I made eye contact with two of my other cousins who happened to be sitting at the table closest to us and mouthed, “Move it” while cocking my head to the side. Luckily, they were polite enough to move, taking their trash with them.
“You didn’t tell me with enough time about the party,” Miss Pearl started. There we went again. “I couldn’t buy your boy a present,” she apologized as we settled her into a chair at an empty table.
“Don’t worry. He has so many presents already. What can I get you both to drink?”
She requested a Diet Coke and Dallas a beer after I told him what we had.
I was surprised he was here. With a beer and a red cup filled with soda in hand, I made my way back to the table, dodging a horde of kids walking through the yard with their cell phones in hand, not paying attention to where they were going.
“Here you go,” I said to both, passing Dallas his can, skipping his gaze in the process, and handing Miss Pearl her cup of diet. “Are you hungry?” I asked her. “We have fajitas, chicken, Mexican rice, beans, nachos…”
“I can’t handle spicy. It messes with my digestion. Is any of that fine?”
“Yes, ma’am. None of it is spicy.”
“I’ll take some chicken and Mexican rice, whatever that is.”
My lips quirked. “Okay. I’ll bring you back a plate. Dallas? Anything?” I made myself ask before my mom caught me not asking and demanded to know where the hell my manners had gone.
But my neighbor turned toward the older woman instead of responding to me. “I’m gonna grab my own plate. You’ll be fine, Nana?”
Wait a second, wait a second.
Nana?
She lifted those thin, gnarled fingers as I stood there and tried figuring out what the hell was going on. Nana? “Boy, I was born fine,” the woman answered, oblivious to the questions bouncing around in my head.
Dallas raised his eyebrows but grinned that grin I’d only seen him give Louie. “If you say so.”
“I say so,” she confirmed, raising her entire hand to wave him off. “Go.”
Fucking Nana? Dallas was related to Miss Pearl? Since when?
“I can get whatever you want,” I started to say before he stood up, my gaze bouncing back and forth between the man and woman who lived across the street from me.
“I know you can, but I got two hands. I can help.”
Nana? Focus, Diana, focus. I gestured toward the grill where one of my uncles was currently manning it, but really, I glanced at Miss Pearl one more time. I didn’t see the relation. I really didn’t.
We made it three feet away from the table when he asked, “Why don’t you tell her your last name isn’t Cruz?”
I eyed him as I snickered. “I don’t know. I’ve told her my last name before, but she keeps calling me Miss Cruz or Miss Lopez. I just let her run with it.”
He sighed and shook his head, sliding those hazel eyes toward the table. “She doesn’t forget anything. Don’t let her fool you. I’ll talk to her about it.”
Was it my imagination or were things already less awkward and more comfortable between us? I didn’t think I was imagining it. Then again, nothing could bring people together quite like seeing a person bawling their eyes out and sharing stories about people who had been loved and lost.
He’d already more than proved to me multiple times he was a good man. A really good man.
“It’s not a big deal. It’s fine. I know what my last name is.” I glanced at him just as we stopped in front of the grill. “I’m glad you came. Louie will be happy to see you.”
Freshly showered and wearing clothing that wasn’t wrinkled or stained for once, it brightened up everything about him. He shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, and I could see the hint of a smile on his pale pink mouth. Dallas squinted a little as he asked, “Did he write my name on the invitation?”
I couldn’t hold it. I burst out laughing. “Yes.”
I could see the corners of his mouth twitch up a little more. “It said Dal-ass on it. That’s how he wrote it. D-a-l-a-s-s. Dalass.”
Just thinking about Louie’s bad handwriting spelling out his name again made my eyes tear up. I’d let myself lose it once he and Josh had made it across the street. He wasn’t picking up on the spelling thing very well, but he was trying. Who was I to knock down his best effort? Especially when it amused me to no end. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was wrong.” I gasped. “So wrong.”
“Sure,” he said, his mouth quirking up that much more until it was 75 percent of a grin. “It made me laugh. Don’t worry about it.”
I grinned at him and gestured toward the food. “You okay with Mexican food?”
“I don’t know anyone who isn’t okay with Mexican food.”
That distracted me. I raised both my eyebrows at him, impressed. “Tío. ?Me das una pierna de pollo, porfa?” I asked my uncle who had taken over the grill, before turning back to the biggest man at the party standing right next to me. “What do you want to eat?”
“Fajitas,” he said in his unforgiving, inflexible English that I barely managed not to smile at.
“Y un pedazo grande de fajita, por favor,” I translated, even though my uncle spoke and understood English pretty well. He wasn’t much of a talker and handed over one plate after another with the meat I’d requested.
“You all right?” Dallas asked as I led him over to the table with the sides.
“Yeah.” I glanced at the hand he had loose at his side. “I never asked, how’s your boo-boo?”
I’d swear on my life he laughed a little, even flexing his hand, too. “Fine. No gangrene, no nothing.”
That made me snort and look up at his face. His facial hair had grown in again lately, and I couldn’t say it didn’t look nice. “You’re welcome.”
Dallas’s smile was this grudging thing that only made mine grow. The more he fought being friendly with me, the more aggressive it made me. The more I wanted it. I’d never been good with people telling me I couldn’t have something.
“I invited Trip, but he said he already had plans, so you’re on your own today.” I’d also invited Ginny, but besides her having to work, I noticed that she and Dallas weren’t close for whatever reason. He probably wouldn’t care that his older cousin wasn’t going to show up, why bother mentioning it?
Trip’s name had barely come out of my mouth when the expression on his face fell just a little, just a little, but he nodded. “He left for Houston.”
He’d explained that to me. I gestured to the trays of food set up on the table. “Grab whatever you want from here. Like I told Miss Pearl, none of it’s spicy, except the salsa and hot sauce over there on the end.”
Dallas’s eyes lingered on me for a moment before he reached over to scoop rice, beans, and even the small bowl of squash my mom had insisted on putting out, onto his plate. Coming up next to him, I did the same for Miss Pearl’s plate, unsure of what she’d want. His elbow brushed mine as he said, “I got Josh a gift card.”