Page 48 of Miguel
My brows rose. “Are you sure? Or do they just deal with it because they think they have to?”
He huffed a breath. “Fair point.”
“Besides,” I went on, “I want to cook. Think of it as my way of saying thank you to you and your brothers for helping Desi and I.”
Something sparkled in his eyes and he gave my hip a pat. “Fine,” he said. “The kitchen is over there. If you need anything from the store, let a prospect know so they can run and get it. If you need help, you can ask them too.”
“Prospect?”
He chuckled. “Sometimes I forget not everyone knows what that means. Prospects are the guys around here who do the grunt work for us. They want to be a part of the club and have to go through a trial period and prove their worth.”
“Interressstiiiiingg…”
Los Diablos seemed like a whole different world. I supposed it wasn’t that hard to understand. They were a club, they were friends. But it all seemed very intimate in a way I wasn’t privy to.
I pulled away from Miguel and went into the kitchen to get to work. Luckily there was enough food in the fridge to make a big meal of frijoles and huevos rancheros with salsa.
I got to work while Miguel sat at the bar with Zeke. Both of them watched me, two mirror images of one another with dark eyes that followed me around through the kitchen.
Soon, I had the beans mashed in a pan, the salsa blended, and tortillas heating up. Oil was in a pan and the eggs were ready to be cracked.
From the bar, Miguel groaned. “That smells good, nena.”
I threw a glance over my shoulder and smirked at him before turning back to my task.
Pretty soon, his brothers started trickling out of their rooms and into the open area to watch me. I wondered if the promise of food called them down and smiled. Noise became a steady stream, and it was followed by feminine voices of the clubgirls–I refused to call them putas. Some of them came into the kitchen and I felt their laser focus on my backside, watching me as I worked.
Eventually, their piercing stares became uncomfortable. And after minutes of waiting to see if they’d help like Miguel claimed they would, and they didn’t, I turned towards them.
There were four girls dressed too scantily for the early morning. The industrial-style building that made up their clubhouse was made of block, like most houses in Mexico were, and it created a damp, cold space inside. I was used to the bone-deep chill that pervaded inside homes, only to step outside and feel the heat of the sun threaten to suffocate you. But these women looked like the chill couldn’t touch them with their shorts and crop tops.
“Um… hi,” I greeted awkwardly. I felt them sizing me up, and not particularly in the same way that Camila had. Camila’s gaze hadn’t felt so… judgmental or cold.
Now, I wasn’t a fan of women being pitted against each other. I wasn’t a fan of territorial bullcrap. This wasn’t prep school, where I’d dealt with stuff like that before. We were grown ass women. I was twenty-nine years old, for fuck’s sake. Seeing the way these women gaze-checked me with sneers on their faces was exhausting.
I was too old to want to fight. Too old for schoolyard wars. Hell, I was a kinder teacher. I’d trained myself since uni to act like one in public. Changing my vocabulary to avoid cursing aloud, dressing on the side of conservative, and limiting my more toxic urges and desires.
“Who are you?” one of them asked. She had long hair dyed a bright red, a color that offset her darker skin tone.
“I’m Lorena.” I didn’t reach out to shake their hand or give them a kiss on the cheek, as was a customary greeting between people. Even if I had, I doubted it would have been a welcome gesture. She looked like she was ready to pounce on me. “And you are?”
“Yvet,” she said, scrunching her nose. “Are you a new girl?”
“Oh, no. I’m not. I’m–” I paused, trying to find the right word. What was I? It was unclear what my purpose was here. I was Zeke’s teacher. I was…
I wasn’t Miguel’s girlfriend, but I was something to him, wasn’t I? Last night he said he didn’t just want a one-night stand with me. But he hadn’t exactly told me what it was he wanted from me. I hadn’t asked, and I hadn’t exactly told him what I wanted from him, either.
WhatdidI want from him?
I had to answer that question to myself before I could answer it for anybody else.
“I’m Zeke’s teacher.” I finally settled on that explanation, though their eyebrows kicked up with disbelief.
I didn’t blame them.
What kind of a school teacher stayed the night at her student’s parent’s house and cooked breakfast the next morning?
Ridiculous.
