Page 2 of High

Thinking about her had my chest twisting. I’d been with Thio when I’d gotten the news that she’d died in a plane crash over the California gulf. She’d been getting her pilot’s license for fun, or at least that’s what Papá had told me. Maybe that day he’d looked like this, but I would never know. I’d spent those long months after her passing crying into Thio’s shirt at night while he rubbed my back and held me close. But I was here now.

“Papá? What if I could help?”

“You don’t need any more information.”

“Papá, usually that’s fine, but they’re family, no matter what you say. Thio—” My heart hurt and I rubbed at my chest.

“Reyes is a traitor, and you’re to stay away from the entire family, Thiago included. We’re no longer business associates. Manny! What did I tell you?” He jerked around and pointed a finger at me, and I was familiar enough with his punishments that I hurried back inside my room.

“Sí, lo sé.” Carefully I closed the door and tried to get my jumbled thoughts together. Panic froze me for a few moments, and then I started to laugh. Papá had a temper. Surely this would work itself out.

But I stayed in my room all that day because I didn’t want Thio to turn up and find me covered in bruises; it would be hell to explain how I’d gotten them. He’d be upset at Papá, and I didn’t want them fighting, especially if there was already trouble between him and Tío Luis.

I didn’t want Thio to be disappointed in me.

Two weeks ago when he’d dropped me off here, he’d told me we needed to talk on the trip home to his house from Pedregal. He’d brushed my hair off my forehead with a light touch and a warm smile, something he’d done a thousand times before, but the way he’d leaned close and stared into my eyes…. I shivered. This time I could tell, maybe, just maybe, I was going to be happy with what he had to say about our future. He didn’t have to tell me that something more than friendship would cause us trouble, and we’d ignored a current of feelings that sparked between us for a long time, but it was getting more difficult to play dumb. There was no way we could continue to act like we didn’t both know this was headed somewhere. I knew he’d take care of me, though. I trusted him with my life.

The next day, Saturday, I was trapped again. The housekeepers delivered food. Papá didn’t stop to tell me I could go to the beach. I started to get nervous.

Sunday, when Thio was supposed to arrive, I packed, after one of the housekeepers brought me breakfast, but I had to admit by late afternoon that he wasn’t coming. Thio was never late to pick me up from anywhere. Usually he was two hours early, or even a whole day, and we would lounge around in the pool and spend the evening going out to find trouble, which, admittedly he never let me drink much, but it was always fun.

I’d dressed to leave in clothes Papá would find acceptable, a light summer suit and crisp white shirt. Thio would make fun of me when he saw the outfit, tell me I looked like a little prince and tweak my earlobe. I rubbed my ear absently as I paced the sitting area of my suite. There was a lot of space to stomp around in—the couches around a TV on the wall, a kitchenette, my bedroom in a walled-off area surrounded by windows, a reading lounge. Papá was right in one regard: I’d always been a little spoiled.

My stomach twisted when the housekeeper delivered dinner with a sympathetic frown at my suitcases near the door. She didn’t dare say anything when I asked if she’d seen Thio, only shook her head a little before she bustled out.

Taking my life into my own hands, I snuck into the hallway rather than eating. Nothing would stay down right now anyway. I had trouble breathing for a moment as I stepped into the airy corridor. Gauzy curtains billowed like ghosts. All the windows were flung open to let in the sultry air scented with sweet night flowers. Outside the high windows facing the ocean, the sunset skimmed the water, setting it on fire, while stars began to speckle the sky far above.

It took me a while to gather my courage, and by the time I did the sun was gone. I hated disobeying my father. I loved him and didn’t get to see him as much as I wanted. With my mamá gone the last few years, he’d been more than happy to let Tía Rosa take care of me along with her sons. He’d said that’s what families did, and women were better at looking after children, even though at that point I’d been older than he was the first time he ran drugs north over the border.

He didn’t think I knew how he made money, how we had our home on the Pacific Ocean, but Thio had told me years ago—sort of. I still didn’t know real details.

