She narrowed her eyes at that but the corners of her mouth tipped up too. “How are you aware of Dominican hair drama? You had a girl from the DR or something?” She kept her tone light but there was real curiosity there. Julia Ortiz wanted to know my business.
My hands tingled with the need to touch. To wrap a finger around one of those golden-brown coils and pull her in for a kiss. But I settled for what I could have: a bit more of her time.
“I was pretty close with my high school baseball coach. Spent a lot of time at his place.” I lifted a shoulder as if I wasn’t revealing a piece of me I rarely ever shared. “He’s Puerto Rican, but his wife is Dominican.”
“Oh.” Her eyes got big, because clearly there was a hell of a lot more to the story.
I averted my eyes, not feeling ready to reveal the more sordid parts of my story. They landed on a cluster of teens who were all huddled together watching something on a phone. They were grinning and bumping each other’s shoulders. Kids being kids. Them getting that was in a big part Julia’s doing.
And now here she was looking like hearing about me was the most important thing on her to-do list today. “I was at their place a lot when I was younger. His wife started going natural.” I said that while waving a hand over my head, like an ass. “There were a lot of phone conversations with her mom and sisters about it. I got an education in taking women’s grooming seriously.”
She looked at me from under her lashes and I refused to even think it was anything more than the sun in her eyes.
“You’re an interesting man, Rocco Quinn.”
My heart had no business thumping against my chest like it was, and just as I was about to respond with something that would most likely put us fully out of the professional realm, one of the kids sat himself down next to Julia.
“Hey, Ms. Ortiz, there’s a new TikTok from that account you like.” It took her a second to get her game face on but once she was focused on her student, the spell was broken.
Julia had a job to do and so did I, and if we both wanted to keep them, we had to keep our focus off each other.
Chapter Seven
Julia
I can be professional with Rocco Quinn.
That had been my mantra since the site visit yesterday. With every interaction, that man got more charming and intriguing. He’d been in work mode for the most part, but a couple of times he went off script and the glimpses I got confirmed that the more I got to know him, the more Rocco could potentially wreck my entire life plan.
It was hard to tell what he’d thought about the programs in terms of the IPO but Gail had sounded less frazzled in our conference call this morning and had let it slip she’d had a long talk with the twins. So for now it was business as usual.
I’d passed on that message to our staff at the after-school program site and was feeling pretty good about us getting through this transition. So, I had a pep in my step as I made my way to my car. And when a dinner invitation from the group chat José had roped us all into appeared on the screen of my phone, I literally jumped for joy.
José: Who’s up for Margs and Tacos STAT?
Salome immediately replied with a thumbs-up and not long after Dani said he was down, but would join us a little later.
I quickly tapped in a response and was proud of myself for refraining from asking if any of the others were up for dinner.
Julia: I’m a little OD’d on Tex-Mex (not that I don’t LOOOOOVE me some authentic tacos), but would anyone be up for some Dominican at my place? My mother’s sent something close to a ton of Goya products and I need to start using them.
José and Salome responded within seconds.
José: Guuurlll... YES. I would kill some guandules and maduros right now. Shit I’m drooling already. As long as you don’t make me cook, I am in. Maybe Salome can be sous chef?
Salome: No habla kitchen. I grew up in the DR, we had a cook! I can do you some tostones, but dassit. I’ll do my best to hunt down some Presidente tho...
I cackled at the mention of the Dominican beer.
Julia: Perfect. I cook, you pour drinks. It’s on! Give me an hour?
I sent a screenshot with my address as more yeses from Dani, José, and Salome came. And still no word from Tariq or a certain finance shark who I knew had to be looking at the messages. I should’ve suspected José was not going to leave that alone.
José: Rocco and Tariq, are you still racking up billing hours in that cave you guys commandeered or can you come out tonight?
I didn’t need to be cheesing at my phone, but that’s exactly what I was doing.
“You’re in a hurry to get out of here today.”
