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Leo blew out an aggravated breath through his nose, and Piper couldn’t help but wonder what conversations Leo had had about her when she wasn’t present. Maybe she was a household name in his home. A warm hand pressed into the small of her back to guide her to the front door, and it felt so intimate that it made her consider telling everyone she was sick and running home. The hand placement was exactly where it had been in the hotel room when Leo wanted to push into her deeper. She stuttered a step at the thought, and he seemed to think better of touching her, the warmth of his palm leaving a second later as they walked the rest of the way to the front door.
Tall shrubbery had blocked most of Piper’s view of the house when they’d shown up, but she could see it all now. The light blue siding and white door had new paint, but it did nothing to hide the weathered, lived-in look of the house. She loved it. As an interior designer, houses and rooms looked better when they evoked good feelings and memories instead of making you feel like you had to take your shoes off for fear of dirtying anything up. Her mom used to say a house was not a home unless you could see yourself living in it. Things could both be orderly and hold meaning. While the color combinations were outdated, and the unstained oak light fixture above the door looked to be from the seventies, everything about Leo’s home screamed family, or “familia,” as the tattered doormat at her feet read.
Leo turned the knob and threw his shoulder into the door to pop it open. Piper held back a smile at the knowledge that he seemed to have a sticky front door, too. “We’re here!” he yelled.
“En la cocina!” a woman’s voice called back.
No one was in the living room, but Piper barely got a glance at the brown sofa and carpeting and the oak end tables before Leo pushed her into the kitchen. Beside Leo’s sister, Mariana, who Piper knew from her soccer days, was Lucia, Leo’s mom, hovering over a giant metal bowl filled with water and corn husks that sat on the tan laminate countertop. An older woman with a sunflower-patterned headscarf sat in a wheelchair at the rectangular dining table with an even bigger bowl of white batter that looked to have the consistency of smooth peanut butter.
“Everyone, this is Piper,” Leo announced with a wave of his hand in her direction. “Piper, this is my m—”
“Piper! So good to see you again.” Lucia beamed and wiped her hands off on a nearby towel before throwing her arms out to hug Piper. Piper leaned into it with a smile. While Mateo was mostly quiet behind the butcher counter at Lydia’s, Lucia was always outgoing and never hesitated to hug her when Piper ventured into the grocery store. Talia had told Piper several stories about the bull-headed way Lucia had challenged a few of the store’s vendors that had failed to deliver shipments on time or in good condition. She was a powerhouse of a woman and fully deserving of the managerial position.
“I don’t know if you remember me.” Mariana raised her hand shyly and stepped toward Piper as she pulled out of the embrace with Lucia.
“Of course I remember you,” Piper said. “You were a machine on the soccer field. Do you still play?” Mariana was a few years younger than Piper and Leo but had made the varsity team at Archwood High her freshman year. She and Scarlett Wallace were the forward duo of everyone’s dreams. Piper, on the other hand, was a defender and often benched for not being aggressive enough. Being a klutz didn’t help, either. Mariana was quiet but could easily throw a shoulder to toss an opposing player to the ground and come out with the ball in her possession.
“Yeah, I got a scholarship to play at Oregon State.” Mariana beamed.
“That’s awesome, but I’m not surprised. You deserve it,” Piper said.
Leo had the same dark eyes and thick eyelashes as Mariana. Her hair was wavy, a few escaped strands coiling around her face and the rest pulled back into a French braid just like Lucia beside her, but Lucia’s hair had strands and sections that were washed out and shining silver against the yellow kitchen lighting. While Mariana’s features had the same intensity as Leo’s, hers were feminine in their sharpness. She could have been Leo’s twin with how beautiful she was. If Piper recalled correctly, Alvaro, one of Leo’s older brothers who had been a year ahead of her in school, was more of the same. It was the strangest thing to know how all those curls must feel, soft and thick, just like Leo’s had felt when she had tangled her fingers in them.
“And this is my abuelita, Isabel.” Leo made the introduction as if Isabel were the most highly esteemed person in the family, and when she wheeled out from under the table, Piper knew why. The confidence in her mannerisms was the same as Leo’s.
