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He yanked back from me. “Like you don’t party out on the road. You’re a fucking hypocrite.”
Rage colored my vision and I went forward and kicked the coffee table with my boot. So hard that no doubt if I didn’t have steel-toe reinforced boots I woulda broke my damn toe. The coffee table shoved to the side at the blow, exposing the syringes.
“I told you last time if you ever pulled this shit again—” I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down and failing. “Mom wasn’t bad enough? You have to up the ante and go from booze to fucking smack? You’re a goddamned idiot.”
I went up to Luis and grabbed his shirt, dragging him so his face was an inch from mine. He finally had the good sense to look scared. “The only thing you’re getting from me is a trip to rehab. Otherwise, I’m fucking cutting you off. I’ll go drop your ass on the curb right now, I fuckin’ swear.”
“Y-you can’t do that,” Luis stuttered.
“Watch me,” I growled.
“He’ll do it!” Antony said hurriedly. “He’ll go to rehab. I told him not to start shooting up.”
Not letting go of Luis, I glared Antony’s way. “You involved in this bullshit?”
Antony had short sleeves on and he held out his arms. “I only snorted, I swear. I told him he was being a dumbass, but the girls came with the shit. I’ll help him pack.”
I looked back at Luis. “I can and I will cut you off if you don’t go. Now pack.” I threw him down on the nearest couch and he let out a pathetic whimper.
He argued and pleaded for the next half hour until I was about to physically grab his ass and throw him over my shoulder to drive him to rehab when the doorbell rang.
Jesus, what now?
I left Luis with Antony, who was trying to score points with me to save his own ass by convincing Luis to pack. The fact that the distinction between snorting the drugs and shooting them up was a comfort to me just showed how far to shit everything had gone.
I jogged down the stairs and yanked open the front door, prepared to tell whichever of my brothers’ friends to fuck off.
But to my surprise, it was Luna on the other side of the door.
“Oh! Hey.”
From the open door behind me, I heard Luis’s piercing shout, “I’m a grown man. You can’t fucking make me if I don’t wanna go!”
Embarrassed, I yanked the door shut behind me and stepped out onto the stoop with Luna. “Sorry. What’s up?”
Her eyes furrowed and she bit her lip as she looked at me, then at the house. “No, I’m the one that’s sorry. This obviously isn’t a good time. I know how little time you get with your brothers as it is.”
She started backing down the steps of my porch. “I’ll just see you on Saturday when we leave for Amsterdam.”
I stepped forward, about to stop her. She wouldn’t have come all the way down to San Jose for nothing. She lived in Walnut Creek, on the other side of the Bay closer to Berkeley.
But before I could stop her, from behind me came a crash and the noise of glass shattering.
“I’m going to kill him,” I muttered under my breath before calling out to Luna, “Saturday!” then turning around to race back up the stairs.
SEVENTEEN
MASON
“Honey!” Mom threw her arms out as soon as I opened the door to her.
I hoped she didn’t see the quick breath I sucked in before I stepped into her hug.
“Awww, I never see you!” she said, squeezing me around the waist. “And you’ve gotten so big.”
I laughed and shook my head as I pulled back from her. “Mom, you always say that. You do realize I stopped growing years ago?”
She just waved a hand. “Pshaw. You’re taller!”
I chose the better part of valor and decided not to tell her that she’d reached the age where she was starting to shrink. “It’s good to see you, Mom. Come in, what kind of coffee do you want?”
“Oooh, are you going to use that fancy coffee maker I got you for Christmas last year?”
I nodded. “Absolutely. I use it all the time when I’m home.” The fact that I was only home a few weeks out of the year… well, that wasn’t important.
I led her to the kitchen and she caught me up on all the church lady gossip. My mom was a proud Episcopalian. Always had been, always would be. Mom was in her sixties, but she was one of the youngsters in her church.
After I’d made us some macchiatos and we’d been chatting a long time, Mom said, “Mrs. Gonzalez was going on and on about how her grandson was just so accomplished on the piano, and then she showed us all a video.”
