Arizona Allspice

ARIZONA ALLSPICE

Published by ReneeRomance Books

ReneeRomance.com

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes, no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission from the publisher.

This story is a work of fiction. All characters and events are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to any person, living or
dead,
is coincidental.

© 2011 Renee Lewin

Cover Design: ReneeRomance Book Design, Renee Lewin

Cover Photo: © SXC; ‘Antique Star’ by
rpichler
; ‘Flowers of cactus’ by
c_mackow

DEDICATION

To my family:

Daddy,
Azucar
, Cha
Cha
, the Big Guys, and Mom

ONE

Holding up my blue Chinese parasol, I shaded my eyes from the sun. I adjusted my square glasses, their thin frames two-toned purple and black, and watched as Raul steadied his eyes on the ball. Raul’s right leg pulled back and then swung forward. I’d seen him do it dozens of times before, yet each time I was captivated by the movement of the muscles beneath his bronze skin and by his jet black hair dripping with sweat. Raul teased me about my glasses all the time. I got into the habit of wearing them during high school. He called me his
murciélagita
, his little bat. Sometimes he joked that I’m batty like my father. He often forgot how hard it was to take care of my dad. The few people still in my life forgot that. Raul said it was because I made it look so easy.

There was the unmistakable sound of his sneaker making contact with the leather exterior of the black and white ball. His power transferred. The ball arched through the hot air. Everyone’s eyes followed its flight path. The goalie leaped. His distance came up short. The ball hit the back of the goal and everyone around me cheered. Even Manny yelled and whistled beside me. I remained seated, but I was grinning.

On the other side of the field I heard some of the opposing team’s fans grumbling and cursing, furious over lost bets. I spotted Joey on one end of the field ripping his red t-shirt off, exposing his tanned chest and abs, as well as his freckled shoulders. He balled up the shirt and hurled it to the ground. The sweat had made his red hair darken. I watched his tantrum, mesmerized. He spit onto the team shirt, further soiling it after grinding dirt into it with his cleat.  He brought a balled up fist to pound once at his chest before storming off the field and down the road toward his trailer.

His teammates urged him not to take it so hard. They knew, however, not to be too adamant in trying to settle him. It would only make him angrier. His display of tarnishing his team shirt was not in any way a direct insult to his team. They knew that. Joey was their captain, their most passionate teammate. They called him
El Fuego
: The Fire. I personally preferred to call him
El
Pinturero
: The
Showoff
.
Joey stuck out like a sore thumb, being the only white guy on either team that day and he was also tall. I was sure he loved the feeling of everybody noticing him. Joey was on team
Las
Chupasangres
: The Bloodsuckers. Thus, the red team color. Raul was on team
La
Tormenta
: The Storm. Their team color was silver.

Raul jogged over to me shirtless and smirking.
“¿
Tú miras El Fuego? Es loco.
Seriously.”

I nodded as for a moment my eyes followed the little trail of black hair that started from Raul’s navel and disappeared into the front of his soccer shorts. The smirk widens on in in his face.  I knew he would tease me about it later, retelling the ongoing joke of me eventually breaking down and letting him be my first. He had never pushed me to do anything I didn’t want to do. We’d been dating unofficially for two years straight and I still had my virginity. What other guy would stay after they realized I wouldn’t give in to their lust? Raul was very dear to me, so I didn’t listen to the crap that people like Joey had to say about him.

 “I’m gonna go talk to Marisol,” Raul said. “I’ll talk to you later, ‘
kay
Mami
?”

“Okay,” I answered. I watched him walk over to Marisol. She smiled and her eyes roamed over his body. I couldn’t blame her. Raul raised a hand and playfully nudged her under the chin. She smiled and smoothed down the long curly ponytail that draped her left shoulder. I saw her glossed lips moving as she talked. She looked up at him with hazel eyes lined with black eyeliner and her “baby hair” was gelled down around her hairline, framing her face. She sat in a lawn chair with her smooth legs crossed, wearing flip flops, a jean mini skirt and a tank top. Raul’s eyes slid down her petite caramel body. He leaned down to whisper something into her ear. I quickly looked away. Why did he have to be so obvious about it? Holding my folded chair and my parasol, I headed home to Dad who’d wake up from his nap soon.

