Page 50 of Sean's Sunshine
“Damned straight.”
And with that Billy took a deep breath. “Stay here,” he rasped. And then he stepped out of the car.
Lily had gotten to the Charger by then, and she gave a little squeal and gave him a hard one-armed hug. “Guillermo! Oh my God! You’re… how did you find us? Holy crap, wait until Mom hears. She’ll be so excited. I have so much to tell you. Damn, it’s so good to see you!”
Billy had to laugh. Lily had always been effusive. A babbling baby and a mischievous child, Lily, along with Cora, had been the family’s sunshine, doing their chores cheerfully, working hard at happiness when happiness wasn’t always an option with their old man hanging over their heads.
“How you doing, Lil?” he asked softly. “Saw Miguel down at the park. He looked—”
“Like a juvenile fucking delinquent,” Lily said with disgust. “And if you thinkhelooks bad, you should see Berto—excuse me,Robert—’cause he’s an asshole. Do you know what that pendejo did? Dyed his hairblond.Can you imagine that? Like he’s going to wake up one day and totally not be Mexican. It’s obnoxious.”
Billy couldn’t help laughing. “Hey, I changed my name too.”
Lily frowned. “To what?”
He winced. “Billy?”
“Oh God, why? You used to be such a badass about it all. Guillermo was a good Mexican name. Didn’t you tell a teacher that once?”
Billy grimaced. “Well, yeah,” he said softly. “But then I wasn’t part of the family anymore, Lil. Didn’t seem to matter.”
She sobered. “Dad’s an asshole. You heard what he did to Mommy, right?”
“Miguel told me,” he said. “I’m sorry. You guys, it seems like shit sort of fell apart after I left.”
Lily let out a bitter laugh. “Only because you were the one holding it together, Guillermo. Wasn’t your fault Dad’s an asshole.” She grimaced and rocked the baby on her hip. “Teresa’s baby,” she said, confirming his suspicions. “Dimitri.” She grinned. “Teresa married a Russian guy—can you believe that?”
Billy had to laugh. “No, I can’t.”
Lily reached down to grab his hand. “Come inside, Ghee. Cora’s making sandwiches, and Mom went out to get cookies. It’ll be a celebration.”
Billy glanced behind him to Sean and bit his lip, shaking his head.
“Lily, I want to, and I’ll come back, I swear. But not today. My roommate—”
Suddenly Lily looked down into the Charger, her face lighting up. “Is that like roommate as incode? Like, is this your boyfriend? Ghee! You’ve got a boyfriend? That’s great!”
Billy had to laugh, and he went with the easy explanation to save time. “Yeah, well, it is. But he’s recovering from an injury, and look at him—he needs to go home and rest.” Sean was pale, his head tilted back and his eyes closed. He didn’t even see Lily with her face pressed against the glass. “This wasn’t planned. I saw Miguel, and you guys were so close, and I thought I’d—”
“What, watch us?” She laughed up into his face, because like most of the women in his family, her full growth had stopped at around five foot two.
“Well, yeah.” Billy smiled down at her, and he found he was reluctant to let her go. “I missed you all,” he admitted. “I… I wanted to see you. But I really got to get him home. He’d go inside and have cookies and milk and probably even hold the baby—he comes from a big Catholic family too, so he gets it. But he’s not a hundred percent yet, and….” He grimaced, trying to think of a way to put this.
“You got feelings,” she said astutely. “We’re like, ‘Guillermo, our long-lost brother,’ and you’re like, ‘Please don’t break my nose again.’”
“Well, Pop broke my nose ’cause he was an asshole,” Billy admitted.
“Yeah. He was. But he’s gone now.” In an abrupt move, Lily suddenly shoved baby Dimitri at him. “Here, hold this. It wiggles.”
Billy laughed and took the baby, all the baby-holding skills from his childhood coming up in a rush while she shoved her hand down his pocket with so much casual familiarity he wondered if she remembered he hadn’t seen her in three years. Then she pulled his phone out and held it in front of his face to open it.
She worked at putting numbers in it, and he stared down at the pudgy little Russian–Mexican-American baby in his arms.
Dimitri grinned up at him and blew a raspberry.
“You,” he accused, “are unfairly cute. That’s just wrong.”
Dimitri laughed like he was the funniest thing in the world, and finally Lily gave him his phone back.
