’t seem to know what to say either. She sat down on the ground by the edge of the dock, crossing her ankles in front of her and leaning back onto the palms of her hands. I sat beside her and raised my knees, resting my arms on them. My suit was wrinkled and I wished I were wearing nothing but my underwear. I wanted to wash the whole damn day off of me.

Miranda sighed. Then she finally spoke. “All I wanted was a baby.”

And fuck if that didn’t hurt. I didn’t want it to hurt, but it did. She hadn’t ever wanted me. Not really. Same old shit. Max got trust and loyalty and I was in his shadow. I hoped they threw the book at him.

“You might have one in nine months,” I said. “So I guess it’s a win for you.” It made my gut clench. I pictured her handing me papers to sign over rights to the kid. That wasn’t what I wanted. But at the same time I wasn’t sure I wanted to be with Miranda. She had lied to me. About everything.

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I will probably be ovulating next week.”

“Well, good luck with that.” I turned to look at her. “I’m out. I’m sorry, Miranda.”

She didn’t seem surprised but she was upset. She chewed her fingernail. “I thought you wanted thirty days.”

“I did. But I thought you were being honest with me.”

“I was honest with you, Alejandro. I didn’t lie to you.”

“You just left out the whole fact that you knew all about Max’s shady shit and that you were even involved in planning his disappearing act so he wouldn’t go to prison. That’s a lot different from you pretending for five years to be scared that he was dead.”

Miranda pursed her lips. “I wasn’t pretending. I really thought he was dead.”

I wanted to explode. To demand she admit once and for all Max was a prick but I realized that deep down it didn’t matter. What mattered was that her heart was a vault and I had no entry to it. No damn code. She had me shut out and she always had. I had been nothing but an idiot. “Too bad he’s not. You could have milked that abandoned widow shit forever.”

“That’s a shitty thing to say.”

I picked up a rock and tossed it into the water, needing motion. I felt restless. Maybe I would go work out after I took her somewhere safe. “What do you want me to say? I walked in on the woman I love and my brother kissing. I’m not in the best of moods.”

Though there was a horrible nagging thought in the back of my head that if I didn’t know Miranda, could I really love her?

“He caught me off guard. He kissed me, not the other way around. Then I realized I had to placate him, so I just let it happen.”

“Like you just let this happen?” I gestured between me and her. She had never said she loved me other than the first night, and she had meant this as a big sister kind of love. She had never even said she wanted to be with me. Not really. “For the record, I’m not criticizing that. But I needed the truth, that’s all.”

“Well, I needed you to trust that I wouldn’t have set you up like some common con artist. I can’t believe you would think that of me.”

I had nothing to say to that. Not really. I didn’t feel bad for my reaction because it was a fair one. Max had always been between us and he still was, unfortunately. I just reached out and touched her knee, running my thumb over it, knowing this was the last time I would ever be able to touch her. We had done this whole thing backwards and now we had nothing. We both knew it.

That was why we had stilted words, a physical distance between us, and gazes that were more comfortable on the water than on each other. “I’m sorry,” I told her, and I meant that. I really did. “I pushed you into sex and I’m sorry for that. It was selfish of me.”

She shook her head, her cheeks staining pink. “No, I’m sorry for asking you something so monumental like it was no big deal. It’s not something to be taken lightly and I never meant to take advantage of your feelings for me.”

While the politeness between us made me want to scream, to grab her and push her down and kiss her until she gave me everything, at the same time I was grateful for it because it meant that our need to preserve a friendship of some kind was greater than our anger. I wanted that. We would be those sort-of friends who never saw each other, but I wanted her to understand if she ever needed me, I’d be there in a heartbeat. “If you ever need anything, you can call me. You know that, right?”

She nodded. “Do you want to know if… I mean, there might be papers to sign and…”

I held up my hand. There was a fucking lump in my throat and I didn’t want to hear it all spelled out. I didn’t want to picture a baby with blond hair on her hip while she cooked in that turquoise kitchen. A happy home that I didn’t belong in. “Just send me what you need to. I’ll sign it.” I didn’t want to complicate things for her. I knew she would be an amazing mother. Maybe I had given her that gift. I knew she had given me a gift. A week with her was more than I had ever expected, even if now I knew she had been holding back on me.

“I do love—”

But I cut her off. I knew she was going to say that she loved me. I didn’t want that love. Not the friendship, brotherly love. Not even a little bit. I wanted all or I wanted nothing. “You don’t have to say anything. Let’s just not say anything else.”

There was a tear running down her cheek. “I don’t understand how we got here.”

