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And her laughter.
Who’s going to call you out on your shit if she’s not there to do it?
You’ll have to stop wanting to kiss her.
Or wanting to be around her.
It sounded like half a life. Even worse than not having Piper at all would be the memory of having her. The memory of her dancing in the living room with his grandmother. Only the memory of her lips pressed into his in a hungry dance of passion to keep him warm at night. Her smooth skin moving on top of him. The wrinkle in her nose when she smiled deeply. The freckles that charted her face like constellations. The storm behind her usually soft eyes when she warred with him. Would he ever stop wondering what color she’d dye her hair next or wanting to be the one who held her when she broke down? There wasn’t a way to say yes to those questions without lying.
El amor no respeta la ley, ni obedece a rey. Love does not respect the law, nor does it obey the king.
Thirty-Six
LEO
Leo’s fists hit the boxing pads connected to Alvaro’s hands in a rapid series of jabs and crosses before he ducked under the swing of his brother’s right arm. The drill he had done thousands of times usually calmed his nerves, but it was doing nothing to stop the restlessness of his body today. Boxing and work were the two things that usually gave him tunnel vision, but ever since the hotel, he was consistently using his fighting skills to talk his brain down from its hyperfixation on Piper.
“Turn your punches, Leo!” his father shouted from the sidelines.
Leo obeyed, adjusting his hands to match his target as Alvaro transitioned him to a few uppercuts. He stayed on track for a few rounds until a flash of blond hair in his peripherals caught his attention, and his focus was thrown off. It was just for a second, but it was long enough. Alvaro’s training pad connected with the side of his head. Fumbling a bit, Leo sidestepped before regaining his composure. When he did, he fought the urge to look over his shoulder and failed. There was no surprise at all when the blond hair he had spotted was just some random lady gearing up for her own workout.
“Güey,” Alvaro dropped the training pads, “you into women twice your age now?”
Leo cringed and shook his head. The woman who had caught his attention was at least forty, and she looked nothing like Piper. He might like older women, but not that much older, even though the woman was going to town on a punching bag like it had personally offended her, which did kind of feel like a Piper thing to do. Or, rather, it felt like something Piper would do to him. Truthfully, he was about ready to throw himself at the older woman’s feet and pretend to be interested to avoid the look Alvaro was giving him. Maybe the woman would take pity on him. The last time Leo had been at someone’s feet, though, had been in that damned hotel room, and he could almost taste Piper’s essence on his tongue like a long-lasting bite of Listerine.
“Where’s your head at, mijo?” His father stepped toward them.
“I have a guess.” Alvaro grinned.
“Ya no jodas,” Leo spat. “Do you want to get in the ring? I’ll wipe the floor with you.”
“I bet you’re just dying to get in the ring with me after last night.” Alvaro pulled the training pads off his hands and stretched his fingers tauntingly.
The drill Antonio and Marcos were performing a few feet away was still ongoing as Marcos shouted over, “Just ask her out, Leo.”
“Says the guy who went to a coffee shop every day for three months instead of asking Harper out,” Antonio teased. Marcos swung at his head, but Antonio blocked it easily. “I’m just saying. I asked Saanvi out a few days after I started working at the mechanic shop.”
“She said no,” Leo pointed out. Antonio was usually a chipper guy, but getting rejected had made him a grumpy bastard for months until he got Saanvi to change her mind. Leo’s brothers paused their drill and made their way over to him.
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Antonio asked. “Saanvi only said no because she was worried about dating someone she worked with again. She used to date the guy I replaced at the shop, and he was a grade-A douchebag.”
“You’re also a grade-A douchebag,” Alvaro said.
“Says the guy wearing a muscle tank,” Antonio retorted.
Alvaro folded his arms over his chest. “They’re comfortable.”
“You look like you go to the gym just to stare at yourself in the mirror,” Leo scoffed.
“And I’m a saint compared to who my wife used to date,” Antonio said. “That guy got fired after someone caught him signing off on work he didn’t actually do.” Their father gasped beside Leo as if genuinely shocked that someone would slack off on their work. Despite Alvaro’s one failed college course and general class-clown attitude, even he had the tenacity of a workhorse; the side hustle he had been working at since high school was still going strong, and he could often be found in the shed at their parents’ house welding together tiny pieces of metal to create his next trinket. The tiny metal director’s chair Alvaro had made him for graduation was still sitting atop Leo’s desk in his apartment.
Before his father could start a lecture about due diligence in the workplace, Leo switched the subject, hoping to curb everyone’s desire to get into his love life. “I’m not worried about Piper saying no because I’m not asking her out. She hates me. I hate her. That’s the way it’s always been.”
“Ay!” Their father smacked his shoulder hard, and it took all of Leo’s faculties not to react. Sometimes he forgot just how strong his father was, and it had been a while since Mateo had gone up against any of his family members in the ring.
“Strongly dislike,” Leo self-corrected.
Alvaro called his bluff. “If you hate her so much, why’d you get so pissed when I was flirting with her?”
