I bob my head, encouraging him to continue.
“But my cousins would end up in these binds, and I would help because I thought I had to. Anyway, you know that part. The night I got arrested, I knew it was going to happen. Like, I told them it was a bad drop, but they had shit they were holding over my head.”
“The kind of shit that doesn’t have a statute of limitations?”
He nods. “It’s why I followed your advice and got the hell out of there. Didn’t want them coming after me again.”
He lets the road noise take back over for a few miles, and I don’t rush him.
“You know, in our neighborhood, there were these white supremacist wannabes. Why they would choose to live in the neighborhood everyone called Little Mexico, I still don’t get. They always caused trouble, but low level. Until one night, they beat the shit out of this old guy down the street. Robbed his rent money and left him for dead. We all knew who did it, but the cops couldn’t make a case. So they got away with it. And I didn’t want them sniffing around my mom’s house because…yeah, fuck that.”
“So you did what you had to do.”
“Exactly,” he says, gesturing. “I wasn’t going to wait till they showed up. I knew where they lived and had one of my cousins come as backup. Shit got ugly. Me and my cousin made it out. They didn’t. I got one. He got two.”
He swallows uneasily, ticking his jaw.
“You never got over killing someone.”
Nacho shakes his head, tapping his thumb on the steering wheel. “My cousin pounded my back, telling me I was one of them now… I threw up that night when I got back to my mom’s house. Lost a bunch of weight, couldn’t think about what I’d done.”
“Sounds like you and I might be more alike than we think,” I say softly, rubbing his arm. “Thank you for trusting me with your history. I promise it goes nowhere. Not even Levy.”
He swallows thickly, not yet able to look me in the eye. I lean over and kiss his cheek, and his body releases some of the tension he’d been holding.
“You were protecting your mom, Nacho. That was incredibly brave of you.”
A tear rolls down his cheek.
“It’s funny, me crying. My cousin—the one who went with me? He said we had to get the teardrops to let people know not to fuck with us. I never wanted this thing,” he says, gesturing to the tattoo on his face. “And after I was convicted, I decided I’d keep it to look tough in jail, maybe get it lasered off after.”
“And now?”
“It’s a reminder to leave that life in the past.”
“Think you’ll ever get it removed?”
A sexy smile curls his lips. “I don’t know, Dr. Barlowe. What do you think I should do?”
“I think you should do what is right for you, Ignacio. Either way, I’ll be proud of you,” I say, kissing the back of his hand, letting my dominant side purr to life.
“Yeah?” he asks, looking over at me hopefully.
“So very proud.”
The remaining tension leaves his body on a big exhale. “Thank you, Dr. Barlowe.”
I shift in my seat with how good he makes me feel.
“I like it when you call me Dr. Barlowe,” I whisper, leaning over to kiss the outer shell of his ear.
“I know,” he whispers back, glancing at me expectantly before returning his eyes to the road.
“Thank you for setting a boundary. I know that wasn’t easy. I’m still figuring out how comfortable I am with other people knowing. So if you can, I’d like to keep it between us.”
“Of course, Dr. Barlowe,” he says so genuinely it makes my heartbeat speed up.
God, what he does to me.