I wiped it off and leaned in to kiss her forehead softly. I wasn’t going to tempt myself with her lips. “It’s all good, baby.” I stood up and held my hand out to her.

She took it and stood up, wiping her hands on her ass. “I’d rather go to Lola’s actually, if you don’t mind dropping me off there. I want to be alone and my parents will have a bunch of questions.”

“No problem. That makes me feel better because that house has decent security.” I went to brush her hair back then stopped myself. “I still don’t know what is up with that apartment next door. Max didn’t explain what the hell is actually going on.”

“Everything that I thought was wrong,” she whispered. “That’s why I’m afraid. I don’t know what to believe.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant and I didn’t want to dig further and find out. I just nodded. Then I started toward the car, opening the passenger door for her. I turned on music and let the sound swell up and around us, preventing any further conversation. I knew she was crying. I could sense it without looking at her. Her shoulders were shaking and I wanted to comfort her, but at the same time I had no comfort to give if she was crying over Max.

It wasn’t in me. I wanted her to cry over me. Over losing me. But she wouldn’t. And that shit hurt. So I stared at the road, and drove too fast, and barely glanced at her when I walked her to the door at Lola Brandy’s house. The house where we had spent the night wrapped in each other’s arms on the couch.

“Alejandro,” she said, drawing my name out with naked longing. There was sadness and pleading in that tone and I suddenly despised my name. On everyone else’s lips it was a party name. On hers it sounded sweet and sensual.

It pissed me off. “You picked the wrong Garcia brother,” I told her after she stepped inside.

Then when she would have responded, I reached out and pulled the door shut. I heard the lock click in place and then I got the fuck out of there.

I called Ryan. “Hey, you want to get drunk with me? My brother just rose from the dead, man.”

 

 

I knew Alejandro was angry with me and hurt but I couldn’t give him what he needed. Not when my own emotions were a horrible mix of betrayal and anger and fear and disgust. He wasn’t being sympathetic enough to the fact that everything I had thought about my relationship with Max was just gone. Poof. I felt like the world’s biggest naïve idiot.

So when Alejandro pulled the door shut in my face I didn’t bother to go after him. I couldn’t make him feel better right now. I couldn’t even make me feel better. Cheeks stained with tears, I wandered into Lola’s living room and stared out the windows at the pool. The water shimmered under the lights. I popped the slider open and stood there with my arms around my chest.

I didn’t know what to do or how to process everything that I had learned. After a minute I called Zoe, who I hadn’t spoken to since brunch at her parents’, despite her repeatedly texting me.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m glad you called.”

Her voice sounded concerned. “Are you busy?”

“No. How are you? Is everything okay?”

“I need to apologize to you. Can you come over?”

“Of course. And you don’t need to apologize. I shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. What the hell does it even matter anymore?”

“Oh, it matters. I’m at Lola Brandy’s house in North Beach. How soon can you be here?”

“I get to hang at a pop star’s house? Shut the fuck up.”

That made me laugh. “Yes.”

I gave her the address and while I was waiting for her I went to sit by the pool, slipping off my sandals so I could dip my toes in. I could see Alejandro everywhere here, smiling at me. But then Max’s face would appear in my thoughts, his eyes crazy and intense. I shivered.

Impulsively I went and deleted my screen saver shot of him. Then I scrolled through the pictures I had of him. I had always thought he was smiling at the camera, or in one particular picture, staring adoringly at me. Now as I studied it, I interpreted it differently.

My hair was straighter and flatter than the style of the time and I had on a neon pink crop top. Which in hindsight wasn’t a fabulous fashion choice but I had been maybe twenty-three in the picture. I could get away with it. We’d been at a bar in the Grove because Max didn’t go to clubs. He hated South Beach. That was more Alejandro’s scene. Max didn’t like people. But he would go to a bar with me if it had dark corners and sticky floors.

In this photo I was staring out at the camera, smiling broadly, so happy he had agreed to accompany me for a night out. Max wasn’t looking at the camera at all. He was looking at me. I had always thought it was a romantic moment captured. He had been gazing down at me, the woman he loved beyond measure.

Funny how having him wave a gun in my face could change that.

Now it looked predatory.

I suddenly felt anger bubble up inside me and burst forth. I hurled my cell phone across the patio, feeling a sick satisfaction when it made contact with the concrete wall of the house. It dropped to the tile floor.

When I went and retrieved it, my phone was fine, but the screen was shattered. Max’s face was splintered. My smile was sliced in half.

That seemed about right.

“Max is alive,” I told Zoe, after we sat down by the pool in chaise lounge chairs. I had given her a quick tour and she had gushed over the house and how cool it was to be there, but then she had told me to tell her what was up.

