Page 9 of Down Bad

I actually spend a second being amazed by how differently his face looks without one of those fake-ass smiles stretched over it.

He looks so much more real. Raw.

Halfway handsome, even.

If he wasn’t such a pain in my ass. “They were just weeds.”

“They weren’t—” His eyes drop to my chest, lost for a second. Then he flinches like a bug just bit him, throwing his gaze to the grass. “They were wildflowers, Diego. Not weeds.”

I rub at a spot on my shoulder, glancing back down at them—or what remains of them.

Chewed up stems, in other words.

I don’t know what it was a minute ago, maybe being so lost in my own head with my tío’s damned breath on my neck when he isn’t even here, but the second I ran the mower over those weeds, something felt wrong. Instantly wrong.

Maybe the way they were arranged in rows.

Intentional bursts of color.

Not quite natural enough to look like an actual mess.

Almost nice to look at.

Shit.

“It’s fine,” he decides suddenly. “I’ll … I’ll just replant them. Lottie doesn’t have to know. I mean, it was only her favorite thing about the front yard. No biggie.”

“How was I supposed to know?”

His jaw clenches. “You need to be instructed not to mow over a flowerbed?”

“Didn’t I say sorry?”

“No, actually, you didn’t.”

“Why the hell didn’t they have a border?”

His eyes find my chest again. Blink away with irritation. Then snap to my eyes. “Say what?”

“A border,” I repeat. “Around them. Protective border. Like bricks. Something. They needed one. How was I supposed to know they were so precious to my aunt? You can’t leave something like that out in the open. Defenseless. Unprotected. Otherwise …” I watch him look at me again and again, then look away. Why’s he so dang twitchy? “Otherwise some asshole’s gonna mow over it.”

“Can you please put on a shirt?”

I freeze. “Huh?”

“I’m trying to be civil with you.”

I’m lost. “What does me wearing a shirt have to do with—?”

“You’re not some asshole. You’re just …” He takes a step back. “You just need to be more careful with the things entrusted to you. Like this house. And all the precious memories it holds.”

“I don’t need you telling me that.”

“Lottie and Marcos—”

“You think I don’t know this house holds memories?”

“They treated this house with love, with respect—”