Marco (The Men of Indecent Exposure #1) (36 page)

That heated stare passed over me again. “I’d love to, but I don’t wanna get all wet and mess my hair up before we open presents, but after?” I asked.

He nodded with his bottom lip clamped between his teeth as his attention shifted to my breasts.

“Besides, Mona wants to hear about my new job, so I’m gonna go sit and chat with her and Ced for a while. You go hang out and have fun with your friends, though,” I added, encouraging him to have a good time without me.

His chin dipped once as he uttered a distant-sounding, “Okay.” It sounded that way because his thoughts were no longer on our conversation.

My gaze synched with his.  Standing still, now holding my hips in his hands, we revived the kiss that had been interrupted earlier, picking up right where we left off. These moments of intimacy, ones where we connected on an even deeper level than when sex was involved, made me feel bound to him.

I couldn’t seem to pick a side and stay on it. He made me come undone. My thoughts were all over the place, but mostly, I just wanted to be with him. That’s all—everything else aside—I wished things were simple enough for the two of us to just…
be.

Marco

You’d never know I spent the last hour in the pool. The sun’s heat had dried my body and trunks completely. Pulling my cap back on after my shirt, I went to take the seat my mother set beside Brynn’s in front of the gift table.

So many gifts, all wrapped in bright paper or placed in colorful bags, but mostly pink of course. Even my boys brought something.

They weren’t far from where I sat, finding three chairs near the front of the crowd. And I called it a crowd because that’s how many people turned out for us today. Family. Friends. All to help us celebrate our daughter.

Brynn smiled toward my mom’s camera when prompted to do so, but it seemed a little forced. In fact, I’d seen that same effort go into
several
of her smiles today, although, I wasn’t sure why. Could’ve been the heat. Could’ve just been the fatigue she seemed to have such a hard time shaking lately.

…Or maybe she’d overheard Carlos’s absentminded comment.

She walked up right after he made it and I couldn’t gage how much of our conversation she caught, but I prayed she missed most of it. Well,
all
of it, seeing as how the latter portion was probably the worst.

Carlos mentioned how we’d all made the mistake of sleeping with women who visited the club. That wasn’t a lie, but it was something most of us avoided, especially those of us who’d been in the business for a while and knew how messy things could get. In fact, avoiding that messiness was precisely the reason we didn’t even tend to hang out locally. Hence, our habit of frequenting
The Alibi.
That distance from our club was the lure. So, for Brynn to hear Carlos bring this up—
if
she heard—was unfortunate. That version of myself, the version that didn’t care a whole lot about what I did and the consequences, was long gone. Even before I met her, that particular practice was one I’d already put a stop to.

“Okay, why don’t you two start with this one,” Lorna said with a grin as she handed the first gift to Brynn, cutting into my thoughts. With my mother running things, my sisters all had their assigned duties.

A silver-wrapped box, topped with an elaborate turquoise bow crossed my line of sight. The tag attached read: “To Baby Girl Rios”, because we hadn’t decided on her name yet.

Brynn stuffed the now tattered paper into the bag Lucia held beside her—apparently, this was the job Ma had assigned to
her
. The bow was collected by Izzy who, with the help of Rosalina, taped it to the back of a paper plate with the intentions of making it into a hat for Brynn to wear once they were finished with it.

Out of the box came a fluff of pink, white, and turquoise tissue paper. Clearing it away, Brynn pulled out one item after the next—blankets, socks, bibs, and the smallest pair of shoes I’d seen in a while. Since Izzy was that little.

“Oh my gosh,” Brynn said with a smile, fawning over the sparkly sneakers. “These are so cute! Thank you!” she said, directing her gratitude toward my cousin Gloria and her husband. A kiss was blown Brynn’s way as Gloria smiled back, letting her know she was more than welcome.

Lorna handed over another gift, a bag this time. Inside, a set of yellow sheets for the crib and a load of small towels and washcloths. Again, Brynn graciously thanked the gift giver just before being passed another, and then another, and it went on like that until we’d finally put a dent in the presents spread across the table.

Already, we received a baby tub, all the bottles and pacifiers we’d need…
ever
, the highchair and bassinet Brynn had on her registry, and someone even got us a scrapbook and album to record all our new memories inside. Lord knows we’d have a ton of them.

Lorna placed an envelope in my hands and I passed it to Brynn, recognizing it as the one the guys had shown up with. There was a card inside and I could only guess what it said. My friends weren’t above crass humor—
obviously
. Not even in a situation such as this where most might deem it inappropriate. For that reason, I held my breath until Brynn read the first few lines and smiled. When she finished, she handed something over for me to take a look at—a receipt for six thousand dollars.

My eyes went to the guys in search of an explanation. It was Justin who gave it to me.

“We started an education trust fund for her. Of course we bought a regular gift, too, but…” he turned and glanced down at the guys before looking at me again. “We wanted to make sure we gave her something that mattered, I guess.”

“When she grows up, we wanna make sure she knows she’s got a bunch of crazy uncles looking out for her,” Carlos cut in and the other guests laughed at the straightforward way he worded that.

“Yeah… what he said,” Justin added, laughing. “But we each put in a couple grand and we’ll throw something in it for birthdays, Christmas…”

“With some other stuff, too,” came Carlos’s voice again. “Because we know this won’t matter to her a whole lot while she’s little and we don’t want the kid growing up thinking we’re deadbeats who never buy her anything.”

More laughs, and I was smiling, too, but mostly I was just caught up. They didn’t have to do this. It was more than just the receipt in my hand; they were committing to adding to what they’d already contributed as my daughter grew. These guys, my brothers… I didn’t even have words.