There was no sense beating around the bush.

Her eyes widened. “What? How do you know?”

“Because tonight he was in the apartment next door to me and he pulled a gun on me.”

“Oh shit.”

Basically. “He’s been watching me. He wants me to help him steal from my celebrity contacts. When I said no, the gun went in my face.” I shivered, just not quite able to wrap my head around what had happened.

Zoe had brought a bottle of tequila and she held it out to me. “Jesus. Take a swig.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. I might be pregnant.”

Her eyes widened. “What the hell happened in the last nine days? You don’t waste time, girl.”

“I had sex with Alejandro.” My cheeks burned at the memory. “Actually, I had a lot of sex with Alejandro. Like maybe fifteen times.” I thought about it. “Or twenty.” I put my hands on my cheeks to cool my skin.

“That’s a lot of sperm.” She sipped the tequila. “I’m sorry, I need to wrap my head around all of this. So like what, you guys are dating?”

I shook my head. “He thinks that I had some evil plot going with Max this whole time so he was pissed at me, then I got pissed at him for thinking I could be a jerk like that.”

“But that aside, how do you feel about him?” She eyed me, cradling her booze bottle against her chest. “I mean, he’s potentially the father of your child. Was it all just baby-making sex, or was there something more?”

I took a deep breath, prepared to give the answer on the tip of my tongue—that of course there was something more, that I cared about Alejandro, and respected him. But then I pictured him watching me, with deep admiration and love, and I knew it was more than that. He was a good man, who made me laugh and who always had my back. Who would stick. If I let him. Love swelled up inside me, deep and unhurried and mature. “I love him,” I whispered, tears appearing out of nowhere. “I really do. Is that bad?”

Zoe laughed. “I mean, it’s only bad if you don’t want to love him.”

Swallowing, I wiped my eyes. “No. I do want to love him. But I want to start over and do this right. Without the shadow of Max hanging over us or me wanting to have a baby.”

My best friend reached out and squeezed my hand. “Hey. There are no do-overs. Own your shit. Take a minute. Figure out what you really want. Then make it happen. You’re no dumb blonde. You know what you’re doing.”

“Thanks for the confidence but I’m pretty sure I’ve never known what I was doing. I was totally fooled by Max.”

“What did he look like, by the way?”

“High as a kite and like life has kicked him in the dick a few times.” It was true.

“Good,” Zoe said with relish. “Though I wouldn’t mind kicking him in the dick for real for what he’s done to you. And where the fuck was he?”

“Mexico.” Did I want to kick Max in the dick? I thought about it. Anger wasn’t usually my style. I tended to forgive far too easily. But I didn’t want to forgive Max. I wanted him to give me back my innocence and the last five years of my life.

But Zoe was right. There were no do-overs. I could let this break me or I could get the hell over it and finally move on the way everyone had been urging me to for years.

“I can’t believe my ass is sitting on Lola Brandy’s lounge chair. This is so awesome. Just as a side note.” She wiggled around on the chair like she wanted to absorb the mojo.

It made me laugh. I stood up. “You know what I need to do? I need to jump in this pool and wash Max off of me once and for all.” I stripped down to my bra and panties. It felt liberating.

I had skinny dipped here with Alejandro but this was different. This was shedding layers of the past, not my inhibitions. This was a soul cleanse. This was me forgiving myself for loving Max.

Diving in I let the cool water embrace me.

I knew I had to tell Alejandro everything, even if it embarrassed me. Even if it meant he would never speak to me again.

 

 

The next day, hungover as fuck, I went down to the police station and posted bail for Max just so I could punch him again. He refused to get in the car with me.

“Fuck you, I’m walking,” he said, when I yelled at him to get in the car.

“Pussy.”

“Suck my dick.” He was heading north out of the parking lot.

“You let me bail you out but you won’t get in my car?” I had a throbbing headache and a bad attitude. “Fine. Walk, though I can’t imagine where you’re going unless it’s to hell.”

He stopped walking and glared back at me, his face bruised from our fight the day before. “Stop pretending like you’ve been so goddamn injured. I never did shit to you, Alejandro.”

I rubbed the top of my head, hoping to ease the pain in my skull. I had torn it up at the clubs the night before, and had consumed more vodka than was advisable. “You’re a piece of work, you know that? My whole childhood was about you. Mom and Dad were always walking on eggshells hoping you didn’t explode. It was all about you.”

He scoffed. “Grow up. You’re not eight anymore.”

I started toward him but he darted to the right. “Dude, go ahead. We’re in the police station parking lot. You’ll have assault charges on you right next to me.”

