Trouble

Things were weird for a while. Alejo popped by more often, visiting the girls, playing with them, taking on the role of older brother that Liam was always trying to fill. Once in a while, he would glance over at me, making sure that I wasn’t looking at him in any kind of hostile manner, judging him, learning to hate him like the rest of my culture would.

Which I couldn’t bring myself to do.

I had to admit, I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the idea. I caught myself on multiple occasions watching him carefully, trying to pick up any feminine movements in his hands, his gait, his face. But he was still the extremely masculine Alejo I’d always known and loved.

One night, he stayed until the girls went to sleep, and we stayed up on the couch, staring at different points in the room, not knowing what to say.

Finally, he said what was on his mind. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I should never have told you. I know that it’ll implicate you if anything comes up, and I think things are different. Really, we should have kept the focus on you, not me.”

I shook my head emphatically, taking Alejo’s hand in mine. He looked kind of shocked at my initiation of affection, but I knew the movement was necessary if he was going to trust what I was saying.

“I thought it would change things,” I told him honestly. “I don’t know guys like you. We’ve been raised that guys like you are the devil’s work, that you’re not real Mexicanos. But I know you, Alejo, and I know that’s a load of mierda. You’re still Alejo, I still trust you with my life and my sister’s lives, and it doesn’t matter what you’re looking for in a partner. I’m glad you told me, even if you hadn’t meant to. ¿Está bien?”

He nodded and grinned. “Thank you, Sol.”

“Don’t thank me for being a decent human being.”

“Oh, you’re far from decent,” he teased, leaning over and kissing my forehead. “Okay, I have to head over to Cristobal now to do some bodyguard business. I’ll try to come over tomorrow, okay?”

“I hope you can,” I told him honestly. “Or if you want to come back over here, Liam’s going to come over.”

“Oh, there’s no way I want to interrupt that,” he replied with a suggestive wink. “Bye, Sol.”

I nodded in reciprocation, and he slipped out the door, pulling it shut softly behind him.



Alejo didn’t come back the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. When Liam came over, I knew that he was okay, since Liam always somehow seemed to run into him on the streets, but he was still worrying me. But once I realized that he was probably just busy, I worked on pretending that everything was fine as usual.

“Are you okay?” Liam asked almost a week later. He’d played with the girls during the day, under my watch, and he’d walked with me to drop them off at Señora Rodriguez's house for the night so they could have fun with her daughters.

But once they were gone, Liam was able to see that there was something off about me, and he couldn’t quite place it.

“Things are just complicated, I guess,” I replied vaguely.

“Not going to give me details, huh?”

“Nope.”

“Some things never change.”

There was a short silence before I let out a breath. “Alejo pointed out to me the other day that I’m really closed off, and I know you’ve said that a million times since I met you, but I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be that way. I know I can’t really change it, and I wish I could, but I just want to say that I really am sorry for it.”

Liam shrugged. “It’s just a part of you. I can’t hold a grudge against you for it. I’m not an idiot. I look around at your world, and I know that it’s way different than mine. Compared to what you’ve gone through, my life has basically been a walk in the park. But I really care about you, and if it means putting up with your mysterious act, then so be it.”

“You’re so understanding,” I joked, standing up and heading toward the kitchen. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Just water would be fine, thanks.”

I got a couple glasses of water from the purifying filter on the faucet in the kitchen and brought them back, putting one in front of Liam and the other on the table next to me.

Liam took a sip of his drink slowly, and I watched him. He had a very honest, caring face, the smooth surface marred by a couple freckles and birthmarks, which kept him from being incredibly perfect. They made him human, real. Maybe part of the reason that I had been so attracted to him (in a friendship way, since I refused to admit anything else) was that he was a genuine person.

The people I tended to surround myself with were hardened gang members, ones that put up these tough, sometimes unnecessary, fronts. On the street, I knew we had to be that way. We had to pretend that nothing could faze us, nothing could touch us. But when we were off-duty, some were able to shut off the exterior, and others couldn’t. Alejo had always been able to. I found it a little bit harder. And some just stayed cold and cruel all the time.

Liam didn’t have to go through that. He had a relatively easy, coasting life, and he never needed to harden his image to survive. He had this open nature about him that I could only wish for in my wildest dreams. What Liam presented was exactly what he was thinking. No tricks, no gimmicks, no lies. He wore his heart on his sleeve with confidence.

“What are you thinking?” Liam questioned in a soft voice, looking over at me. “You look like your brain is leaking.”

For once, I didn’t censor myself. I didn’t stop myself from saying what I felt. I had a feeling that Alejo’s conversation had connected something inside of me, made me realize that I couldn’t push people away all the time. I was doing nothing but hurting people, which I thought I was avoiding by keeping them from knowing the truth.

So I just started to spew my thoughts all over him without worrying about what he was going to think afterwards. “I just…I look at you, and I think I’m starting to understand everything. I’m starting to see that I’ve been wrong for not trusting you. I think it’s just weird for me to meet someone who lays all his cards on the table without worrying whether he’s going to win or lose. You don’t have deep, dark secrets, you don’t have a false bravado, and you don’t have this need to maintain some kind of ideal about what you should act like. You’re just incredibly true and perfect, and I guess I just figured you were lying to me. You’re by far the most wonderful guy I’ve ever met, and I’m beginning to see what a mistake I’m making by pushing you away all the time.”

There was a long, awkward silence, but I wasn’t really worried about what he was going to say. I’d merely done what he’d been doing the whole time, something that I’d been too cowardly to do. But honesty was something that I incredibly undervalued, something that Liam had done all along, and something Alejo was introducing himself to. I needed to hop on the bandwagon before it was too late.

“The guys think I’m mad, you know,” Liam laughed, running a hand through his short hair. “The other boys in the band, I mean. They think I’m mental for coming down here whenever I have any free time, that I’m babysitting who they think is a poor Latina girl in the shittiest part of the city.

“But they don’t realize what I’ve been working for, what I wanted you to do this whole time. And there, you just took the first step. You’re starting to trust me a little bit. I never thought this day would come.”

“I guess it did,” I laughed, trying to ease the excited electricity in the air. “Do they really think you’re insane?”

He nodded. “I think they’re probably just jealous and confused because they can’t meet you.”

“No, I can’t meet them,” I insisted. “It’s bad enough that I’m dragging you into this.”

“You’re not dragging me into anything,” he told me seriously before scooting closer to me so we were sitting hip to hip.

He stared at me for a couple seconds before breathing, “I really want to kiss you right now. Can I, or would that make everything awkward?”

It would make everything awkward, the scared part inside me screamed. Please, don’t do it. Don’t let yourself do this.

But then I looked over at his dark, honest eyes, and I felt my guard start to slip. Just a bit. Just below my lips, just enough for me to say, “You can if you want.”

Liam smiled a little as he leaned over and pressed his mouth against mine, letting one of his hands slide up my leg and rest on the side of my stomach, the heat from his palm seeping through my shirt and making me shiver.