I stood to embrace them all. They knew the back story of my journey with Brynn. It’d been them who listened and advised me. They were the ones who knew how I doubted myself in the beginning and they gave me the space to come out of it on my own. Well… with their encouragement, that is. As if they hadn’t already done enough, this gift touched me like they probably wouldn’t believe.

Pulling back, I looked each one in the eyes. These men. My friends. My brothers. “Thank you. All of you. For real.”

To them, what they’d done probably wasn’t even a big deal. But to me?

To me it was everything.

*****

Cleaning went hella fast with the twenty-plus guests who decided to stick around after the party to help. The few pieces of trash that had been dropped in the yard were disposed of and the tables and tents were all down thanks to the guys taking care of them before they left. The extra food had been divided up and sent home with some of the guests—aside from the portion my mother insisted on leaving here for Brynn and I. I say it was for both of us because she’d been staying here quite a bit lately, which I loved. At the end of a long day, it was nice to have her to come home to and I got the impression she was settling into this routine, too. The only nights she didn’t stay over were weekends.

Within an hour, things were almost back to normal. My father left in the middle of the cleaning spree to take my grandmother home. The heat tired her out pretty quickly, which wasn’t far off from how the rest of us felt, especially Brynn. She came in to take several short breaks from the sun throughout the day and I made sure she stayed hydrated.

The number of helpers slowly dwindled. Those of us who were left, moved inside to start on to the kitchen. No one would let Brynn pitch in, of course, so she took a seat at the counter, watching. She seemed so uncomfortable being waited on hand and foot, but she’d have to get used to it around here. My family and I were chronic hoverers when someone wasn’t at their best.

“Isobel,” My mother called out, bringing my attention to my niece as she clumsily ran across the tile with the beach ball from the pool. “Not in the kitchen,” Ma said, gently warning my niece about playing inside the house. “You’ll knock something over.”

Caught, Bel lowered the ball in front of her. “Sorry,
Abuelita
,” came her small voice, getting a smile out of my mother.

Mona and Cedric had stayed around to help get things together, too. They weren’t flying out until morning, so they insisted. Balancing a plate with the two pieces of cake my mother wrapped for them to take back to their hotel room, Mona embraced Brynn around her shoulders.

“I’m so glad you two came,” Brynn said with a yawn. Her fingers looped her brother’s for a moment and then she released him and Mona both.

I watched her with him today. She told me how close they were and that was only confirmed seeing them interact. She cared what he thought, for sure. Telling him about us had been difficult for her, and understandably so. Nothing about us screamed ‘
traditional’
. We’d done nothing by the book from the very beginning and I, for one, was completely okay with that. Despite our rocky beginning, we landed on our feet.

“Girl, you know we wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Mona replied, smiling at Brynn.

“And I had to get here to check on you,” Cedric added. A cool glance was passed my way right after he addressed his sister, but I didn’t take offense to it. As a brother of three sisters, I knew the drill. The men in their lives all had to go through the same screening routine. I reserved friendship for the ones who proved themselves worthy. So far, Max was the only one who made the cut.

“I wish we could get together for breakfast or something in the morning,” Brynn said next.

“I know. Me, too. We would if we didn’t have to be at the airport so early. Five a.m. is gonna be here before we know it,” Mona answered with a laugh. “But we’ll be back to visit once you have the baby. You know we have to meet our first niece.”

That had Brynn smiling big and, in turn, I was smiling, too. I loved seeing her genuinely happy and I hadn’t seen a lot of that today. Yes, she smiled and was gracious while opening gifts and interacting with the different people who showed up for the celebration, but there was just something behind her eyes I couldn’t place. Something I knew we should talk about before the night was over. I considered that it might be the comment Carlos made, but something had been off with her even before that. As soon as everyone left, we could deal with it…
whatever the issue was.

“I’ll send you a text before we take off in the morning,” Cedric said, looking Brynn over one last time, wearing a hopeful smile. Maybe he was leaving here today feeling just a little bit more comfortable with so many miles between he and Brynn. Between me and my family, she was well taken care of.

Brynn opened her mouth to respond to her brother, but never got the words out because there was a huge thud, followed by the sound of glass scraping across the granite countertop. Bel had knocked it clear across the surface, playing with the ball she’d been asked to put down, and now we all watched in horror as a nearly-full bowl of punch headed straight toward Cedric…
and his white Polo
.

In an attempt to prevent an even bigger mess by letting the glass fall to the tile, he grabbed it just as it cleared the edge. However, that timely save came at the expense of his nice, clean shirt. Now, pink liquid stained the front and dripped down his arms to the floor.

Marcela looked mortified by my niece’s behavior.

A muffled, “Oh my gosh,” left her mouth from behind her hand. “I’m so sorry,” She said rushing paper towel over to Cedric as he placed the bowl back on the counter. “Rosie, go grab a t-shirt from Uncle Marco’s drawer. Hurry!”

Rosalina jumped to her feet and raced upstairs.

“Bel!” Ma snapped. “I just told you about playing in the house.
Now
look what you’ve done,” she added with a huff, ushering my niece to the dining room where she made her sit so the rest of us could clean up her mess.

Brynn sat there staring, her hand covering her mouth just like Marcela’s… but hers hid a laugh, not embarrassment. Cedric’s eyes went to hers and, at the realization that she was getting a chuckle out of his mishap, he smiled, too, eventually giving in to Brynn’s infectious laughter.

“Oh, it’s funny?” he asked, doing what he could to dry off with the paper towel.

“
Very
funny,” Brynn countered, brushing a single, stray droplet from her arm.

“Hurry, Rosie,” Marcela called up the stairs, still red in the face as she wiped the floor while I got up the trail of punch streaked across the counter. She turned to Cedric again, apologizing. “I am so,
so
sorry.”

Cedric didn’t seem upset, which I think came as a relief to us all. However, this wasn’t quite the impression I wanted the Rios family to make on him.