Valerie downs the rest of her drink, inhaling and exhaling heavily before beginning. “Like me, my mom was a single mom. Picking deadbeat fathers apparently runs in our blood. I always told myself growing up,no matter what, I would do better than my mom did. I wouldn’t struggle the same way she did. And I feel like, for a while, I was doing okay. When my son was a kid and a teenager, we did okay for ourselves. I worked three jobs, but the bills were paid, and food was on the table.”
Black mascara runs down her cheeks, the tip of her nose red, and the wrinkle between her brows grows more prominent asshe pinches them together, afrown overtaking her features. Wiping away the evidence of her breakdown, she continues.
“But then…” She pauses, a hiccup bubbling up her throat. “Then Elias got into Duke, and somehow, we didn’t qualify for full financial aid, so I had to use what little savings I had to cover his first semester. My troubles shouldn’t be his problem. He worked hard and deserved to go to his dream school, so I grin and bared it, putting myself back into a tight situation.
“Which that, in and of itself, would’ve been fine. Money would’ve been tight, but it’s not anything I wasn’t used to.” She snorts a laugh through her nose. “Well, then my car broke down, the roof needed replacing because it started leaking last year when the rain was coming down much harder than normal, and my sister needed help paying her rent when she got laid off and broke up with her on-again-off-again boyfriend. Everything hit all at once, and before I knew it, I was drowning, so far away from shore, I couldn’t even see safety anymore.”
I’ve never been one to be a shoulder to cry on. When it comes to distraught people, I’m clueless on how to comfort them. So, instead of saying anything insightful, I simply rub my thumb on the back of her hand, silently letting her know I’m here. Allowing her the space to continue.
“My car is going to be repossessed any day now. Every night I leave work expecting it to be missing from the parking lot. My house has gone into foreclosure. I’m about to lose that. I’m losing everything, and no matter what I do, I can’t seem to fix it. It’s just too much, Zeke. The weight of my problems is too much right now, and I needed this.” She raises her empty glass. “Needed to drink and hopefully feel something other than stress and anguish for one night.”
Her head falls into her hands as a sob claws its way up her throat. Her body shakes as she lets it all out.
“Shit,” I curse under my breath, sliding out of my booth and into hers, wrapping an arm around her trembling shoulders. “It’s okay. Shh… we’ll figure this out.”
As I’m holding her, my mind is already turning on how I can help her fix this. What I can do to make her situation a little easier. Because in these eight months, she’s become someone I would actually consider calling my friend.
She sobs for another ten minutes or so, and then she pulls herself together like every other single mom who has no clue how she’s going to make it work, but knowing she’ll find a way. By the time I drop her off at her house—because she is definitely too drunk to drive—I already know how I’m going to fix this. It’s just a matter of presenting it to her in a way that she’ll accept.
Chapter Thirty-One
Zeke Alvarez
Five days.
That’s how long it’s been since Elias moved out. Valerie and I went over there for dinner the other night. The house is nice, I suppose. And it’s not too far from here. I tried talking to him when Katie went upstairs to show Valerie her photography studio. He’s stubborn as hell; I think that’s the one thing I like and hate about him the most.
He had a party the night they moved in. I only know because Enzo told me about it, and I can’t help but wonder if Jordan was there. I have no way of knowing the answer either. I can’t ask Jordan or Enzo without it seeming weird. And asking Elias just proves it’s getting under my skin.
I’m losing my mind.
He’s made me lose my mind.
It’s after eight in the evening when I’m pulling up outside my house. Work was filled with meeting after meeting. I didn’t have a single moment to breathe, and the day flew by in the blink of an eye. All I want is to take a hot shower and pass out.
Walking into the house, I kick off my shoes and drop my keys into the dish by the door. It’s quiet in here; Hilda probably already in her room and Valerie probably asleep. She’s been going to six a.m. Zumba classes every day this week, and it leaves her exhausted by the evening.
Trudging up the stairs and down the hall, that’s confirmed when I push open the door to our room, finding her passed out on the bed. As quietly as I can, I undress and head into the bathroom to start the shower. Climbing under the spray, the hot water feels sensational on my tired body.
Going through the motions on autopilot, I wash my hair, then my body, before getting out and drying off. As much as I want to pass right out, I already know that’s not going to happen. So, after I slip into some sweats, I head back downstairs, into the media room.
It wasn’t until Elias actually moved out that it hit me, how strongly I felt for him. There was a part of me that obviously knew he had some sort of hold on me. I knew it from the moment we first met, and then again, when I was introduced to him as Valerie’s son, but the depth of my feelings didn’t sink in until he was gone.
He hadn’t even been living here that long before he moved out, yet the house never felt emptier than after he left.
Before marrying Val, I’d basically been single my entire life. Watching my mom get taken advantage of, used and abused up until the day she died, made my views on love jaded, to put it nicely.
A man has needs, of course, and I would meet those needs with men here or there, but never any that lasted more than the night. I never questioned it because it worked for my life.
After Mom and Rafael were killed, Elena struggled to make ends meet. How could she not? She was barely out of high school, with a teenager to look after, feed, and raise.
By the time I turned sixteen, I knew I needed to help out. So, I did with the only way I knew how. The very same drugs that got my mom and brother killed were the very same means I used to claw my way out of the filthy depths of poverty. By eighteen, I had men beneath me slingin’ cocaine up and down the East Coast, and by the time thirty hit, I moved to Savannah after my supplier wanted to move into the weapons trade and wanted someone in a city with port presence.
I hustled my ass off, saving every last dime I could, but it wasn’t until my pops died right after I moved to Georgia that shit really changed. At some point between my family leaving Cuba to the day he died, two things had occurred; one, he somehow found his way into a lot of money—probably illegally—and two, he managed to gain a conscience and feel bad about the shit he had put us through.
In his death, he left Elena and I a hefty chunk of change each. That, plus what I’d already spent a decade saving, I was able to buy a dying business from a worn-out businessman and revive it, making it into what it is today: Alvarez Oil. In doing so, I was able to leave the shady, illegal shit behind me, and move forward with my life.
Trading one busy, taxing lifestyle for another, I was still stuck in my ways. While I wasn’t walking the line of life or death anymore, I was still comfortable being alone. And even when I married Val, I was more than okay with my solitude, but our marriage came at a crucial time, and it offered a mutually beneficial solution to our problems. I was more than happy to give that up to move into a new life with her.
