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She tapped her red nail against the base of her wine glass, the shadows from the candles deepening the lines of her face. “And you’ve only known him a month?”
Inwardly, I groaned. Joy, during the few brief nights I’d stayed in our apartment rather than at Leo’s place, had said the same thing in the same careful, but doubtful tone of voice. “Yes, but I feel like we’ve known each other longer.”
“I’m sure.” Her red-rimmed eyes crinkled in the corners as she smiled.
“I know it sounds lame, but it’s true. Leo’s an amazing man and any woman would be thrilled to have him in her life. He takes such good care of me. I’m not just talking about the pretty things he likes to dress me in, he pays attention to everything I say and do. If I happen to mention there’s a Chinese place I’ve been meaning to try, we’re there the next night. When I told him about what a nerd I was in Junior High and how no one had ever asked me to a school dance, we went to Obsession that night and he had the DJ play a bunch of songs that were popular that year. You’d never know it, but that man can dance. Honestly, I feel bad because I can’t give him the same things in return.”
Judith was smiling fully at me now, the tracks of tears still running through the makeup on her cheeks, but the slope was gone from her shoulders. “Oh, I think you give him more than you know. Ramón has told me that he’s seen Leo laugh, on multiple occasions, without someone having to die first.”
I gave a little giggle, wondering what she was talking about with the “having to die first” part, but ignoring it. “He’s funny! He really is, but his sense of humor is very subtle and dry. If you don’t pay attention, you miss it. I love it when he laughs. He’s got all that lion-like hair and with his deep voice, it comes out like a rumble of thunder. You feel his laughter in your bones.”
“I’ve never heard him laugh that loud,” Judith mused, “even before his mother passed. No, I think you do much more for Leo than you could possibly imagine.”
“I don’t understand how you could think that.”
“It’s not my place to tell, but rather, knowledge that will come to you when the time is right.”
Slumping back into my chair, I crossed my arms, a chill racing over my skin. With very little personal padding, I got cold quick. Already my hands would be turning red, and eventually end up purple. It was part of the awesome perks of being super pale.
Wood creaked as Judith stood, then drank a big gulp of wine right from the bottle, her wrinkled throat working before she let out a rough breath. The veneer of civilization fell away a bit, exposing a woman who was just as dangerous and intense as her sons, adopted and otherwise. Leo had warned me she was a power unto herself, but she’d kept that charisma dimmed around me, until now.
The very air between us changed as she slammed the bottle back on the table, her expression holding some sympathy in it. “What I can tell you is, things won’t be easy when dealing with men like Leo…and women like myself. We think differently than most people. Our brains operate in a different way, not enough to label us as mentally deficient, or a danger, but enough that the way we see parts of the world, and how we react to them, are a bit off.”
Almost too scared to ask the question, I breathed out, “Is…is Leo sick?”
“No, no, nothing like that. He was just born with a savage soul, the kind that could belong to a killer. Probably would have ended up in jail if he hadn’t met up with my company at the tender age of fifteen. God bless his mother, but he was driving her crazy, and she asked me if I could find some kind of job for him on our construction site one summer in Tucson. Leo, as I’m sure you know, is a well-built man and able to take direction. He was a dream to work with and I wondered why his mother had been so hesitant about his ability to handle the job.”
A bird called off in the distance, the sounds of the awakening nightlife filling the cool air as Judith continued, “I already knew Leo’s mother, our sons had been friends for a few years by this point, and she made me promise, mother to mother, back when he was young and adorable, that I’d take care of him if anything happened to her. I just didn’t think she expected it to happen so quickly, or violently, and that Leo would think he’d failed her or could have prevented her murder if he really paid attention. It marked him, to be sure, and I wondered if he would ever find the woman who fit all his edges and curves just right, the one who would not only join him, but heal him. Leo needs the balance of a good woman in his life, all my boys do, but he’s the one who not only needs it the most, but is ready to bring the right woman into his heart permanently.”
