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With the men’s photo shoot over, they began to disperse, and Brandon started toward them. Regina was about to respond to Grace when Pat tugged at her arm. “We’ll have to talk later, Gina.”
“Yes,” Valerie said, glancing at Sofia then Gina and finally giving Bell a strange cautionary look. “He was always a little different. I’ll call you tonight, Isabel.” Regina didn’t even have time to make sense of what that might mean when Sofia pulled her aside. She glanced guardedly over Regina’s shoulder. “You still have my number?” she asked quickly. Regina nodded. “Call me, please, if you need to talk about anything. I mean it, okay?”
Before Regina could even respond, she walked away in a rush. Not a second later, Brandon was at her side. He stared at her for a moment, his eyes as cold as they ever got. “Something wrong?”
“No.” She nodded, still confused about Sofia’s bizarre behavior.
What would Regina possibly want to discuss with Sofia? Brandon? Hell no! The last thing Regina wanted was to hear Sofia’s explanation of why Brandon wasn’t good enough for her or, worse, details about that moment they shared long ago.
“Are you sure?”
Regina must’ve looked as befuddled or maybe even as annoyed as she felt because Brandon was staring at her as if expecting a better explanation for her sudden change in mood.
“I’m sure,” she said then turned to the girls.
Sarah and Valerie had already walked away, tending to their little ones, and Pat had been called away by her mom. Regina smiled at Bell and Grace, hugging them both good-bye again. Bell told Brandon once again how nice it’d been to meet him, and they finally made their way out of there.
As expected, the mood was a bit tense in his Jeep. Regina hadn’t decided if she’d wait for Brandon to admit that Sofia Moreno was his Sofie from his past or if she’d bring it up on her own.
To her surprise, Brandon got right to it. “Did it bother you?”
She almost blurted out yes! She absolutely hated that the beautiful sexy Sofia with the curves to die for and those annoyingly adorable dimples was the girl from his past. But she took a deep breath and thought it better if she asked him to clarify exactly what he was asking. Did it bother her that it was Sofia or his reaction to seeing her? She still wasn’t sure which was worse.
“Did what bother me?”
“That your ex pretended not to know you.”
Disappointed but glad she asked for clarification, she shook her head. “Not at all.” She was surprised that after everything else that had come to light today he’d think she might be concerned about that. That was the least of her worries. “I had a feeling he might. My cousin Claudia can not only be annoying she can be a real bitch. If he’s been with her long enough that they’ve gone into business together, I’m sure he’s seen that side of her already. He probably figured she wouldn’t be thrilled that he dated her cousin, even if it was a long time ago.”
“Does he still look the same?” Brandon asked, lifting an eyebrow but stared straight ahead.
If this day had gone any other way, Regina might be tempted to smirk at that. But she was fairly certain that Brandon knew just how insignificant seeing Ricardo today was. It had nothing on the strangling feeling of knowing they’d be getting to the topic of Sofia and he might admit to feeling more for her than he’d actually first admitted.
“He does actually,” she said as indifferently as she could, glancing out her window. “His hair’s a little shorter now, but aside from that, he’s still the same as I remember.”
“So what happens if she marries him and he’s around for years? You ever gonna come clean?”
Regina shook her head, feeling a little annoyed that he was focusing on this when there was something so much more pressing she wanted to get to. “I see her once or twice a year if that. We’ve never been close enough that I’d feel compelled to tell her. Besides,” she said, turning back to him, “he’s a very inconsequential part of my past, someone I hadn’t even thought of until the other day when Pat called. We went out one summer, and when it was over, it was over. He wasn’t anybody that made a real difference in my life.”
She stared at him, waiting for a reaction to that. He had to know what she was trying to imply. After today, there was no doubt in her mind. The entire summer she’d spent with Ricardo had nothing on that one moment he and Sofia had shared so long ago.
“Good to know.”
That was his only response, and they were quiet for a while. Was he really not going to address the Morenos and their sister? It wasn’t as if it were something she was looking forward to discussing, but it would kill her wondering why—if Sofia still meant something to him.
She waited for what felt like a very torturous, long, few minutes for him to say something more about today. Anything. She could get creative and somehow bring it back to subject of his unexpected reunion with these people, but he said nothing.
Deciding she wouldn’t bring Sofia up specifically, she didn’t want to beat around the bush for too long, so she sat up straight and went with something close. “So that was interesting, huh? Bet you weren’t expecting to see all your old friends from back when.”
“They’re not old friends, Regina,” he said, staring straight ahead as he drove. “I told you about my neighborhood when I was growing up. I didn’t have friends. And you heard what your brother-in-law said. We didn’t exactly get along.”
