Chapter Twenty Two
“I cannot believe you Mateo’d me into this.”
I grin at Mia, who is so, so tipsy on wine right now that she can’t sit up straight. “In my defense, I knew you’d say no.”
Jabbing a finger in my direction, she says, “That’s why you Mateo’d me. Vince thought you guys were bros. He’s gonna be so pissed at you now.”
“I don’t want Vince to be pissed at me,” I object. “We’re totally bros. I just needed some girl time. I asked Vince nicely to bring you, he told me no. I had to go over his head.”
She’s smirking, which is funny since Mia doesn’t usually smirk, and pointing a wobbly finger at me. “Mateo.”
I shrug, taking a drink of my bottled water. “I’ve been called worse.”
Mia shakes her head, taking another sip of her wine. “How’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Harness him. You can, like, wield him now. How did you do that?”
“I can’t wield him,” I say, laughing at the absurdity of such a thing.
Her blue eyes widen so earnestly, I have to force myself not to laugh. “You can. You do. You want something, he makes it happen. Usually he’s the one pulling the strings, but you figured out how to pull his. How?”
I shake my head in denial. “I don’t pull his strings. I just love him, and he loves me. I think I get to borrow a little bit of his power by virtue of being his woman—it’s still all his, I just get perks.”
“You seem so happy with him,” she says, like I’m exceptional actress.
“I am,” I agree.
She shakes her head for way too long, bobbing. “I never saw that coming. Mateo seemed like the kind of guy who would be impossible to handle. I thought he’d need an actual doormat, not some mouthy, bold weirdo.”
I laugh hysterically at being called a weirdo, and Mia laughs with me, just because she’s really drunk.
“You need to help me with this wine,” she states, emptying her glass and then pouring some more.
I reach out for it, afraid she’s going to spill it all over Mateo’s sitting room. He’s not fond of mess, and I don’t want to bother a maid.
She manages to get it all in the glass and put it back down. “This is fun though. I’m glad we can do stuff like this. I never actually imagined Mateo with someone, but if he was, I didn’t picture her liking me.”
“The doormat, you mean?” I ask with my own smirk.
“Yes,” she drawls. “I’m way more jealous than you. When I first met Cherie, I didn’t know she was Vince’s sister, and I was so jealous of her.”
“Cherie’s really pretty,” I say, nodding. “I’m just not a man babysitter. Rodney tried to make me jealous a few times, but it failed hard. The way I see it, I shouldn’t have to follow you around making sure you keep your dick in your pants.”
Snorting indelicately, she says, “Again, how did you end up with Mateo?”
“I don’t see him cheating. If he didn’t use you to punish me when he literally thought I was here to kill him for my rival boyfriend, he’s not gonna. I mean, I don’t know your history with him, but I think he’s smart enough to know better. Cheating on someone you care about is just about the dumbest thing a person could possibly do. If you’re cheating, you’re either so stupid you don’t know you’re going to make your partner stop loving you, or you want out. Mateo’s not stupid, and if he ever wants out, I’m fucked anyway.”
“You can’t leave him?” she questions, though she’s nodding like she already assumed.
I shake my head, fingering the locket hanging around my neck. “Nope. I took this death necklace and signed over my soul.”
“He loves to acquire souls,” she tells me, peering at the locket. “What’s inside?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t been able to get the damn thing open. Probably pictures of some old people I don’t know, so I’m not that worried about it. I mean, I don’t ever want to leave him anyway, but no, it’s not an option.”
“That used to be my life. When Vince and I first got together—well, when Mateo first met me—I was in that same predicament with Vince. I didn’t get a necklace out of it, but Mateo made it so if Vince ever got sick of me…” She draws a solemn line across her neck, indicating her death.
“Ew,” I say, frowning.
