Page 10 of Tenderfoot

“Raye, she can take care of herself,” he declared. “Luna, the same. Jessie gets the life because she’s lived it. Not you. Your parents are both doctors. So is your brother. On both sides, your mother and father come from money. You grew up in a six-bedroom house with a pool and a tennis court. You went to Phoenix Country Day. You had a nanny. A woman of my culture lived in your pool house and vacuumed your floors, did your grocery shopping, your laundry and cooked your food. And you walk into uncertain situations wearing shoes you can’t run in. You got no fuckin’ business doin’ that Angel shit, and my guess is, you know it as much as I do.”

It should weird me out he knew so much about me, stuff I’d never told him, but in that moment, I couldn’t get weirded out because I was far too ticked.

“Obviously, since I’m doing it, I know nothing of the sort.”

Suddenly, he was in my space, the tip of his perfect nose brushing mine, and I was so shocked at his quick movement and unexpected nearness, I wasn’t breathing.

“You’re marking time here, Harlow,” he whispered irately. “And I know you know that.”

With his proximity, the scent of him, which was not cologne, it was all about a mountain of hot guy, and all of that doing a number on me, I had no choice but to stammer, “Wh-what are you talking about?”

“You’re slumming,” he declared, his words making what felt like a boulder block my throat. “Probably to prove a point to your parents for whatever stupid-ass reasons you got. You’re gonna hang with your girls while it’s fun. Then, when it’s not, and they all get hooked up, you’re gonna find a doctor or a lawyer or a banker or whatever the fuck and move into your own six-bedroom house with a pool and a tennis court, get a nanny, and a Latina that makes good tamales to cook your family’s dinner.”

He didn’t just say that to me.

I stared into his amber eyes.

But…he did.

And now I understood why there had been no plays, no moves.

I’d been so wrong about those sparks.

Javier Montoya not only didn’t like me.

He didn’t like me.

Having this laid out so brutally for me, I wanted to cry, I really did.

I could flounce with the best, fume even better, but I was heck on wheels crying. I had to unfollow good news accounts on Insta because I couldn’t scroll through stories of kindergartners giving kids with cancer returning to school standing ovations, or firefighters holding cats they saved from fires without losing it every time a heartwarming story came up on my feed.

I didn’t know how I found the strength, but I found the strength not to cry, and instead, in a wavering voice, I said, “You don’t know me.”

“Figure I know you better than you do yourself.”

“And how do you figure that?” I asked, even if I really didn’t want to know.

“I didn’t have money or a nanny or a maid to cushion the shit of life, Harlow. You live what I lived, you learn to read people, and you’re an open book. This Angel shit is a lark for you. It means something to Raye. To Jess. Even to Luna. To you, it’s a story to tell the new friends you’re gonna get about the days when you were single and looking for a thrill.”

“The new friends I’m going to get?” I whispered, unable to raise my voice further, because that hurt most of all.

“The boys at NI&S do well. But Mace and Stella don’t have that huge fuckin’ compound in Paradise Valley because Mace is worth a couple hundred million dollars. It’s because Stella is. You’re gonna aim for the top, and bein’ you, you’re gonna get it.”

I again asked a question I didn’t want the answer to. “Being me?”

He moved away enough to take in my tulip lamp, my glass mushroom, the baby-pink, shell-shaped toss pillow on my seafoam-green couch, then back to me.

And then he dealt his death blow.

“Everything about you is designed to land a man who’ll take care of you the way you expect him to.”

I vaguely noticed the flicker of remorse that flashed in his eyes when there was no way to hide my reaction.

That reaction being, I flinched like his words were a physical blow and I instantly stepped away from him like he was a threat.

“Harlow—” he started, the tone of his deep, gruff voice no longer irritable and matter-of fact, the mask he’d kept on his handsome face dropping, but I refused to read what it said.

I backed away to my bean bag, not taking my eyes from his as I bent to the side and nabbed my clutch.

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