I spotted my brother Manny chatting with others in the crowd walking home from the field. I try to catch up with him. I looked down at my feet as I walked. I wore black steel-toed boots, not flip flops. I wore fitted jeans tucked into them, not a mini skirt. I wore a t-shirt and a jean vest, not a low cut tank top. I licked my drying lips; there was no gloss or lipstick. I combed back strands of my black hair with my fingers to put them back into my bun and adjusted my glasses behind my ear. I’d worn that uniform for five years. It was me and I didn’t apologize.

I caught up to Manny and he looked over at me and smiled. At five foot eight we stood eye to eye. I grasped onto his hand and he swung it back and forth just like he’d done since elementary school. I laughed as he swung our arms faster and higher until I thought it’d begin to hurt but he slowed down, like always, released my hand and put his arm across my shoulder as we walked. He sighed. “Don’t be mad, but Joey is coming over for a beer later.”

 I rolled my eyes. “I hate you hanging out with him.”

“I know.”

“He’s a bad influence.”

“I’m not a child.”

“You’re not old enough to drink.”

“I look old enough to buy it and I’m man enough to handle it.”

“You mean you’re the one buying the beer?”

“Yeah.
So?”

I smacked him on the back of his head. He simply laughed and lazily rubbed at the spot with his long fingers, his fingertips running over the prickly waves of his fresh fade. The shadows from my parasol fell as diagonal lines along the side of his smooth shaven face. “Emanuel Roberts! You don’t have to be like the rest of the guys in this town. Don’t let people convince you of something you don’t want to do because the next day they’ll get bored of it and convince you of something worse.”

“Laney, I’m going to enjoy a
couple
beers with a friend
in my
house
, under the supervision of my
overprotective twin sister
!
I’m not going to get wasted and hop into my truck. I promise.”

I sighed. “Okay. Maybe I’m being overdramatic, but you know how I feel about Joey. Frankly, he’s scary, nosy, rude, and conceited. He probably has autographed pictures of himself hung up in his locker at work.”

“Wow,” he shook his head with a smirk.

“Are you trying to tell me I’m wrong?”

“Yes, once again, I am telling you you’re wrong. You’ve never really seen his good side. I wish you would give him a chance.”

“The fact that you’ve been friends with this guy for months and I have yet to see his good side probably means he doesn’t have one.”

“Laney, you and I think alike. I wouldn’t hang out with someone you couldn’t ever like. He just hasn’t let his guard down around you completely yet. Why would he when you always give him attitude? Give him a break, okay?”

I shrugged my shoulders as we climbed the steps to our trailer home. We found Dad sitting on a bar stool on the opposite side of the trailer smoking a cigarette, blowing the smoke out of the screened window and mumbling to himself. I hated seeing
him
smoke and I hated him smoking in the house, but he was afraid to go outside and smoking cigarettes calmed him down.

******

“You remember Joey? Don’t you Dad?” Manny asked, even though Joey had come over many times before. Dad simply nodded. We had to introduce him to visitors, even if he’d seen them ten times before, because his memory wasn’t what it used to be and his suspicion often took over.

Manny and Joey sat on the couch drinking and watching an old Steven
Seagal
movie. I was itching to get up and leave. I had been watching television before Joey arrived and I was so disturbed by his presence that I had goose bumps on my arms. I wasn’t about to let him control my actions in my own home so I stayed put on the couch when he walked in. Joey had the decency to politely say hello, but not enough to sit on the other side of Manny. Instead he sat right next to me. His body heat radiated, warming my goose pimpled skin. He glanced at me. Surprisingly, he said nothing. He returned his eyes to the television and took a long swig from his beer. The gray shirt he was wearing with his jeans was tight around his biceps and hung close across his chest.

Though he tried to act unfazed by my displeasure, I noticed that his other hand is clenched tight. Was he imagining hitting me? I had reason to believe that he was a woman beater.  His reputation with half the girls in town started in high school. He had girls of every shape, size, and color and almost every one cried when, predictably, he left them. Apparently he made quite an impression on them and I figured that impression was physical in more ways than one. There was no way in hell that Joey, the volatile hothead, was having these girls cry over him for being a sweetheart.