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Oh God, not more drama.My mind already felt like a stack of bowls leaning against a cupboard door, ready to fall apart with a crash if shifted too much. But my son and Anna and her baby were all in there. I had just survived the scariest day of my life. No way two macho assholes having a fit were going to measure up to being caught in that gunfight.
I set my jaw and rapped on the door. “Anna? Hey, Anna, it’s me Olivia!”
“Come around the back!” I heard her call and sighed with relief. If we could dodge whatever testosterone war was going on inside the house by hanging out in the backyard, I was all for it.
When I got through their incredibly narrow side yard and out into the little lawn out back, I heaved a sigh of relief. The baby had stopped crying, Anna looked frazzled and irritated but also resolute. She gave me a one-armed hug as I walked over.
Michael was playing with the dog, who had been chained up at the far end of the yard under a tall pine tree. He waved and smiled distractedly when he saw me.
I hugged Anna back. Inside, the yelling and bitching kept on.
I could understand a lot more of their conversation now through the glass patio door. I pretended I didn’t, but listened in as I talked to Anna.
“Hey. What’s going on?”
She rolled her eyes. “My brother. One of his work buddies rolled his car and they are fighting over what to do about it. His buddy thinks it’s Luis’s job to pay out what insurance won’t cover. Luis told me to leave them alone to deal with it. I’ve been trying.” But her expression was troubled and resentful, and I could understand why.
Inside, I made out Luis’s voice, contorted with anger, his Spanish so rapid that every word came out like machine gun fire. “I didn’t make a call on any of that! What the hell did Miguel think he was doing, bringing you guys there and going after him? Now we’re down—”
The other man cut him off, his voice now raised in shock as much as anger. “What the fuck do you mean, you didn’t want us going down there to hit the guy? Miguel said—”
“Miguel lied, Paco. He came up with the idea all on his own. And now two more of my guys are—”
His next few words were cut off abruptly, and they shifted to harsh whispers. I was pretty fluent in Spanish, but it was hard keeping up with what they were saying, though I got the gist of it—it sounded like one of Luis’s friends had gotten involved in a fistfight. What was it with men? I’d been shot at today by some mobsters, and now Luis and his friend were arguing like hot-headed teenagers about some fight. I met Anna’s eyes, she shook her head before pasting on a too-bright grin and continuing. “Anyway, I brought us out some lemon popsicles. They’re homemade.”
“Awesome.” I went over to the table under the same tree the dog was chained to and gave Michael a hug before sitting down. Anna didn’t usually chain Pookie as she was such a sweet dog, and I wondered why she had. I gave her head a scratch before sitting down. The white, cast iron chairs bit into my thighs uncomfortably, but I didn’t care. I was just glad to be sitting with my little boy and my friend after the nightmare I had just been through.
But I couldn’t help but strain my ears for snatches of the men’s argument.
I didn’t see Luis much nowadays as he spent most of his time working at his regular job, or working on cars with his friends at their garage. I still saw him occasionally at family events, where I had been Anna’s perpetual plus-one since we were ten. But it suddenly struck me that I knew very little about Luis’s life these days, and the man he had become. He looked tired, I remembered Anna’s dad used to be the same. Her mom was worried he’d work himself into an early grave—which was what had happened. I could see why Anna was so concerned about her brother now.
“So how was the auction?” Anna sat down across from me with the bowl of popsicles and passed me one, before turning to hand one over to Michael.
Michael pouted. “Pookie wants one too.”
“Oh, honey, she doesn’t like lemon. She has her nice cool water.” Anna smiled at him, but he sulked a little.
I jumped in on my cue. “We don’t want to give her an upset tummy, Michael.”
That clicked with him. He pulled the pop out of its mold and stuck it in his mouth, nodding.
“How come your dog’s tied up?” I asked, pretending to have forgotten her last question as I fished around frantically in my head for an answer that wouldn’t lead to even more questions.
“It’s Paco. Him and Miguel and a couple other guys in Luis’s crowd, she just really doesn’t like them. We have to tie her out here because she’ll bite him if he gets too close to me. Some dogs are funny around men.”
“But not Luis, right?”
“Oh, no, she loves him to death. Most people, actually. It’s mainly just Paco and Miguel.” She frowned thoughtfully, then popped her own popsicle back into her mouth.
I tried mine. The sweet-tart taste reminded me immediately of lemonade and champagne with Viktor, and that reminded me again of how we hadn’t slept together. It was like an itch under my skin, one only he could scratch properly. I tried my best to push the feeling aside.Later. Once my head is clearer.
“You know,” I said hesitantly, “they say dogs know when someone isn’t a good person.”
She shot me a look that told me she had considered this before, and then turned toward Pookie, who was playing gently with Michael. And yet the dog had also positioned herself between the table and the house as soon as we had sat down.
“Luis wouldn’t let anyone near us who would hurt us,” she insisted, but I wasn’t so sure. And as I looked down at the dog and my son, I saw Michael looking up at me with those pale green eyes that, like his father’s, missed nothing.
More shouting inside the house, the volume going up until I could hear it clearly again. Luis’s voice was raised in anger, “Paco, if I have to tell your dumb ass again that none of this happened on my orders—”
