“Hmm. Really,” my mom asked with raised brows. “I thought you weren’t takin’ a science this year.”
“I’m not. I, uh, I found that out from the tutor I worked with. She’s allergic to her own tears and it makes her eyes all foggy looking because of scar tissue,” I explained through a mouthful of pasta.
“I hope you weren’t the one who pointed it out.” I grimaced at her reprimanding look. I gave her a sheepish smile, and she dropped her fork. “Enoch Michael Reznikovsky, you best be plannin’ to apologize for bein’ so rude.”
“I was just curious. I wasn’t trying to be rude.”
“Well, you were, and you owe that girl an apology.”
I nodded in reluctant agreement.
“You’re right. I’ll apologize.”
She nodded and motioned for me to continue my story.
“They offer tutoring Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays. I got Jae to cover my classes at Blitz so I can attend Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Good,” my mom nodded. “Esty?”
Esther recapped the last two days that our dad had missed while at work, but I tuned out her announcements because I was too busy thinking about what a dick I had been to Shiloh. She really was doing me a favor, and I was pretty sure she was doing it for free. I needed to apologize to her next time I saw her and hopefully I could prevent myself from staring at her.
But I couldn’t have stopped staring even if I had wanted to. Shiloh had the most mesmerizing eyes. A muted hazel, like a leaf that’s in the middle of changing colors in the fall. And the emotion in them. Like a siren song, or something equally intoxicating.Cheese and rice, did I really just call her eyes a siren song? I’ve been watching way too many K-dramas with Jae.
I’d only moved here when I was fourteen, but that would mean we’d been going to high school together for the last four years and I’d not once taken notice of her. And I knew I would’ve never forgotten the girl with red hair, fall-colored eyes and enough snark to make a grown man cry.
Did she know who I was? Was I the oblivious tool?Oh God, what if she gets bullied for her eyes and I was a complete asshole pointing them out like it was a flaw.She was wearing a hood like she was trying to hide…God, I’m an idiot. I’m definitely apologizing as soon as I see her.
???
October 2, Saturday
Shiloh
Itook the meat out of the bag it was in and spread it across the grill with a pair of tongs. It’d been six months since we’d had meat. At least Javier’s new rank meant we had the cash to eat steak. The sizzling sound told me it was hot enough and I grabbed the rest of the meat to cook. I closed the lid before the smoke made my eyes water and returned inside to finish the salsa. I heard footsteps and spun around with the knife in my hand.
I relaxed my tense shoulders in relief when I saw my brother. My stomach flipped at the sight of his still bruised face, and I repressed the swell of renewed anger.
Javi clunked the bag of ice on the counter and silently asked me with the gesture of his eyebrows if anything happened while he was gone. I shook my head and turned back to the blender, switching it on. When it had finished, I stuck my finger in and tasted it as I eyed the grill from the kitchen window.
“Hey, can you go flip the meat?”
I tried to act normally and not let my feelings get the best of me. I didn’t want to argue. We’d only just started talking again after our fight two days ago. I think he felt at least a little bad, because he’d come home with all the ingredients to cook my favorite meal—carne asada tacos. Even got me what I needed to make this special salsa I had learned to make from a family friend years ago. Or maybe he was tired of eating the same three things we could afford to keep stalked in the house, rice, beans, or eggs, and just wanted something more.
“Yeah, sure,” he nodded, closing the freezer.
I served the salsa in two separate bowls, one for Javi and me, and one for Dad and his poker friends. After grabbing the bag of chips from the counter, I brought them with the salsa to the living room. I ignored the comments from Kush about me bending over as I placed them on the coffee table and quickly returned to the kitchen. I would’ve withheld my coveted salsa if I knew my dad or Kush wouldn’t harass me for it.
Javi was back inside and was opening a beer. He held it out to me, and I shook my head, remembering how I nearly puked my guts that morning. I wasn’t about to fuck up my body again. Especially not on poker night when the house was filled with a bunch of creepy fucks. There was only so much the deadbolt on our bedroom door could withstand.
I’d gotten drunk last night waiting for Javi to return from God-knows-where. I couldn’t take another day of silence between us, even though I was the one giving the cold shoulder. I was feeling guilty, hurt, scared, and I missed my brother. One beer turned into six when Javi got home, and we finally hashed it out.
There was nothing that I could say or do. Javier had made a decision that was going to change the course of his life forever. I had two choices: stay mad at him or forgive him and pray that by some miracle he didn’t wind up dead anytime soon. I chose the latter.
And although I was angry, I was mostly scared. Scared for him and what would happen to him once he became Carlos’s successor, a real leader with a very real target on his back. I felt overwhelmingly guilty because he was choosing my life over his, something that I didn’t think was worth saving.
How many more times was he going to sacrifice himself in the name of protecting his little sister? And how many more times before I started protectingmyself? He might have raised me more than our own father ever had, but that still didn’t makeme his responsibility. Not now that he was an adult and could start his own life away from this cesspit of tragedy.
Did he want to become a leader of a criminal organization? Who the fuck strived for that kind of thing? Was he actually happy? Was I just making his life more miserable by shitting on him for making the most of the fucked-up situation he was thrown into as a kid? He was just shy of his fifteenth birthday when Carlos initiated him formally into the gang—or empire.Jesus. I felt like I didn’t know anything anymore about Los Siete or what exactly they did.