She nods. “It’s not like that anymore, now we’re just in a normal relationship, but yeah, that kind of pressure was not easy to deal with. I always thought being with Mateo would’ve been that kind of pressure every single day of your life. Like, just this suffocating fear and paranoia. He’s so much and how does one woman sustain him?”
I shake my head. “It’s not like that at all.”
“I was convinced it would’ve been.”
I watch as she takes another sip of her wine, considering her words. “Do you mean for anyone, or for you? Were you entertaining the idea of a relationship with Mateo?”
“I did, briefly, a couple times. At one point, Vince did get sick of me. Mateo’s fault, but I thought Vince didn’t want me anymore, and this was before Mateo freed me, so I was pretty much out of options. If Vince didn’t want me, Mateo was gonna kill me—unless he was still toying with me, then I got a reprieve for however long. But, yeah. If Vince and I wouldn’t have patched things up, I probably would’ve ended up with Mateo.” Grinning, she sways toward me. “Guess it’s a good thing that didn’t happen, huh?”
I’m not sure if I wish I was drunk with her or not, but this conversation would probably be more fun with alcohol flowing through my veins. “How did that… I mean, how did he free you?”
“I fucked my way out,” she states without hesitation. “You know how when you’re in a gang and you want out, everybody beats the shit out of you, and if you survive, you’re out? Well, Mateo’s the whole gang, but I survived him and he gave me my freedom for it.”
“He’s a swell guy that way,” I remark.
She snorts. “Swell, yeah. Don’t talk to Vince about that though, he doesn’t know I voluntarily slept with Mateo to get us out. Or, he might, but we pretend he doesn’t.”
“Mateo didn’t hit you though?” I ask, to be sure, given her example.
Scowling, she verifies, “No, just an analogy. I don’t think he’s angry enough to hit women. I’ve never seen him that angry until he thought you cheated. Oh, buddy.”
“Yeah, he doesn’t take infidelity well.”
“No one does, he just has unchecked power. In the throes of fresh betrayal, no one should have Mateo’s power. If Vince did, he would’ve wiped Mateo out a long time ago.”
“Not you?”
She shakes her head, grabbing her wine. “He knew it wasn’t my fault. I mean, he acted like it was, but what could I really do?”
“Not cheat?” I return lightly.
“I didn’t have—” She stops, frowning, and then nods, a little more grounded. “Yes. You’re right, that would’ve been the right thing to do. But I had to get us out of this house, and he Indecent Proposal’d me, and I said fuck it.”
I shrug, shifting my position on the couch. “I’m not here to judge. Obviously, you and Vince worked it out, and I’m glad.”
“I’m not, like, a cheater. It’s just, he’s Mateo.”
I smile faintly, nodding. “I understand. I’ve never cheated, but I’m glad I didn’t meet Mateo when I was married.”
“Right?” Her eyes widen. “He’s like a force of nature. There’s just something about him.”
“You still think so?”
“Of course. I mean, obviously not that I would act on, but that’s why I had to get out of this house. I’ve never met someone who had such a magnetic pull. Even though you know what he is, and you know he’s terrible for you, you can’t help being just… drawn to him. Right?” She looks to me for validation.
I nod sympathetically. “Yeah, I wouldn’t disagree.” Not super thrilled that she still feels it, but hey. Whatever, right?
“Vince is so much easier to handle. When I first met him I thought he was scary, but then I met Mateo. Now Vince feels like… gentle ocean waves lapping around you after a goddamn hurricane.” Cutting her eyes to me very seriously, she says, “Mateo is the hurricane.”
“I surmised as much.”
“Vince is great,” she says, all dreamy now. “I love Vince.”
“Do you love Mateo?”
She’s had enough wine not to shut me right down, and she takes a moment to think about it. “Yeah, I guess I do. Not the way you do,” she adds, even drunk. “Not the same way I love Vince, but… I don’t want him to be lonely, even when he’s an ass and he deserves it. I want him to be happy. I care about him. I don’t know if I have Stockholm syndrome or I just feel like he’s family,” she tells me, grinning. “But when I realized you were making him happy, I was so glad.”
