“And you want to know what makes it all worse?” he finally blurted in a harsh tone. “My family… won’t even listen to me. I’ve tried to tell them I’m not on the team anymore, but they only hear what they want to hear. Everyone but Des thinks I’m just going to go through physical therapy for a few months and then I’ll be back at it. Mia and Ma can’t accept that it’s really over. That I’m not…” He slapped the water in frustration. “They call every fucking day, Jake, yet they never listen. Not Ma or Pa or Mia.”
“That’s your sister?” I asked.
He nodded. “One of them. That’s part of why I’m here though. When I was let go, I knew I wouldn’t be able to deal with going home to them, you know? I needed to get away and clear my head.” He sighed. “Didn’t really work though. Mia’s threatened more than once to fly out here if I don’t answer the phone at least every other day. I just don’t know why they bother.”
“I’m so sorry, babe,” I said, trying to quell my anger. I couldn’t even imagine a family treating someone like that. “How many siblings do you have?”
“Six. Three brothers, three sisters. I’m the bull’s-eye, right in the middle.”
I whistled. “Damn. That’s a big family.”
“Yeah. Sometimes I think it’s too big. How about you?”
“No siblings. It’s just me and my mom, but she lives in New York.”
Reyes glanced at me. “You said your dad died?”
“Yeah. He died from a heart condition when I was eighteen.”
A familiar, bitter cold spread through my chest that had nothing to do with the cool bath water. I closed my eyes, trying to ward off the pain. Had Dad really been gone twelve years?
He linked our fingers together and lifted them to his lips.“Lo siento, mi estrella. I can tell he meant a lot to you.”
“Yeah, we were really close. My mom and I are too. I think the closest thing I have to a brother though is my friend Beckett,” I admitted. Then I rolled my eyes. “I still can’t believe he didn’t know you!”
“Why is that hard to believe?”
I searched for a way to explain without ruining the mood. Reyes appeared to be more at ease now that he’d gotten the weight off his chest and I didn’t want to disrupt that. “Well… um, because you’re not what I would have normally chosen for a date and Beckett knows that, so I thought he was trying to make a fool of me when he set us up.”
Reyes shifted again so he could see my face, then burst out laughing. “You two have an odd friendship, don’t you?”
“You’ve no idea.”
“Well, I’m glad we met,” he said, settling back against me.
I wanted to say I felt the same, but the words came out as something else entirely. “Are you close with any of your siblings?”
He hesitated. “Not really. My cousin Max is my best friend though.”
“Do you see him often?”
He shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen him in a few years. We live in different corners of the world now, but we talk a lot. Well, when we can, I mean, since we’re awake at opposite times of the day,” he added with a chuckle.
I wanted to ask more, but Reyes stretched his leg out. I could tell it bothered him much less this time as he gently kneaded the tissue with his thumb.
“Ready to get out?”
“Not yet. A few more minutes. It’s better though.”
“Okay.”
He ran a hand down my thigh and gently squeezed. “Gracias, Jake. For this. It was… unexpected.”
I put my hand over his, linking our fingers together. “It was for me too.”
I had a feeling neither of us were talking about the bath.
