This was all wrong. All wrong. How had things derailed so badly. And instead of fixing it I just made it worse.
“We have things covered here. Thanks for coming to help. I’ll call you later, okay?” I tried to squeeze his shoulder and he flinched, so I turned around and walked off before I said or did something I’d regret.
Jude left without even saying goodbye, which I probably deserved. It seemed like every time I felt closer to being able to confess to Jude how I felt, something happened to send me back to square one. But I couldn’t dwell on any of this right now though. I had work to do.
I could fall apart later.
chapter twenty-one
nesto
That night we walked into my mom’s house in a heavy silence. Between the stress of the morning and Jude’s strange mood, I’d been a monster after he took off. The fact that my mom, Milo, Juanpa, and Patrice had even stuck around my ass was evidence of how much they loved me, which only made me feel worse. Still we’d managed to get everything cleaned and sorted out in record time. Thankfully Ari and Yin had agreed to get the food service ready tomorrow, so for once I had the morning off on a day we were serving lunch.
I was a mess. I was worried about my business but also had the feeling I’d missed something with Jude. That I’d fucked up with him even beyond my assholic behavior at the festival. I couldn’t stop myself from running through everything I’d said and done in the last twenty-four hours. I went back and forth between regretting not just asking what was wrong one moment and being annoyed at myself by letting all this distract me.
I had never felt this unsure of myself.
I tried to put things in perspective as I paced around my mom’s living room. Yes I’d blown it in a sense, but our sales had been amazing this weekend. Despite the setbacks, the festival had been good for business. I should be glad how well the weekend had gone with OuNYe, instead I was moping around.I had no fucking idea what to do either, not with Jude and not with the truck.
“Ernesto, fix your face, nobody in this house did anything to you. Why are you looking at my couch like you want to rip it apart?”
My mother. Of course. No one could look pissed in her house without an immediate attitude adjustment.
Milo, Juanpa, and Patrice had come by to hang out a bit before heading to their hotel since they were driving back to the city at the crack of dawn. But right now I was in such a foul mood, I knew for a fact I would pick a fight with anyone who tried to talk to me.
I ignored my mother and went to her bar to pour myself some of the rum she kept there for special occasions. I pounded the first drink, feeling the burn sear my throat, and was about to go for another one, when she got up and ripped the bottle out of my hands before I could even tip it onto the glass.
“¡Diablo, Mamí! ¿Que fue?”
¡No señor!” She yelled at me while she twisted the cork back in the bottle. “You’re not going to guzzle down my good Barceló because you’re frustrated. Nesto, you need to calm down, m’ijo. This isn’t like you. Is having someone to be mad at because you hit a stumbling block with your truck really worth losing a man who’s crazy about you and you’re crazy about, son?”
She sounded worried, and I tried to get it together before I scared her. I slumped at her words and sighed. “No.”
“You had a successful weekend at the festival. You did a lot of business and even if things didn’t work out with the investor, you got some great exposure.” She stepped closer and put her hand on my cheek.
“I messed everything up.”
“No, you didn’t. These are good things, baby. You will get past this, your business is good and people will see that. Whatyouwillregret is pushing away someone who cares about you because of stubbornness. Ernesto, you were unkind to Jude today, and he didn’t deserve it.”
I sagged, looking longingly at the bottle in her hand. “I know. Iknow,Mamí. I was just so angry at myself for missing Sheridan. I just fixated on how I got caught up in Jude this morning and made myself late.” I ran my hands over my face, rubbing hard. I felt so foolish and ashamed of how I’d acted. I regretted not being more open with Jude and telling him how I felt. I hadn’t given him a single reason to believe in what we had.
“Things were so good this morning, too. We had a really good night together, and now it’s all fucked up.” Realizing what I was implying, I held up my hands. “Sorry!”
She rolled her eyes and I looked over at the guys, who were doing their damnedest not to lose their shit.
“Por favor.” She flipped her hands up. “Do you think I assume you go to the houses of the men you’re seeing to play dominos? Deja eso, Nesto.”
She shook her head like she couldn’t believe she’d birthed something so pitiful. “Ven.” She grabbed my hand and tugged me over to the love seat. “Let’s sit down. Talk to me, baby, I’m here, your best friends?—
“She gestured toward Milo, J, and Patrice. “Your brothers are here; we can figure this out.”
I sighed and put my head in my hands. “There’s nothing to figure out with Sheridan. That chance is gone. I don’t know what that means for my future here, but I just need to get over it. With Jude—” I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what to do. I feel like I should just leave it alone. That it’s just going to distract me from what I came to do here, but the thought of not seeing him again, it fucking kills me, and thinking back at how I treated him today…”
I shook my head remembering how I didn’t even let him explain why he’d been late. “I keep thinking something must’ve happened to him and I didn’t pick up on it, because I was too busy feeling sorry for myself.”
The look on my mother’s face told me she felt the same way.
“Hewassuper different today, are you sure it wasn’t because of the thing with the investor guy?” Camilo piped in.
