“Alejandro,” Cat said warningly.
She knew that asking Alejandro for help a year ago would come with strings. Alejandro didn’t do anything for free. Not that he required payment, exactly. But he considered her family. And Alejandro’s family was expected to defer to him.
Alejandro wouldn’t hurt her. He wanted his family safe. And he could be very persuasive. After the incident a year ago, both Cat and Alejandro had wanted her to move in with them.
But she couldn’t. Instead, she’d gone to stay with her other friends . . . until she’d started feeling like a burden. And then she’d taken off to travel around the country.
Alejandro wasn’t a complete tyrant. No matter what Cat thought. He was like an overprotective big brother who just happened to think he was always right.
“Papi, don’t you have a meeting or something?” Cat asked.
“It’s okay,” she said quickly.
She didn’t want to upset things between them. Not that she thought Alejandro would ever allow that. Cat came first. Always. And any threat to her would be eliminated.
“I went out dancing.” Thankfully, a week had passed, so her cheek was no longer bruised and swollen.
“You did?” Cat squealed. “Oh, Maeve. That’s great. You love dancing and you haven’t been in ages.”
“What happened?” Alejandro asked suspiciously.
She sighed. “Nothing that bad.”
They both stared at her. Yeah, she wouldn’t believe her either.
How much could she get away with telling them without either one of them insisting on pulling her back to live with them?
“Maeve, spill,” Cat said sharply. Most of the time, Cat was full of fun and good humor. Sure, she was a bit reckless. But when she cared about someone, she cared with everything in her. And she loved Maeve.
“Fine. This guy might have grabbed me. But I took care of it.”
“How?” Alejandro asked. “And what was he doing grabbing you? Did you have your knife on you?”
“Ahh . . .”
“What about your stun gun?”
“Umm . . .”
“Pepper spray?” Alejandro’s face was growing more and more thunderous.
“I can’t carry all of that stuff everywhere.”
Before she’d left to go traveling around, her friend Sampson had fixed her up with a protection kit. It contained a pocket knife, stun gun, pepper spray, a personal alarm, and weirdly, a throwing star.
When the heck would she ever use a throwing star?
“Don’t give me that,” Alejandro scolded. “You could have taken just one.”
Okay, yes. But she didn’t think she could ever use any of those on someone.
“How did you take care of it?” Cat asked suspiciously.
“My awesome ninja skills, of course.”
Both of them just stared at her.
“I could have those. I could be taking MMA classes, you know.”