I felt the ball in my stomach shift. He’d tested that faith, hadn’t he? But then, he’d also succumbed to David’s demands to protect our relationship. To spare me the heartbreak after learning he’d asked David to marry me. And that meant something. It had to.
“Your father is a good man,” she continued. “Or maybe he was, once upon a time. Now he’s too wrapped up in his own greatness. He believes that everyone around him is at his disposal, for his own plots and schemes.” Her hands went up in the air, and she spread and wiggled her fingers. “He believes he’s the puppet master.”
“One doesn’t get where he is without that kind of scheming.”
“I wouldn’t know.” She averted her gaze for an instant, and when eyes as brown as mine returned to my face, I knew my mother was about to tell me something she never had before. “I don’t like that you’ve kept things from me. Not when your father has, too. Secrets.”
“I’m sorry, Mami.” For better or worse, I had kept things from her. “Deep down I kept this from you not to upset you. Do you think Dad meant to do that, too? With his secrets?”
“I don’t think so. Otherwise I’d know where he came from,” she offered. “There’s a black smudge covering a big part of his past. He lets people believe he’s from Miami, but he’s not.” A shake of her head. “I found out from the letters.”
“The letters?”
“Right before I discovered I was pregnant with you, I found a stack of letters in his desk. And I wasn’t snooping.” She rolled her eyes at me before I made the remark. “They were all from a woman, addressed to him personally, and when I asked him about them, he went pale as a ghost and mumbled something about his childhood. That’s how I knew. You know your father doesn’t shake up easily.”
“Was he—”
“Cheating?” she finished for me. “No. He swore it wasn’t that, and I believed him.” A finger tapped the side of her head. “You know I can tell when someone’s lying.” She really could. “But he never told me what it was really about.” Her hand reached out across the tabletop, and when she wrapped her fingers around mine, I squeezed. “That’s why I never married him. I am sorry for not giving you a normal family, but I couldn’t. It wasn’t the letters, it was him not trusting me enough to tell me the truth. I was an open book, I gave him my all. And him keeping from me the things that made him the man he was… It showed me that I was never an equal to him.”
“You’ve never told me any of this,” I said, barely managing to suppress the emotion in my voice. “And you’re my family, okay?” Did my mother really believe I blamed her for not marrying my dad? That our family wasn’t normal? “You were all the family I needed growing up.” I cleared my throat. “And let’s face it, you make any room, any house, feel like it’s full of people.”
That had been meant to be a joke, but God, it was nothing but the truth.
My mother smiled, and her eyes began to water. “Love is a funny game, mi amor. There are no rules, and no matter how hard you try to win, one way or another, your heart is always on the line.” A shaky breath left her. “I’m sorry I never told you this. I never wanted to change the way you looked at him.”
I clasped her hands in mine. And thought of her words, of how true they rang in my head. How heartbreaking it must have been for her to know she was pregnant and had to share a life with a man she loved but who didn’t love her back enough to trust her.
She shook her head. “So, speaking of love, are you going to finally explain to me why you’re living with a man?” A wink was thrown my way, and luckily, I wasn’t given an opportunity to speak. “I won’t complain, though. This Cameron is so handsome. And tall. Oh, how tall he is.” She arched her brows. “I would also bet he could pick both of us up and not break a sweat. And those tattoos I’ve just seen on his arm?” Her lips pursed with mischief. “Does he have mo—”
“Mami, no.” I was not going to discuss Cameron’s possibly hidden tattoos with my mother.
“You’re no fun,” she said with a shrug. “Then tell me if he’s the reason you didn’t go back to Miami. Does he treat you like you deserve?”
My whole face flushed all shades of red. “He…” I trailed off, suddenly lost for words. Does he treat me like I deserve? My heart pounded in my chest with the answer. “Yes. He treats me like no one ever has.”
My mother blinked once, twice, three times. And to my utter shock, she broke into laughter. “Dios mío, hija.”
I felt the tips of my ears burn.
“I’ve never seen you like this.” She patted her chest, one last chuckle rolling off her before she sobered up. She pinned me with a serious look. “You have it just as bad.”
“Just as bad?”
“As him, mi amor.” She jumped off the stool and came to stand in front of me. She cupped my cheeks. “I’ve been in town for two hours, and every single second of the time he’s been in front of me, he’s been looking at you like you’re un pastelito he wants to eat.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I was joking about the banging earlier. I wanted to see if he’d react in a way I didn’t like.” My eyes widened with horror. “Don’t worry, he passed my test. Now, really, have you kissed him yet?” My jaw fell to the floor. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Cameron’s words echoed in my head, I could fucking eat you right now. Then the memory of his lips against mine. His hands, all over me. The way I’d—No. I couldn’t think of that with my mother, apparently a witch, here.
“I like you like this,” she said, so softly I barely heard her. “You’re shining.”
Show me how fucking bright you burn.
My heart leaped in my rib cage, and a chuckle left my mother’s lips before she wrapped her arms around me, enveloping me in Maricela Reyes’s tightest hug. “This is all I wanted. Making sure that you were okay. Now that I know that, I will be here for just the night.” She sighed, but it wasn’t sad. “I know that man is not going to touch you as long as I’m here and, hija, you need to get—”
“Mom. Jesus, please stop,” I begged. But this time, it was with a laugh.
And to her credit, she did stop. Although not without telling me, “I don’t think we want to bring Jesus into this particular conversation, mi reina.”
* * *
I couldn’t sleep.
There was too much noise in my head. My conversation with my mother had left me… unsettled in both negative and positive ways. For one, I felt like I understood her, now more than ever. And I wished we’d talked about this before. That I wouldn’t have shut her down so many times in the past and had given her the chance to tell me these things. I also felt bad for not taking her side more. Horrible. Guilty, for allowing my father to claim he cared about her when he could never back up those words with actions.
It wasn’t the only reason I felt restless. There was this constant hum at the back of my head. One that had been there ever since I’d met Cameron. Growing louder with every day that passed. With every second spent in this roller coaster our relationship had been. A hum that had shifted tonight. A hum that batted its wings when I thought of every day preceding this night. Or the way I felt with him. Or how I’d never been looked at like he looked at me. Even at the beginning, when we’d clashed, disagreed, and bickered, I’d never felt invisible when it had been him in front of me. He’d always, always given me his full attention. For better or worse.
And now… now I wanted more. I wanted more than just his attention. I wanted to feel like I’d felt tonight. Seen. Connected. Not to someone, but to him. Cameron.
Without really knowing how, I rolled off Cameron’s large bed, and my bare feet padded over the hardwood. I made it to the living room and immediately zeroed in on his shape.