That puts my mind at ease in more ways than one. While not jealous by nature, I was starting to get a smidge worried about all her talk of being drawn to him. Mateo is a very magnetic person, and I don’t expect no other woman will ever be drawn to him, but preferably not one who already has a sexual history with him.
Also given the various times I’d doubted the actual nature of their sexual history. If it was as bad as I’d feared during the worst moments, she wouldn’t love him.
“Don’t tell Vince that though,” Mia adds, seeming to realize what she just said. “Obviously he wouldn’t understand.”
“I wouldn’t,” I assure her.
“I still dream about him sometimes.”
Shaking my head, I uncap my water and take a drink. “Man, I wish I was drunk right now.”
Eyes widening as if she’s just realizing, she asks, “Why aren’t you?”
I’m not sure this is the right time to say so, but I’m not sure there is a right time, so I say, “I haven’t had a period since I moved in.”
Somehow her eyes go even wider. “Are you pregnant?”
“Maybe. I haven’t taken a test yet, but I’ve been emotional and I don’t normally miss periods. Lots of unprotected sex, so it’s not an unreasonable guess.”
Nodding, she says, “He hates condoms. I was so relieved when I wasn’t pregnant. But also a little sad, just the tiniest bit, because I realized since Vince doesn’t want kids, that was probably my only chance. But it would’ve been a disaster, so it was definitely a good thing. Are you excited, or not so much?”
My eyebrows are still hiked up over that last piece of information. “You thought you were pregnant by…?”
She shrugs theatrically, then snorts. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Jesus, woman. You should use condoms if you’re going to fuck your way out.”
“We did that time,” she assures me. “It was before I was afraid he was going to get me pregnant. Mateo wouldn’t let me have birth control.”
My stomach feels a little funny. “Did he want to get you pregnant?”
“Maybe, to piss off Vince. Who knows? May have just been part of the game to torture me. He probably didn’t really want to impregnate me, but he was trying to make me hate him, so he pulled out all the stops.”
“That doesn’t sound nice.”
“It wasn’t. It was a dark time. But now we’re all better. He’s so manipulative, I don’t know how much of what I experienced was an act, and how much was real, so… who knows. It doesn’t matter. We should go baby shopping! My little brother and sister aren’t babies anymore, it’s so sad. I’m so excited!”
“I don’t even know if I am, yet. I was actually going to ask you to get me a pregnancy test.”
After a hiccup, Mia nods. “For sure. I’ll bring one tomorrow. Now that you’re not on house arrest anymore, we should go shopping. I saw this gorgeous lilac dress in the window at the mall. I can’t afford it right now, but I do want to try it on.”
“I’ll buy it for you,” I tell her. “We need to get you a few outfits for your first semester, too.”
“I can’t believe I’m going to college. I didn’t think I’d be able to afford it.”
I watch her, though it’s not like I have to pay close attention with her this drunk. “Is Mateo paying for it?”
She bobs her head yes. “He wasn’t going to originally when we moved out, but he has since changed his mind.”
I figured. “Well, I’m going to be running the bakery now and I know you used to work there from time to time. If you want to make a little extra cash this summer, you could work there with me.”
“I love that idea,” she tells me, but a bit soberly. “I can’t believe Francesca actually ran though. I know she wasn’t happy here, but it always seemed like she knew better.”
“I didn’t know Francesca all that well. I didn’t even realize she wasn’t happy here.”
“Well, you’ve had a lot going on. A lot to adjust to. Presumably Mateo’s kept you pretty busy, plus you were a maid, and a mom—it’s a lot.” Sinking back into the couch, she says, “Speaking of a lot, why did you let me drink so much wine?”
Grinning, I tell her, “I’m much more likely to get the truth out of you drunk.”
Mia shakes her head. “Mateo’s never gonna let us have girls’ night again.”