“Then I’ll use it every day.” His hands move over me with gentle reverence that has everything female in me wanting to be as close to him as I can get. “Tell me more about your life. I want to know everything. Were you born here in Miami?”
“Yep. My mom had me when she was nineteen. My father was a one-night stand, a navy guy from Minnesota, of all places. He never knew about me.”
“Have you ever tried to find him?”
“Nah. What would be the point?”
“You could have your father in your life.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to go about that.”
“You could do one of those DNA kits and see if you match with anyone. A friend of mine from high school connected with his birth parents by doing that, although a lawyer friend of ours says it’s not a good idea to put your DNA out there to be found by law enforcement.”
“If you don’t plan to be a criminal, that shouldn’t be an issue.”
“That’s what I said, too. But his point was that someone related to you could be caught.”
“Mateo isn’t going to be a criminal either, so I suppose I could try it. I’ve always wondered about my father.”
“You could try social media, too. Imagine his shock at finding out he has a twentysomething daughter he never knew existed.”
“I’m twenty-six. What if he had an affair with my mother and hearing about me sets off a bomb in his life?”
“Yeah, that’d suck, but it would be cool to know, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose. I doubt it would change my life in any meaningful way.”
“You never know.” He never stops playing with my hair. “Tell me more. Were you a good student?”
“I was. I got mostly A’s all through school. I even got a scholarship to UF.”
“Why didn’t you go?”
“My mom OD’d for the first time three weeks before I was supposed to leave. I’m her only family, so I couldn’t go. I soon realized she’d done it on purpose because she didn’t want me to have that opportunity.”
“Why in the hell would she not want that for you?”
“She was jealous of me my whole life. She hated the attention her boyfriends paid to me—and I hated that, too. I was two when she drove us to Mexico, following yet another loser guy, who ditched us shortly after we arrived. It took until I was almost fifteen to get back to Miami, which is why my English isn’t as good as it should be.”
“Ah, I see. Your mom didn’t speak English at all?”
“God, no. She was raised in Puerto Rico, came here when she was seventeen and basically refused to learn English. She hates that I know it and she doesn’t, though. All my life, she hated when people would comment on how smart or pretty or talented I was. It infuriated her, and she took that out on me. She’d treat me like shit and tell me I thought I was better than her when I was nothing but a one-night-stand bastard who never should’ve been born.”
“Jesus,” he whispers. “She actually said that to you?”
“More times than I can count. If you wonder why she’s no longer in my life, that’s why, although she didn’t go quietly either. I keep thinking I should block her so she can’t bother me anymore, but I still hope that maybe someday, she might act like a mother.”
“I’m so sorry she treated you that way and that you had to give up your scholarship. Maybe you can still go to school somehow.”
“I’d probably suck at it now. It’s been so long since I had to really study, I’ve forgotten how.”
“You’d still be a great student. Look at how well you’re doing with ESL classes.”
“I guess.” He’s quiet for a long time, which leads me to ask, “What’re you thinking?”
“That you’ve had an incredibly difficult life, and all I want to do is make things better for you.”
“It’s not up to you to make things better for me.”