Page 34 of Flame
And, with that imagery in my head, the floodgates open.
A million different phrases spill out as my mind whirls with images of watchful dark eyes and a body like sin. Soon, the rest of the world fades. My universe narrows to a strip of ink, forming whatever is in my head, but it feels as though I’ll never have enough time to get it all out—this confession. These words. This magic.
My only tether to the real world comes in the form of a smell at first—sharp and pungent, savory, and spicy. My stomach growls, shattering the trance, as I look up from the pages of my notebook, I’m so shocked by the sight I find, I drop my pen.
Rafe is in the kitchen, shirt off, back to me as he works at the stove. He’s cooking, a realization that catches me off guard almost as much as his voice does—low, forming a jaunty, slightly off-key tune.
By now, the man shouldn’t be capable of surprising me—but watching him perform such a domestic task serves that purpose and then some.
“What are you making?” I ask, rising to my feet. My legs throb in protest, and a glance at the sunset painting the horizon beyond the window reinforces just how long I’ve been writing—I’ve lost hours in what felt like mere minutes.
“Elotes,” Rafe declares as I approach. He presents me with a steaming platter of food balanced on one hand. “And tamales.”
“Impressive,” I declare, and my awe isn’t faked—scrambled eggs and salad is the extent of my culinary abilities.
His creation blows both out of the water. Intrigued, I sample the elote—corn slathered in a mixture of spices—and my eyes widen in genuine shock.
“Good, huh?” Rafe smirks, unabashedly smug. “It’s damn good.”
Too stunned to argue, I nod and attack my plate in earnest. The variety of spices and rich flavor make me suspect he didn’t learn this from a random recipe. “Who taught you to cook?” I ask once I’ve nearly cleared my plate.
“My mother.” His face falls, and guilt hits me like a punch to the stomach.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out, but he shakes his head.
“Don’t be. She could make one hell of a tamale.” He takes a monstrous bite of his and flashes a grin.
“Tell me about her?”
His eyes darken, growing distant again. In a heartbeat, he’s miles away, staring into the past where I can’t follow.
Just when I think he’s beyond my reach, he sighs.
“She was good,” he says softly. “Damn good. A good mother. A good woman. She worked her ass off for me. Anything I wanted, I got, whether or not we could afford it. Even if I didn’t deserve it. Somehow, someway, she made it happen.”
Obvious sadness deepens his voice, and I have a good idea as to why. Gino once mocked him with the awful truth of just how his mother provided for him—by doing whatever his uncle required of her. Anything for her son.
“I was a punk back then,” he adds. “I gave her shit like you wouldn’t believe, but she never once yelled at me. Never hit me. Never really punished me. ‘You’re angry,’ she used to say. ‘Don’t pout or throw a tantrum. You let it out. You show me your pain.’ Then she’d give me a pad or a pen and make me draw. No matter how shitty it was, she’d always act like it was a Picasso or some shit.”
He laughs, and I feel my lips quirk into a smile.
“She encouraged your art,” I say softly.
He frowns as if he never put the pieces together himself. “I guess she did.”
“And your dad?” I don’t know what makes me broach this topic, but his eyes cut to mine, brimming with an emotion that isn’t anywhere near love or affection. It’s pain. One so raw, he must normally keep it buried deep. Just as quickly, he smothers it with a hardened mask.
“He was a piece of shit,” he says. “She cleaned up at one of Shen’s clubs back in the day and was nothing more than a conquest to him.”
There’s more to it, though. Exhaling, he adds, “He wanted to be a singer or some shit. Break away from the triad. Make something of himself. He fed her so much bullshit about the life he’d build for her, all of it a fantasy. But she never lost faith in that lie, even when he turned his frustration on her.”
“He hurt her?”
He strokes his bottom lip, lingering near the bruised flesh. “Yes. He hurt her. Damn near every fucking day during the worst of it. Until he went too far.”
He’s already told me this part of the story.One night, he got too rough after showing up again out of the blue. He shoved her around, but she didn’t get back up. The asshole just laughed and passed out. She would never call the cops on his ass.
“You look like her. Your mother,” I point out, recalling the picture of the woman I caught a glimpse of in his room. “You have her eyes.”
