Page 106 of Hard to Love
“Why the fuck would you care? It’s not like you even know me.”
That stopped Alex in a way the shoulder foul hadn’t. “You’re right,” he said, his head hanging and sweat plopping to the driveway. “But I want to.”
Nic rounded on him, chest-butted him. “If you wanted to know me, you would’ve done it a long fucking time ago. But where were you? Some fucking Wyoming or Idaho or something.”
“Montana.”
“Like I give a shit.”
But he obviously had. All Alex had worried about was keeping his mamá and little brother physically safe, far away from the mess he’d made of their lives in San Antonio. But he of all people knew how much it hurt to cut himself off emotionally. It was like being the walking dead. But he had a chance—with Nic, Maria José, and Greer—to make a different choice. To make a different life. “I was planning to haul your ass back to Montana with me.”
Nic’s head shot up at that. “Fucking cold up there.”
“I want you to have a better life than I did.”
“So you’re just going to force me?”
“No,” Alex said, “I can’t keep you here unless I lock you up. And I have my doubts that would be real effective. But I am keeping Maria José here.”
“Look, man—”
Alex held up a hand. “I not only made a deal with Ruben, but I made a promise. Don’t you think she deserves better than whatever might’ve happened to her out there on the streets?”
“Only the guys in the Tejanos knew she was a girl.”
With the way Maria José filled out the T-shirt under her hoodie, it wouldn’t have been long before even the most dumb-asscholofigured out her secret. “What do you think would’ve happened the first time some guy clued in and tried to get in her pants?”
Nic’s eyes blazed brown fire. “She’s not that kinda girl. Besides, her papá would’ve—”
“All it takes is once. Sure, Ruben might’ve put the word out after that, but that wouldn’t change the fact that some douchebag used her like a whore.”
“I don’t wanna hear this.” Nic started walking toward the B&B.
Alex grabbed him by the shirt collar and hauled him off his feet. “I don’t care what you want to hear. You have a decision to make. But only one. You can go back to San Antonio and shoot and snort your way into the gutter. But you’re damn well not taking Maria José with you.”
“That mean you’re gonna stay around this little backwoods town?”
“It’s not backwoods. It’s safe and the people are nice.”
He laughed. “Yeah, if you like living in East No-Fucking-Where.”
“You want to be nothing more than a punk-ass street soldier?”
“I had plans,ese.”
“Tell me,” Alex thrust his face next to his brother’s, so close he could smell something sweet, probably Raylene’s cinnamon rolls, on Nic’s labored breath, “did those plans include Maria José? And if so, did you think you could set her up in some cute little house? Let her drop you a new baby every nine months while you’re out playing gangsta?”
By the poleaxed look on Nic’s face, he hadn’t thought that far along in his plan. “She’s still just a kid.”
“A kid who deserves to be a kid somewhere out of danger.”
“And you think Ruben is gonna leave you alone? Dude, we’re within pissing distance of the city.”
If it weren’t for Maria José, Alex probably wouldn’t trust his old gang mate’s word. But he’d seen the look on Ruben’s face when his daughter revealed herself. He knew he couldn’t get the hell out of that life, but he’d had hope he could save his daughter. “Yeah, I do. He may be a son of a bitch. But he’s a son of a bitch who’s good to his word.”
“I gotta go to school?”
“If you want to stay out of juvie, then yeah.”
