Chapter 5
Javi and Vero drove to the bank in silence, the air between them brimming over with questions neither one of them seemed to have the stomach to ask.
Either one of them could have started the conversation with any of those questions, but it wouldn’t have been a conversation. It would have been a trade. A negotiation. They would either both be liars by the end or they both would have said too much, and Vero had never been able to lie to him.
“My car’s over there,” she said, pointing out her Honda in the otherwise empty parking lot behind the bank.
“You had that guy pick you up here?”
“He works here.”
“Why didn’t he pick you up at Ramón’s?”
“It’s a long story.” One she didn’t feel like explaining. And if she was being honest with herself, she was enjoying the fact that Javi was jealous. Though she didn’t want to think about the conversation she would have to have with Darren at work tomorrow. His phone had been buzzing in her pocket the entire ride to the bank, and she was sure it was him, searching for his lost device.
“Thanks for the ride,” Vero said, as Javi parked behind her car.
Javi hopped down from the driver’s seat as Vero got out and slammed her door. “What are you doing?” she asked over her shoulder as he followed her.
“Walking you to your car.” Because of course he was. She rolled her eyes. It was the same thing Javi and Ramón had always done from the time she’d been old enough to drive, watching to make sure she’d made it safely to her vehicle, waiting until her engine started, then tailgating her out of the lot like two overprotective shadows.
“I’m not going to my car.” She passed her Civic and walked straight to the night drop box at the back of the building. Reaching into the bin for a deposit envelope, she used the crappy complimentary pen to write Darren’s name across the front. Then she sealed his phone inside the envelope and dropped it into the slot. At least he’d have it back in time for his shift in the morning.
“What were you doing with Boner’s phone?” Javi asked as he followed her back to her car.
“His name is Darren, and that is also none of your business.”
Javi paused as she unlocked her door. He stared through the window at something in her back seat. The car was filled to the brim with everything she owned, trash bags and duffels full of clothes and shoes, school supplies and posters. Her microwave and mini fridge had taken up most of her trunk. She’d packed in haste, sneaking it all out of the window of her sorority house bedroom and loading it quietly into her car under the cover of night. But that’s not what he was staring at.
His gaze was glued to the broken picture frame on top. The glass was gone, shattered when she’d tossed her backpack through Ramón’s window a few nights ago. Somehow, the photo inside was still intact, a perfect memory frozen in time. Vero at age eighteen, the summer before she’d left for college, flanked on both sides by the two people she had loved most in this world. Ramón had been just shy of his twenty-second birthday. Javi was twenty-one. They leaned over her, arms thrown over the shoulders of her commencement gown, their smiles wide, her honors regalia on proud display. The photo had been taken after her high school graduation, in her mother’s backyard. Her mom and Aunt Gloria had made a celebration lunch and baked her a cake, and right after the photo had been taken, Ramón had rubbed a huge piece of it in Vero’s face. They were all still laughing when Javi had led her inside the house to the bathroom and wiped the frosting from her eyes. Then he’d leaned in, cautiously, kissing it tenderly away from the corners of her mouth. That had been their first kiss. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d been so happy.
Javi started as a pair of headlights turned into the parking lot. A sedan with roof lights and a reflective security emblem rolled slowly toward them.
“Shit!” he muttered.
Vero ran at him, grabbing him around the waist and throwing him to the pavement as the headlights fanned across the hood of her car. Javi’s breath rushed out of him as his back hit the ground, his skull thunking against the asphalt. He winced as he shook his head to clear it, frowning at Vero where she was sprawled over his chest.
“Ow! What the hell are you—?”
She slapped a hand over his mouth as the car’s engine cut off.
Vero peeped under her Honda. The sedan’s door swung open less than twenty feet away and Terence Odenberry climbed out of his car. “Come on,” she whispered, rolling off Javi and urging him to follow her as she crawled on hands and knees to his van and shimmied underneath it. Javi slithered under it beside her. The engine was still warm, the quiettink, tink, tinkof it muting the sound of Terence’s shoes on the pavement as he paused and slowly circled her vehicle, his brow creasing.
Terence held a six-pack of Cherry Cokes in one hand. A box of Krispy Kremes balanced precariously on his other, and an overflowing convenience store bag dangled from his wrist. Sour cream and onion chips poked out of the top, and a large pouch of peanut M&M’s was visible through the straining plastic. All of which explained the junk food wrappers she kept finding in the break room trash cans, and why Terence’s wife’s salads ended up in his waste basket at the end of every day.
Vero watched, wondering what other secrets Terence might be hiding. And why he was unlocking the back door of the bank so late at night.
Javi pushed up on his elbows, wincing when his head smacked the underside of the van. He rubbed his aching scalp, wrenching his neck to frown at her. “Do you mind telling me what we’re doing under here?” he asked once Terence had disappeared inside. “Because if I didn’t know better, I might assume you were hiding from a mall cop.”
“You didn’t look happy to see him either,” Vero pointed out.
“Maybe because I just beat the crap out of some douchebag that works here. Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”
“I never asked you to defend my honor or beat up my date.”
“Good, because I wasn’t waiting for your permission, Veronica. I know what you were doing: you were hiding in the bathroom searching the guy’s phone, which tells me you don’t trust him. That’s all I needed to know.”
“If that’s all you needed to know, then I guess we’ve got nothing left that needs saying.”
