“Mmm.” She snuggled closer and twirled her fingers through the crinkly black hairs that grew between his pecs. Then she stilled. “You think we should be doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Cuddling. Are friends with benefits allowed to cuddle?”
He stared up at the stars playing peek-a-boo between the fronds of the palm trees. “Is that what we are? Friends with benefits?”
“I’d like to think so.”
Even though he couldn’t see her face, he knew the expression she wore just by the timbre of her voice. She was smiling. Not the mega-watter that made him go dumb and blind, but the small, closed-mouth smile that made her look like she was keeping a secret.
He frowned in response.
Friends with benefits. It sounded so...shallow.
“I don’t know if friends with benefits are supposed to cuddle.” He hoped his sudden discomfiture wasn’t revealed in his voice. “I’ve never had any friends with benefits.”
She pushed up on her elbow. Her brow furrowed as she stared down at him. “I was under the impression all you had were friends with benefits.” The starlight caught in the strands of her hair, turning it to rose gold.
“Nope.” He shook his head. “I’ve only ever had the benefits. No friends.”
He thought she might be put off by the thought of his liaisons having been so hollow and meaningless. He was a little surprised when she chuckled. “Forget the nickname Romeo. Romeo only ever loved one woman. You should’ve been nicknamed Casanova.” Before he could respond, she cocked her head and continued, “Is that why you don’t want to get married or commit? Because why settle for one woman when you can have any woman you want? Every woman you want?”
Her question touched on a topic he hadn’t thought about in years. Or...okay, that wasn’t true. He hadn’t thought about it in years, and then she showed up and, suddenly, he’d started being hard-pressed to think of anything else.
Started wishing things were different.
Started wishing he was different.
His eyes unfocused as his mind drifted back to a phone conversation he’d had with his mother three years after joining the Navy. He’d called to tell her he’d completed his flight training, and that he was officially a certified pilot—something he’d done in what little downtime his active service afforded him. But instead of being excited for him, instead of being proud of him, his mother had only sounded disappointed.
“Does this mean you won’t be coming home to help Alejandro? You’re hooked on all this armed forces stuff, eh? Gonna join the Air Force next?”
The OtterBox case on Romeo’s cell phone crackled a warning when he tightened his grip. “No. I’m not joining the Air Force. I just thought it would be fun to learn to fly. And Alejandro doesn’t need my help.” His words were clipped. “Sounds like he’s doing fine on his own.”
His mother had been all too happy to inform him that his older brother was now third in command and still clawing his way up the food chain in the Mexican Mafia. Romeo got sick to his stomach thinking about the awful things Alejandro must’ve done to rise so high so fast.
“Whether Alejandro needs you or not,” his mother persisted, “you should still come home after your contract is up. You only have one more year and then you can put all this relaje bullshit behind you and jump back in.”
“I’m not a turncoat, Mamá.” He used the English version of her Spanish slang. “I don’t want the life. I want to make a career in the Navy, have the house with the white picket fence, and maybe find a girl who grew up in the ’burbs to love me. Be normal.”
His mother made a tching sound. “You’re handsome enough to turn any head you want. But what happens when your good looks wear off, eh? What happens when these suburban putas realize under all that pretty packaging, you’re just another piece of Chicano trash?”
His mother hadn’t known it at the time, but her words had reminded him of what his high school girlfriend, Gina Lopez, had said the day he told her he was taking the deal the judge offered him.
He’d assumed Gina would wait for him to finish his stint in the Navy. After all, it’d been her idea for him to rob the corner store, which had led to him getting nabbed by the five-oh, which had led to him going before Judge Biltmore, which had led the judge to giving him a choice between being tried as an adult or agreeing to do his time in the military.
But Gina had simply stared at him incredulously before throwing back her head and laughing.
“Wait for you? Why would I do that?” she asked.
“Because...” Romeo blinked his confusion. “That’s what people who love each other do, isn’t it?”
The look of utter derision that came over her face haunted him. “I don’t love you. I’m with you because you’re hot, you know how to bone, and because I thought you were going places in La eMe.” She used the nickname for the Mexican Mafia. “But behind that handsome face is nothing but a scared little boy. You were too afraid to kill that surfer so you could join Alejandro on his way to the top. And now you’re too cowardly to face your sentence like a true homeboy should. Oh, novio, don’t you get it? All the girls want you. But love you? No.” She shook her head. “Love is for men, not for boys.”
And if Romeo had needed further proof of the truth behind his mother’s and Gina’s words, he’d gotten it from Rachel Murphy, the woman he’d dated for six months before being accepted into the SEAL program.
He’d known he wouldn’t be able to see much of Rachel while he went through the training, and he’d been reassuring her that he wasn’t breaking up with her. In fact, he’d been telling her he’d very much like to see where their relationship was headed when she cocked her head and frowned at him.
“What do you mean ‘where it’s headed’?” she asked. “It isn’t headed anywhere. You’re too pretty for forever, cookie.” She pointed at him. “What woman wants to be with a man who’s constantly having ass thrown in his face?” She shook her head. “It’s too much temptation for you, and too much worry for whatever woman might think to try to tie you down. Take it from me, you should use what god gave you and sow those wild oats until you run out of wild oats to sow.”
That had been the last time he’d considered the idea of anything long term. The last time he’d fought against what had become glaringly obvious to him...
Women thought he was good for one thing and one thing only.