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Chapter Five
Malcolm
I’ve barely made it out of bed and struggled into basketball shorts when there’s a pounding at the door the next morning.
My heart lurches, wondering if it’s Nala. Hoping. “Hang on,” I shout, grabbing a shirt.
Before I lean on my crutches and head down the hall, I glance at the picture hanging opposite of my bed, the one taken and manipulated by Brooklyn. It stands alone, dead center, the reclaimed wooden frame a warm addition to the twilight gray walls. To its left is all windows, bringing the outside foliage and sand and surf inside. I don’t know which vision is more beautiful, the real ocean, or Nala, immortalized in the photo that Brooks took, wooden surfboard over her head, hair blowing behind her while she looks out over her ocean.
Yesterday, when she tried to come back and grab my medicine, all I could think of was that photo—and how one look at it would reveal everything I feel for her. As much as I want her—fuck, as much as Ineedher—I can’t deal with that until I feel more like a man. It was an asshole thing to say, to tell her she wasn’t my keeper, because I know she was trying to be nice, to bury the hatchet enough to help me. But…I don’t want her to be here to take care of me. I want her to be here to be with me, to love me, hold me, fucking touch me in a way she’s only ever done in my dreams.
Another knock and shout break me free of my reverie. “Malcom,listo? It’s freezing out here. I brought coffee.”
Isa’s voice carries through my house, and despite my disappointment that it’s not Nala, I close the door and work my way down the small hall, through the living room and kitchen combo, to the front door.
Standing on the other side is Isabel Rojas, soon-to-be Jackson, and if there was a contest for straight good looks, even wearing Carhartts and a hoodie, she would win. Yards of dark silky hair are piled haphazardly on the top of her head; her midnight eyes, lined by even darker lashes, stare in amusement and curiosity out of a caramel face that’s a mix between beautiful and edgy with high cheekbones, a tipped nose, and a pointed chin.
“You know,amigo,if I weren’t engaged to your best friend, I might just find all of this ink and dark-black hair enticing.” Then she winks. “Of course, your bitchy personality would be a turn off, but we might have one good night before I punched you in the face.”
I work to adjust my dark mood to her lighthearted one. “But baby, what a night it would be.” I lean down and kiss her cheek. “That’s from your man.”
Her smile is infectious, and I laugh genuinely this time, turning my back on her and leaving the door open in invitation before moving the few feet to the couch. I put my crutches down and sink into the cushions, laying my head back for a second. The throbbing in my leg has found a partner in my head, and another in my stomach. If Isa weren’t here, I would put my head between my knees to ease the nausea, but since she is, I settle for closing my eyes and praying it will go away.
“You don’t look good,amigo.”
“Feel pretty bad at the moment, actually.” I say it in a light voice, but it takes everything I have. My skin is getting clammy, and the pain is beginning to block out everything else.
“Here.” There’s a tap on my shoulder and I open my eyes to see four ibuprofen staring at me from her palm, and a glass of water. “Viejo said you won’t take the painkillers the doctor gave you. Figured you haven’t taken anything today.”
Or since I got on a plane home.
I shake my head, staring down at the pills. Logically, I know it’s over the counter and non-addictive, but after knowing what my dad did, self-medicating for years, addicting his sick body to pain pills and other shit that messed with his head, it takes a lot for me to swallow anything.
“Mal, take them.” I look up into Isa’s face, and though it’s serious, I see the compassion too. “I’ve got coffee, and pastries, and oatmeal, all made at the sainted hand of Carmen Rojas bright and early this morning; so the faster you take these, the quicker you can fill that belly and start to feel better.”
“I hate oatmeal,” I mumble, but I take the pills and down them in one swallow with the water.
“Me too, but trust me when I say this isn’t regular oatmeal. Nothing my mamá makes is regular. Cream or sugar?” She’s in the kitchen now, looking at me over the large bar top that separates it from the living space. I shake my headnoand she nods in approval before she pours steaming coffee from a thermos into a mug and brings it to me.
The smell is enticing, even if my belly’s roiling, and I take a sip, embracing the scalding of my tongue. “Jesus, that’s amazing.” I take another, unconcerned that I’m blistering the roof of my mouth.
“Columbian,” she says, winking at me before heading back into the kitchen.
“Isa, not that I don’t appreciate it, but you don’t need to do this. Cook for me, bring me coffee. Check up on me.”
“Oh, Mal, don’t go telling me what I do and don’t need.Familia,” she says before I can open my mouth. Two bowls in her hand, she walks into the living room and sits down in the chair opposite the couch, depositing one of the bowls in my hand first. And then she looks me in the eyes, and slays me.
“Hunter is mine, and you’re his family, which means you and me, big guy? We’re family. And that means I bring you food made by my mother, and warn you that I can keep her and Hunter’s mamá away for another forty-eight hours tops, and then there is no stopping them, or the rest of my family, from descending on you.”
I don’t have words…and because my throat is tight, I don’t try to find any. Instead, I shovel a bite of oatmeal into my mouth and nod at her. It’s been a long time since I had a family. I’ve always had Hunter, and Brooks since we were freshman in high school, but the last few years I’ve been gone more than I’ve been home—my choice—and when I have been home, it’s been brief, to help either of them through a crisis before I leave again.
Now, looking at Isabel with her booted feet kicked up on my coffee table, her eyebrows raised while she shovels in her own oatmeal at an impressive rate, I’m overcome with the thought that my friends, my brothers, are expanding their family, and despite my lack of presence over the years, they’re including me in the fold.
“Nala stopping by today?”
I flick my eyes to Isa, and see that she’s stopped eating long enough to raise her brows at me. “Don’t know,” I say. Thinking of the way she left yesterday, the nausea comes back. “Thought maybe it was her at the door.”
“I bet you did.” I don’t take the bait she lays out. “She’s at group this morning, and then I think she teaches a swimming class at the Y later.”
