“You’re telling me you didn’t even get the tiniest bit excited when she unbuttoned her blazer in themeeting?”
“No.”
“Just a little? Like the first time a girl tries to finger your asshole? You’re grossed out and confused, but you’re also a littlecurious. . .”
“You’re a sick fuck, you knowthat?”
“But I make a goodpoint.”
“I was too disgusted by her presentation to be turned on,” I lied. Admitting even remote interest in her would be a huge mistake. Justin would run withit.
“All right.” Justin scratched the base of his neck, his expression easing. The bastard rarely even wore a tie to the office. “But did she really deserve the hellfire you justunleashed?”
I hadn’t moved past the childish stage of wanting to be mad at her. She’d given me plenty of reasons. “Yeah.”
“This about yourmom?”
I blinked, ready to give Justin a piece of my mind. But I didn’t. Justin knew me too well. “Probably,” Iadmitted.
“I figured. A year, man. I know it’s beentough.”
Tough wasn’t even the half of it. If I’d had more time to prepare for Mom’s death, would it have been different? Easier? Would I have handled it better instead of dropping the ball these past few quarters, landing myself in this position? I doubted it, because I couldn’t imagine any of this beingeasier.
Justin sighed when I didn’t respond. “Give Georgina a chance, dude. Once she gets to know you, she’ll see you’re not the guy that exposé painted you out tobe.”
“She came in with preconceivednotions.”
“And for some reason, you’re playing right into them.” Justin frowned. “You’re not that guy, areyou?”
I hesitated. “No.”
“Show her that. Take a minute. Cool off. I think you’ll decide she’s not as bad as youthink.”
Justin left the bathroom, which meant I was now alone with his words hanging in the air. This was about my mom. It didn’t take a pro to figure that out. Adina Quintanilla was the best woman I’d ever known. For my sister Libby and I to live full, successful lives, she’d taken a lifetime ofshit.
She’d worked the kinds of jobs I couldn’t even wrap my head around. As a child, I hadn’t liked it, but as an adult with money and an understanding of the nasty side of human behavior, envisioning my mom that way sometimes got to be toomuch.
Even though she would’ve preferred to shelter me from it, I’d often witnessed it firsthand. Her bussing diners’ meals while Libby and I did homework at a nearby table. We’d been too young to stay home alone and too poor for asitter.
What had I learned at that diner aside from multiplication tables? That some people cared more about their burgers than about being decent human beings. When I’d asked my mom why people spoke to her that way, she’d shrugged it off and tried to hide the fact that it hurt her. Mom had never had much of a poker face, though. Especially not with Libby andme.
Libby.Fuck. I’d been avoiding her calls today so I wouldn’t have to shoulder her pain along with my own. On the one-year anniversary of our mom’s death, it wasn’t any easier to be without her. Maybe even harder. Libby and I had not only survived despite our beginnings, we’d thrived. But while money could make my mom comfortable in her home at the end, it couldn’t stopcancer.
Mom had known it, and she’d still smiled until the end. Smiled, held my hand, and told me in her thick Mexican accent, “Stop dating girls you know you’ll never end up with,Sebastián. Find a nice woman who loves you and treats you well. Treatherwell. Love her. Be nice to her. Please, just find someonekind.”
Wendy, who I’d been dating at the time, hadn’t been that different from the ones who’d come before her. To say Libby and Mom hadn’t liked her was putting it mildly. Wendy had been mean to Libby, my mom, Justin, waitresses and valets, and she’d been mean to me. She’d also been smoking hot and adventurous in bed. That’d been enough for me back then. Not anymore. Now, I’d have given anything to go back in time and introduce my mom to a “kind” woman—someone she and Libby would like. And to be able to assure her that I wasn’t alone in thisworld.
It appeared I wasn’t going to find that with the social life I led now—bars, clubs, events, weekend getaways. In one day, Georgina alone had proven that even coffee shops were dangerous. Nowhere was safe, not even happy hour with the guys. She’d be infiltrating thattoo.
That was assuming, of course, that Georgina and I even made it to the end of theweek.
6
Georgina
Ipacedthe sidewalk in front of Cantina Santino, willing myself to stay calm. As much as Justin had insisted that happy hour wasn’t a work event, I needed to believe it was—or else transform Georgina into a completely different person in the next fewminutes.
They were just my coworkers. Nothing more. I’d been working alongside them without incident so far. Of course, it helped that the workplace had clear boundaries, whereas happy hour hadnone.