One morning in early fall—I’d always spent the school year with his family—I was following Thio around, annoying him to go swimming. I was supposed to be with his brother, Arlo, who was my age, and the tutor, but Thio usually let me hide out for a little while each day. That particular morning he’d looked especially good in a pair of white shorts with no shirt, the longer hair on the top of his head smoothed to the side. Scruff had made his jaw darker. I’d barely been able to tear my eyes away from him. He’d been on the phone taking care of something for his father—Tío Luis—something for the business. The memory made my cheeks hot. Thio was tall then, and now I knew he’d always tower over me. At the time I’d still had some hope for a growth spurt as I’d trailed after him, getting in his way worse than Gigi, his now deceased cocker spaniel, who had also followed. We’d made a strange parade.

“Mocoso querido, you’re going to distract me so that I text the wrong thing, then we could all be in trouble.” He’d stopped pacing around the kitchen to laugh, though. Thio was never mean to me.

“Why?” I’d asked as I snagged his arm and hung off it, sagging toward the floor with all my weight, trying to get him to drop the phone so he’d do something with me instead. Thio was six years older than me and strong. He’d held his arm up, tensed his bicep, and let me hang on him, which had sent a shocking wave of heat through my belly. There were two reasons that day stuck in my mind. I think that was also the first time I realized how I felt about him.

Thio was the best out of the two of us. He was always ambitious. He’d finished his senior year coursework early and everyone was proud of him. I just hadn’t seen the point in all that impressing people because then he had to do work instead of playing with me.

“Why?” I’d asked again, then pouted at him on purpose, in a way that usually made him chuckle. It did that day, too.

“Because the police will come arrest us all. You’re so….” He’d smiled and shook his head. “All you need to know is that not everything our fathers do is strictly legal.”

I’d let him go and had ended up on my knees on the floor at his feet, and I could still remember the smile he’d given me. It had stretched across his face and made his lips look extra soft, and my entire body had tingled and flashed warm. Then he’d messed up my hair with a noogie and ruined it, treating me like a baby.

“No way! They’re… what? Criminals? Oh, like the Ocean’s Eleven bad guys?”

“Yes, exactly.” He’d rolled his eyes at me. “No more questions.”

Everyone was always telling me not to ask questions, and I’d hated it then. I still hated it. Eventually, after a few hours of begging, he’d caved and told me the bare bones about our fathers’ business.

But now I was a year older than Thio had been on that day, and I already knew our fathers were criminals, no matter how uptight Papá acted, so shouldn’t I start getting some answers from someone? Papá worried about our safety way more than Tío Luis, and I had no idea why.

Near the end of the corridor I’d been sneaking along with my side pressed against the wall, I heard voices and ducked into the doorway of a guest room. The door was locked, though, when I tried to twist the knob. Two of the housekeepers were in no hurry as they passed, chatting about what they’d done over the weekend, which was nothing exciting, but they’d still tell on me if they saw me. I held my breath and pressed myself close to the door as they crossed the end of the hallway and kept talking. Papá had never allowed me a phone of my own, always said it wasn’t safe, so I had no way to find out what was going on between him and Tío Luis. I knew Thio’s number, though.

The hallway outside my room wasn’t connected to anything except other guest rooms that were usually unoccupied, so I needed to creep downstairs. I had my choice of a central staircase, and a side stairwell that was usually for the servants. I chose that less conspicuous route and held my breath as I tiptoed to the next floor down. My fingers twitched at my sides. My father’s office was on this floor, and I knew for a fact there was a working phone on his desk.

The hallways on this level of the house had pink-and-gold marble tiles on the floor and a driftwood theme on the walls that had to have been a designer’s idea and not Papá’s. He’d had the whole house redone, except for my room, after Mamá died. It must have cost him millions to overhaul the entire complex, but he hadn’t spared any expense, and I’d come back that summer to a house that was even less a home than it had been before.