Page 46 of Lourdes & the Mafia
Nosey asses.
Dimas raises those perfectly groomed brows in that assholey, condescending manner of his. I know it’s because of my tone. It’s an expression that’s ingrained into my being.
Fuck, how did I ever find him attractive when he does shit like that? When he was constantly looking down his nose at me like he is right now?
I take him in. He’s wearing expensive slacks and a collar shirt. A diamond-encrusted watch graces his wrist and shines beneath the Dominican sunlight. He looks and breathes money, his dark hair shorn short, his brown skin all but glowing.
It’s nothing like the richness that envelopes Lorenzo, Ramiel, or even Kane—though I loathe to admit that. Their wealth seems natural whereas Dimas’ is forced, bordering on ostentatious. It screams ‘look at me!’ A mediocre man playing at importance.
I’ve honestly never seen someone look so goddamn pompous.
“Let’s take a walk.”
He takes my arm and guides me away from the house. I go, because it’s instinct to follow. A natural impulse of my legs to stumble after him. It isn’t until we’re almost a few blocks away that I realize what I’m doing.
“Wait!” I yank my arm away from him. “What are you doing? I don’t wanna go anywhere with you.”
He snorts, like I’m being a petulant child that he has to deal with. “Come on.” His voice somehow rises. “Are you still mad about our break up?”
He says that as if he’s the one who broke up with me. That only makes my irritation spike higher. I’m the one who dumped him, while he just stood there with a stupid fucking smirk like he couldn’t care less. Now he stands before me, acting high and mighty. Acting irritated.
As if I’m the one who sought him out.
As if I’m throwing myself at his feet like I can’t live without him.
Maybe that was true, once upon a time, but it isn’t any longer. I’m my own person now. I’mindependent,puta madre!
And I don’t need him to waltz back into my life and act like I’ve been waiting around for him like some sorry, pathetic person. I haven’t thought about him at all, and his sudden appearance is sostrange. At one point, he was a part of my every waking thought, and then suddenly, he wasn’t. Slowly, he began easing from my heart and my mind until there was nothing left of him or us or whatever it was we had. Now he’s back, and I don’t know how to feel about that, if I should feel anything at all.
“First of all, let’s get one thing straight right now.” I jab my finger in the direction of his chest, though I don’t make contact. “I broke up with you, not the other way around. Second, how did you even know where I was? And third, what the hell do youwant?”
His expensive shoes click on the ground as he takes a few steps towards me. He chuckles, using the edges of his knuckles to chuck me against the chin in a lighthearted manner. He used to do that all the time and I never found anything wrong with it before. It’s such a pompous, condescending gesture, though. And now that I have more self-respect, I realize it. Just like I realize how irritating it is.
“Is it so wrong that I missed you?” he asks. “I wanted to see you.”
I glare at him. “Why? We’ve been broken up for months.”
“I know that, but I do miss you.”
Never once had he said those words to me in all of our time being together. A sudden chill slides down my back. I try to stave it off, but it just grows. “How did you know I’d be here?” The feeling increments now, until I can’t ignore it any longer. There’s just something suspicious about this whole thing, and given everything that’s happened to me in the last few hours, I’m not inclined to believe him.
I think he realizes it, too. The minute he sees me back away from him, his expression twists into something angry and vicious.
“Come on, Lourdes,” he growls in a voice I haven’t heard from him before now. “This is me we’re talking about. I know everything about you. Of course I knew you’d be here with your family.”
Considering he barely listened to me when I spoke and I was always having to repeat myself, I don’t believe him.
“Lourdes,” he warns as I start to back away further. “We need totalk.”
“We have nothing to talk about. It’s over. We’re done. It’s time to move on.”
He scoffs. “That’s absurd.”
The only thing absurd is the fact that he thinks I owe him anything. I owe him nothing, most certainly not my time. Time he doesn’t deserve in the first place. And if he didn’t give it to me while we were together, I wonder what makes him think he’ll get it now.
Sus, indeed.
I put enough distance between us, but the more I edge back, all he does is shuffle closer. His face has lost the tight, condescending expression, replaced instead with something bitter and angry that makes me wary.
