Great. She heaved a frustrated sigh and strode to the patio edge farthest from the sliding glass door and potentially prying eyes. “I haven’t quite figured it out yet. But I do know, I am not up for surprises and forced meet-ups like this.”
She didn’t have the time or energy . . . or the heart, not that she’d admit that last one . . . to worry about thinking one step ahead of their moms. If she even could.
“I don’t know how you put up with this all the time,” he muttered, rolling his chair closer and stopping at her side.
“They mean well.” Something her father reminded her of often.
“Doesn’t feel like it. The nosiness and butting into your business. Always thinking they know what’s best, the—”
“Caring about you?” Her annoyance swung like a heavy pendulum from their meddling moms to him and his rudeness. “Que ingrato.”
“Pfff, ingrate?” he scoffed. “What? Because I don’t like being manipulated?”
“No, because you’re being a jerk about it.”
“Look, you deal with your mom your way. I’ll take care of mine.” Palming the large tires, he spun his chair around, then pushed himself away.
Nuh-uh. He was not going to run away like he’d done before. Lunging forward, she latched on to one of the handgrips, dragging him to a halt.
“What the hell?” He twisted in his seat and swatted at her hand.
Anamaría held on tighter. “Don’t be an ass and go hurting your mom’s feelings. As bothersome as their hovering might be, it’s their way of saying they want us to be happy.”
“No, they want what they think will make us happy! But even if they can’t or won’t face the truth, you and I have.” He eyed her with resentment, then muttered a curse and twisted around to plop back in his chair. “You made your choice clear years ago.”
Outrage at his unfair accusation exploded inside her like an emergency flare shot in the air and she saw red.
“Are you seriously putting this all on me?” she ground out.
Pulse pounding in a bongo beat that freed the anger and disillusion she had long harbored, Anamaría circled his chair to stand in front of him, hands fisted on her hips.
Their breakup had been excruiating and drawn out. Months in the making. Precipitated by decisions he had made on his own.
She had spent those months praying he’d change his mind about never coming back. That he’d make amends with his father.
Alejandro had expected that she would drop her classes, leave her familia, and simply follow him. Without a real plan for herself.
Eventually, they had started allowing the silences between them to grow longer. The number of days between calls stretched. And then, like the quiet closing of a book that had come to an end, they finished with a vapid We can’t keep doing this from her and a trite It’s not working anymore from him.
She’d been forced to throw in the towel first because he hadn’t been man enough to admit he was distancing himself from her. From everyone. Hell, he’d even stopped calling Enrique, and they’d been as close as brothers.
“You may not comprehend this,” she ground out. “The hovering, the annoying over-protective behavior. I’d take all of that from my parents and brothers any day of the week over not having them in my life at all. You didn’t get that back then. And it’s apparent you’re still clueless now.”
Alejandro’s lips pressed into a hard line. He stared at her, his chest rising, then falling with a deep breath before he finally spoke in a gravel-rough voice. “I didn’t expect you to give them up. But I didn’t expect you to give up on me, either.”
She heaved a resigned sigh, dropping her head back to glare at the wispy clouds in the pale blue sky. Irritated at the universe in general and her ex in particular over this rehash of their last few arguments.
“Ale, you applied for and accepted a full-time, six-month internship without talking to me about it.” She held her hands out as if laying their cards on the table, wanting him to finally give her a good reason for playing his so close to his chest and keeping everything a secret. His original flimsy excuse of thinking his news would be a welcome surprise didn’t suffice. “Our summer trip turned into something indefinite and you expected me to be okay with that.”
“You said you wanted adventure.”
“Yes, along with a home. Here. Those two didn’t . . . don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”
“They do for me. My father made that clear. Then, and now.” The finality in his voice stifled her rebuttal.
His gaze slid past her to the sliding glass door, then down at his injured leg. She recognized the anguish of a son rejected by his father. Something Ale’s ego would never allow him to admit.
Frustrated by the futility of their circular argument and the reality that more than ten years had passed without a damn thing changing, Anamaría turned away from him with a muttered curse.
A moped horn beeped somewhere nearby, startling a little yellow bird that squawked and flew out from between the flaming red petals of the flamboyán tree. A male voice called out, “Adiós!” and the moped’s engine sputtered, then gained intensity as the driver accelerated away. Unknowingly fleeing the tense silence in their neighbor’s backyard.
“AM, I don’t want to fight with you anymore.”
Alejandro’s softly spoken confession whispered over her like a light breeze blowing in off the ocean. Refreshing, though momentary before the heavy humidity, much like their problems, descended again.
She peeked at him from the corner of her eye. Skeptical.
“I only plan on being here for a couple months. I don’t want to spend that time upset with my mom, or my abuela. Or you, for that matter.” He dipped his head and gestured toward her, palm up, sincerity in his dark eyes and broody expression.
Her breath caught with surprise at what sounded almost like a peace offering.
Could she do more than pretend she had moved on? Forgive and forget like her mami had advised?
Maybe. If he didn’t start acting like a selfish ass again. And if she kept her heart completely out of the equation.
“Fine,” she muttered. “I accept your apology.”
“I didn—”
“Look, Sara and I are heading to New York this weekend. She’s speaking at a conference. I’m meeting with her agent about representation and a potential sponsorship opportunity,” Anamaría elaborated when Alejandro arched a brow in question. “If you and I are lucky, Enrique will pull some idiotic stunt while I’m gone and my mami will have her hands full with that. Leaving us . . . me . . . alone.”
She hitched a shoulder and tilted her head with a half shrug. “That’s our best option right now.”
Ale nodded. “When E comes by tomorrow, I’ll see if I can convince him to be the fall guy this time.”
“My baby brother owes me. Remind him of that.”
The faint smile on Alejandro’s lips at her fisted salute to her brother was at odds with the thoughtful frown furrowing his brows as he absently rubbed his left quad and knee.
“You okay?” she asked, chalking her concern up to a hazard of her job.
“I’m fine. Supposed to take another pill with lunch. Actually, I was, uh, thinking about our strange role reversal.”