“Ah, so you are the woman my grandson is secretly pining after?” Isabel asked.
Piper’s mouth dropped open as she twisted her head to Leo, who practically leaped forward to set a hand on Isabel’s shoulder. “No, Abuelita, this is Piper. The one I don’t like. At all. In any way, shape, or form.”
“Wow,” Piper scoffed. “I’m so flattered. Would you like to insult anything else while you’re at it?” Leo legitimately looked her up and down like he might do just that.
“Mmm,” Isabel snorted and gave Leo a wry smile. “Eres igual de terco que tu abuelo. El amor no respeta la ley, ni obedece a rey.” Piper looked to Leo to translate, catching none of Isabel’s quick-off-the-tongue remark, but Leo just clenched his jaw and folded his arms over his chest, glaring at his grandmother. Isabel ignored him and made eye contact with Piper again, raising her thin hand to gesture to a large bowl on the table. “Would you like to learn how to make tamales?”
For the next hour, Piper sat at the table watching Isabel carefully craft tamales out of the masa mixture. Isabel’s veiny hands shook a bit as she formed the right shape in the damp corn husks and spooned in the seasoned pork, but she swatted away Leo’s hands any time he tried to help her. Piper had no qualms about this woman’s capabilities—cancer clearly had nothing on Isabel’s strong will. Out of everyone Piper had met that day, it was blatantly obvious where Leo got his attitude from, in addition to his confidence. Everything Isabel said was either blunt or teasing. She had a laugh that defied her sickly appearance, and the longer Piper sat at the table, the less Isabel looked frail and breakable. Isabel wasn’t fighting for her life; she was bursting with it.
Thirty-Three
LEO
By the time the tamales were done and all of his brothers and their wives had shown up for dinner, it was pitch-black outside, and Leo’s stomach was eating itself. The smell that wafted from the steamer made him groan with impatience. Piper, for what it was worth, hadn’t complained once about just how long it took his family to sit their asses down at the dinner table. Between his desire for food and his brothers’ constant underhanded remarks about the nature of his and Piper’s relationship, Leo was about ready to bite someone’s head off. He had gotten so used to eating something unheated out of a can for ninety-nine cents, it was pathetic how much his stomach was clawing at him to eat something real.
“So, Piper, what are you in school for?” Alvaro asked when they all finally made it to the table. His tone was a bit on the flirty side, and Leo didn’t care for it.
“Interior design,” Leo answered for her and shot Alvaro an indignant look that screamed keep it in your pants, asshole. Alvaro just grinned and shoved half a tamal in his mouth.
“I’m double majoring in business, too,” Piper added from Leo’s right. Sitting next to her was a terrible decision he had made out of some misguided attempt to keep her away from his intrusive brothers. His fingers itched to touch her. She was wearing a purple cable-knit dress that matched her lavender-tipped hair and white knee-high socks with brown riding boots. He wanted to see her wearing only the socks, like something straight out of a schoolgirl fantasy.
“Ah, so you’re smart and beautiful,” Alvaro cooed.
“Maybe she could tutor you so you don’t fail another course, Varo,” their mother chimed in. Leo bit back a smirk at Lucia’s comment, which immediately killed Alvaro’s game.
“Piper’s mom actually did the design for the whole coffee shop,” Harper said.
“We’ll have to have you over to the house soon to look at our third bedroom,” Saanvi said to Piper, then turned to Leo’s brother. “Right, Antonio?"
Antonio had just taken a large bite of tamal and choked it back quickly to answer. “Right.” He nodded, then looked fondly at his wife. “We have a bit of an idea, but it’d be cool to have a professional take a look.”
“Really?” Piper wasn’t hiding her excitement well, leaning over the table with eager eyes. “I-I mean, yeah. That’d be cool. I’m working on building up my portfolio right now, so I’d be happy to do it for free.” Leo frowned but kept his mouth shut. Piper was always undercutting herself and devaluing her work, and it was starting to grate on his nerves. “You don’t even have to take my advice if you don’t like it. It’s not a big deal.”
