Maeve
My fingers curled intothe soft fabric of the hoodie in my lap. I never should have left it behind. That was a drama queen move. As hurt as I was, I still didn’t want to hurt Santiago. And his face...if it could’ve cracked in two, I thought it would have. From the strain between his eyes and the downturn of his mouth, he looked as exhausted and run down as I felt.
“I met Diego for the first time when he was ten. I was sixteen.”
My stomach flipped. “What? I didn’t know that.”
He nodded. “Yeah, Pops had a wayward dick. He stepped out on my mom...well, I don’t know how often, but I’d venture to guess quite a bit. And Diego’s mom, I never met her, but from all accounts, she was pretty indiscriminate in who she brought into her bed. She never told my dad he’d knocked her up because she thought the baby was her boyfriend’s. We didn’t find out Diego existed until she OD’d. The boyfriend, who was on the birth certificate, informed social services he wasn’t his dad and pointed his finger at Eli Garza.”
He scrubbed his face with both hands. “Dad stepped in, got Diego living with us as soon as he could. I hated the idea, but then I met him. The kid was basically feral. Had a drug addict for a mom, lots of different daddies. He’d never been cared for, never been loved. He became the center of our world. His presence in my life pulled me out of the downward spiral I’d been stuck in. My old man married Alicia. Life flipped on its head real fast.”
I barely knew Diego, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to go back in time, scoop him up, and save him. I understood Santiago’s protectiveness. Hell, I felt a little protective of him now, and he was a grown ass man.
His eyes were shiny and worn out when they met mine. “I know it sounds stupid, but I’ve felt more like a second dad to him than a brother. I made it my responsibility to keep him safe, even when the dumbass tried everything he could to fuck himself up.”
“He seems good now,” I offered. I had no idea where this was going, or what it had to do with me, but I listened with bated breath.
“Yeah, I think he is.” He cleared his throat, shifting to turn his body in my direction. “When I saw him sitting on my porch, I didn’t know that. I hadn’t seen him for three months, then there he was. To me, he looked like that ten-year-old, scruffy, fragile kid. What if he still had feelings for you? What if he was still shaky? Was seeing us together about to send him tripping right back over the edge?”
“And I saw a man who was maybe a little tired, but still ecstatic to see his brother.”
Santiago smirked, huffing a dry laugh. “I think a lot of that ecstasy was from seeing you, to be honest.”
“It was you, and you know it.”
He took that in, nodding, while seeming to arrange his next thought.
“Diego and I wrote ‘Eighty Days’ about you. Well, I always say we wrote it together, but he pointed out most of the lyrics were mine.”
My heart squeezed in my chest. Breathing became difficult. “Eighty Days” was about me? The song I’d played every night for two months straight on tour? That played on the radio non-stop two summers ago?
Santi laid a hand on my knee, catching my gaze again. He licked his top lip. Was he nervous? He took a deep breath and sang to me.
I had hard rock Snow White in my palm
But I didn’t get it right, I said it wrong
Teardrops beating to a heartache rhythm
Watching her walk out on me instead of him
Doesn’t feel like much of a battle won
“That’s about you. My brother asked me to help him write a song about his unrequited crush on the girl I’d fallen for, so I did. It gutted me, hearing him talk about you, but I wrote the damn song. Then I had to perform the song hundreds of times, and every single time, I had your face in my head.”
I brought my hand down to his, laying it on top. He flipped his palm over, weaving our fingers together.
“I always liked that line, hard rock Snow White.” I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, biting down hard to keep from crying. I was no less hurt than I had been when he’d started this story, but now I was also confused.
“Shit, I have so much to explain. I’ve never done this and it’s coming out all jumbled.”
“It is. I have no earthly idea where you’re goin’ with this.”
His stare was intense and unflinching. “I want you to know where I’m coming from. So many of the choices I make have been with Diego in the back of my mind.” He exhaled, breathing out remorse and heaviness. “I didn’t offer him his spot back. What you heard was me asking if he’d think about sitting in for a couple songs when we recorded the next album.That’swhat I thought you’d understand.”
My lip trembled. God, that made so much more sense than what I’d thought I heard. But I was still a little raw from Drew, and Santiago dropping my hand had only rubbed salt in the wound. By the time I overheard their conversation, I’d been prepared for the worst, so that was what I got.
“I would have. I would have even understood if you’d offered him his job back—afteryou talked to me.”