He was right and I wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction. “You’re not worth it. I’m done with you. You may not be dead but you’re dead to me. I bailed your sorry ass out and if you have any sense of decency at all you’ll leave Mom and Dad and Miranda alone from here on out.” I was worried about my parents. They were going to be heartbroken when they found out he just hadn’t contacted them in five years. But I had to tell them. No more secrets in our family. No more lies.

“That’s ridiculously dramatic.” Max held his hand out. “Give me a hundred bucks and I’ll leave Miranda alone.”

I froze. He hit a nerve and he knew it. He goaded me. “You like her, don’t you? You like your brother’s cast offs?”

My fist shot out and nailed him straight in the gut, because I wanted to see him double over. He groaned.

“Is that all you got?” he asked, drawing himself back up. He looked beat to hell, tired, older than his thirty years.

“No, but you know what? I’m going to leave it at that. You’re my brother, even if that means nothing to you. It does still mean something to me.” I could say that Max was dead to me, but it didn’t change anything. We were connected and always would be. We shared a mutual history and I couldn’t erase the past.

Max cocked his head. He looked like he didn’t know what to make of my words. “And what does it mean? That you’re going to invite me over to dinner? You, me, and Miranda? No, thanks.”

Something about his tone made me curious. “Does it really bother you that she and I started something? I wouldn’t think you would care, honestly.” I didn’t. “For the record, it had nothing to do with you. I wasn’t trying to get back at you by seeing Miranda. I’ve always wanted to be with her, it’s that simple. But I didn’t think you would care one way or the other.”

“Of course I care,” he snapped. “Look, I may not be perfect but I do have fucking feelings.”

I wasn’t sure I believed him. “That’s reassuring,” I said dryly. But I reached into my wallet and I gave him twenty bucks. “Get yourself a ride. Do what you need to do.”

Max shook his head. “I don’t need your money.” He stuck his hand out. “See you around, man. Take care of Miranda.”

I was suspicious of him and his words, but I decided it didn’t matter. “Miranda isn’t mine to take care of. She’s her own woman.” I took his hand and firmly shook it. “Be safe.”

“You too, bro.” He gave me an enigmatic smile. “I’m either going to disappear again or I’ll end up in prison. Either way, I’ll probably never see you again.”

I just nodded and he walked away. It was more closure than I had ever expected to have. Despite how angry I was with him for threatening Miranda, I was ready to be done with the past.

Getting in my car and driving away, I called Miranda. I wasn’t sure if she would pick up or not but I needed to talk to her about a restraining order against Max, just to be safe.

“Hello?” Her voice was soft, tentative.

“Hey. I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to let you know Max is out on bail. I think you should file a restraining order against him.”

She paused. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. I don’t want to piss him off.”

“I think he’s already pissed off.” I headed toward home. I needed a shower to wash away the stink of my late night. Drinking that much had been stupid but I had been too torn up over Miranda to be rational. I hadn’t even enjoyed myself. Women had flirted with me and whereas in the past I would have loved every minute of that, I hadn’t been able to get the image of Miranda naked, shattering below me, out of my head. I couldn’t have sex with another woman. Not yet.

“The thing is that if I turn on him, he’ll turn on me. I was there, Alejandro. I found out that Max was dealing drugs, and I didn’t do anything about it.” There was a pause and she added, “I transported for him twice. It was so stupid, I know, but I didn’t know what else to do. He would have been so mad at me if I didn’t and I was so young and naïve. But if I file a restraining order, he might tell the cops about that.”

I believed she was telling the truth. Miranda was a trusting person. “Did you ever think that you were in an emotionally abusive relationship? I’m being serious. Max had you completely under his control.” It made me wish again for the thousandth time I had done something about it. I should have stolen her from Max back in the day. But that thought made me roll my eyes. Because a twenty-year-old woman was going to dump her boyfriend for his fifteen-year-old brother.

“Maybe. I never thought about it in those terms. But I am still responsible for my actions. I feel guilty that I wasn’t stronger. I was going to meet up with him, you know. We made a plan. I was going to run with him like some Bonnie and Clyde fantasy.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Me, too. And you’re right. I need to file a restraining order. There is nothing that he can do to me that I can’t handle. Besides, if he has dirt on me, I have more on him.”

“That’s my girl.” I was proud of her for finally standing up to him. She had allowed him to dominate her life far too long. “Let me know if you want me to go to the station with you.”

“I’ll be fine, but thank you.” Her voice was soft. “Thank you for everything.”

I had a lump in my throat and it wasn’t from the drinking. “Yeah. Talk to you later.”

We hung up and that was that.

That night I went out drinking again and I made out with a brunette who looked nothing like Miranda.