Page 17 of Miguel
With a firm clasp on his hand, I started towards the front doors of the compound, pushing them open and walking inside.
It felt like a whole other world entirely.
Scantily clad women wandered through the massive open space. Their clothes left nothing to the imagination, with shorts that slid between the lips of their vaginas and lacey bras that were all but see-through. The air was cloyed through with smoke, the floors sticky against the soles of my shoes with substances I didn’t want to imagine.
What in the world kind of a place was this? I fought the urge to cover Zeke’s eyes against all the women walking around in various states of impropriety, but he was already tugging me forward like he knew just where to go. That’s when I saw his father over by a bar. There was an empty tequila shot in front of him that he shoved away with the backs of his knuckles when he caught sight of us.
He greeted Zeke first, an awkward smile on his face. He didn’t give him a hug or a kiss, and I wondered if they were the no-touching type of family.
My family had been that way, and I’d been all too eager to get away from them.
He did lift him up and set him down on a bar stool, though and gestured to the man behind the counter. The man moved quickly and I watched as he whipped out soda in a glass with a bendy straw and set it in front of Zeke, who silently pulled it towards him and took a sip.
Then Señor Lopez was turning his attention to me, and I felt trapped in his gaze a brief second before I remembered my own irritation. I was willing to let it slide when he said he couldn’t pick up his son due to an emergency, but stepping into the clubhouse, seeing women all but bare their breasts to the open air, and smelling the alcohol on his breath?
I was suddenly pissed.
“Wasthisthe emergency?” I snapped, gesturing at the empty shot glass on the bar and the women who were now openly staring.
The snideness in my tone had him narrowing his eyes on me almost immediately. He stood and stomped over to me. Looming, a dangerous presence that I felt swallow all the breathable air around me. I almost choked, but held back any expression I was desperate to make.
If there was one thing I hated, it was irresponsibility. Had he just used me so he didn’t have to pick Zeke up himself?
My lip pulled back in a sneer. “Señor Lopez, I have a lot of patience and can handle many things, but if this is the reason you can’t pick up your son after school… Drinking and… philandering with these women, then I will have to bring my complaints to the school board. This isn’t fair to me, taking time out of my day to help while you don’t seem to care. And it certainly isn’t fair to that poor, sweet boy who stands up excitedly and then has to hold back tears every time a car passes and it isn’t you. It’s irresponsible and, quite frankly, infuriating. If you don’t give a lick about your son–” My tirade was suddenly interrupted as he took a menacing step in my direction, causing me to gasp as his chest brushed against mine.
“You need to watch what you say,” he growled threateningly.
How dare he take that tone with me? He didn’t knowwhohe was messing with. I tilted my chin up, glaring at him. “Is that a threat, Señor Lopez?” I was keenly aware of all the eyes watching us. I should have been nervous. After all, I was a lone woman in biker territory. This washiscompound, and his body breathed violence. Would he hurt me? I wasn’t sure of the answer to that.
All I knew was that his arm started towards me and made me flinch back.
“Not going to hurt you, nena.” His hand clamped down on my arm. “But I do wanna talk to you in private.” I held back a sigh of relief as he turned his head towards the bar. “Prospect, watch Zeke. If he hurts himself, it’s your fuckin’ neck.”
“Sí, Miguel.”
Then he was pulling me gently away from all the prying eyes and back outside. Breathless, I tried to keep up with his long strides. “You know, you really shouldn’t curse so much.”
This made him snort as he pushed open the double doors of the compound and ushered me outside. Once we were by one of the cars, he released me, and we faced one another.
“Look, I know how easy it is for someone like you to judge me and my life.”
I blinked. “Someone like me? I–”
“You stand there in your bright little fuckin’ dresses and fresona aesthetic and pretend you understand a damn thing about my life when you fuckin’ don’t.”
“Señor Lopez–”
“For the last fuckin’ time, call me Miguel. And I wantyouto listen. Don’teveraccuse me of not caring about Zeke. I care more about him than his own fucking mother ever did. The bitch came a few weeks ago, dropped him on my doorstep, and drove away before I could even make it outside and talk to her. For five years I didn’t even know I had a son, but if I had, he would have been living with me from the beginning. So judge me all you fuckin’ want, Lorena Flores, but believe me when I say that I am trying to give my son a better life. I am trying to be the dad he deserves. I’m new at this, don’t know left from right, but I know that I would take a bullet for that boy. So I don’t appreciate you coming into my compound with your judgmental sneer and harsh words. It’s been two days since you’ve met me, and you’ve been judging me by the shitty week I’ve had. I’ve known that boy all of two weeks, Lorena. Two weeks. So please, cut me some fuckin’ slack.”
In that instant, I felt my heart break into a thousand little pieces for Zeke. I thought of his sad eyes, of the look he got on his face every time a car passed and it wasn’t his father. The defeated slump of his shoulders, the trembling lip when he watched all the other kids get picked up before him. Almost as if he were bracing himself, expecting to be abandoned like his mother had abandoned him.
And this had happened weeks ago?
No wonder he seemed so sad.
Tears slipped out of my eyes almost unbidden and I took a breath.
“Nena, why are you crying?” Señor Lopez’s–Miguel’s–hand cupped my cheek, thumb swiping away the evidence of my sadness. There was a hint of panic in his voice, gentler than his anger.
