She laughs, and I glance at her before placing the final cherry tomato on the salad.
“He wanted to marry me even though I couldn’t cook to save my life,” she says, turning the chicken and ignoring the smoke going up from the oil in the pan. “And then the boys came along…”
“So it worked out in some ways,” I say. “I mean, you got the boys out of it.”
“Of course,” she says. “I wouldn’t change it for anything. Even if I do put a curse on Mr. North every time I see him around town with his new wife who probably never burns the chicken.”
The smoke alarm starts going off, and she runs to stand on a chair and wave a lid to one of her Tupperware containers at it. I pull the chicken off and take the smoking legs out of the oil before they get more charred.
“They’re fine,” I assure her. “I’m sure it’s just the skin.”
She grins at me and climbs off the chair when the alarm stops beeping. “You’re a keeper,” she says. “I’m glad one of my sons snatched you up before you got away.”
“Thanks,” I say, watching her from the corner of my eye. “So… Has Maddox been home at all?”
“Not much,” she says. “He moved out a week before you.”
“He never came back?” I ask, surprised. Since Lennox has been staying with someone from the Murder of Crows, and I haven’t been here, I assumed Maddox would have come back. A ridiculous little dart of jealousy pierces into me before I can scold myself out of it.
“He comes by to see me,” Valeria says. “You’ll make sure Lennox does the same, si?”
“Of course,” I say still distracted by what she said about Maddox.
Which is ten kinds of stupid. Why does it matter if he’s living with Scarlet now? I already know they’re together. I endured the slap in the face that was the last few weeks before graduation, when I had to see them around school together. Every single time, my mind flashed back to that day in the parking lot, when he bent her over and fucked her in front of me.
I’ll never be able to unsee that. Even if he showed up and begged forgiveness on bended knee, I’d never be able to stop seeing that. He wanted to hurt me, and he succeeded. There’s no going back from that.
“Hey, can I ask you something?” I say, carrying the salad to the table. Might as well get all the awkwardness out now, since I’m already awkward as hell today. Lennox wanted us to dress up for the big announcement to his mom, so he asked me to wear a dress instead of my usual jeans. Which means I spent yesterday raiding every secondhand store in town with Lexi, both of us moaning about the weird smells and lack of clothing options for poor girls under fifty.
“You want to know where Maddox is?” Valeria asks, watching me closely.
“No,” I say, frowning and smoothing down my thrift store dress. “That’s not my business. I’m with Lennox.”
“Then what?”
“Lennox said they joined the Crows because of you,” I say. “But it was your story.”
“Oh.” Her face goes still, and I can see her struggling with some emotion before she speaks. Then she turns and picks up a bottle. “Do you want wine?”
“Sure,” I say, going to the cabinet and pulling out three glasses. “You don’t want to tell me?”
She sighs and pours wine into a glass before handing me the bottle. “No, but I will,” she says, tucking an arm hand around her middle and resting her elbow on the back of her hand. She takes a sip of wine and forces a smile. “You should know, if you’re going to live with a gangster. But you should also know that my boys, they didn’t used to be like that. That’s not how they were raised. I didn’t do that to them. That damnorganizationdid.”
“Did what?” I ask.
“You know what they’re like,” she says. “They’re still my sweet little boys to me, but I know what they’re like to other people. To women. To your father. To everyone else.”
I think of Lee’s arms encased in white casts from wrist to shoulder, leaving him as immobile as a Ken doll, and I think maybe their version of sweet is just a little different than when they were her little boys. No one has ever done something like that for me before. Not even my own mother protected me.
But Maddox did.
I’ll never forget that. No matter what else he did, Maddox protected me. Lennox took care of me. They both made me forget for a while.
“They’re not so bad,” I say, pouring a glass of wine and hiding my smile.
“The gang started after them when they were only kids,” she says. “Twelve or thirteen. I wouldn’t let them join of course. I watch the news, see the statistics on crime. The Skull & Crossbones is no organization, no matter what they say. Make no mistake, Rae. It’s a gang.”
“I know.”