Second Hand Read online

  “I like it here,” El said. “Other places, seems like I get a lot of ice cream, but then they charge you out the nose for each topping. Here it’s by the ounce, so I can get as many toppings as I want.”

  He was taking full advantage of that, too. The cup in his hand was only half full of chocolate ice cream. He’d topped it with two kinds of chocolate chips, chocolate sprinkles, brownie chunks, and hot fudge. Just looking at it made my throat ache for a glass of water.

  “How can you possibly eat that much chocolate at once?” I asked as we left the store.

  “Easy. Especially with a coffee chaser. That’s our next stop.” He leaned over to peer down into my cup. “How many kinds of ice cream you got in there?”

  “Three. Coconut Cream, Pistachio Nut, and Raspberry Cheesecake.”

  He stopped in his tracks, staring at me in apparent horror. “Tell me you’re joking.”

  “No. I put sunflower seeds on top. And Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And some of that gooey marshmallow topping.”

  “That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s good.”

  “It’s an abomination, my friend. An insult to frozen yogurt everywhere.”

  “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.” I held a spoonful out for him.

  He stood for a second, staring at me, maybe trying to decide if I was pulling his leg. Finally, he stepped closer. He touched my wrist with his fingers, as if to make sure I wasn’t going to pull away, then leaned forward and let me put the spoon in his mouth.

  For some reason I couldn’t explain, I expected him to close his eyes, but he didn’t. He kept them open, his gaze locked on my face as he took the spoonful of frozen yogurt into his mouth. It made me remember the kiss, the way he’d stood close to me afterward, his gaze full of strange messages that had made me think, for half a second, that he’d meant it to be real.

  Right now, I realized I wanted it to be real.

  El pulled back from the spoon, but he still held my wrist loosely in his hand. He worked the ice cream in his mouth, watching me carefully as he did for some reason I couldn’t fathom. He smiled a bit, and finally, he swallowed.

  “See?” I said, my voice shaking. “It’s good.”

  “Not bad at all.” His grip became almost a caress, moving down my arm to my elbow.

  I blushed, suddenly awkward. And panicked.

  “Come on,” I said, pulling my arm free. “Let’s go get your coffee chaser.”

  As he and Paul strolled back down the pedestrian mall with their coffees, El acknowledged he had a crush on Strawberry Shortcake. He’d been dancing around it, yes. Obviously that hadn’t worked, pretending he wasn’t forming a ridiculous attachment. Though he wasn’t sure being conscious about it would get him very far, either.

  Part of him was obsessed with trying to get Paul to realize he was the object of El’s attraction, either so he would blow El off or be offended and horrified, therefore letting El get this nonsense out of his system. But a lot of that desire was also simply wicked curiosity, El wondering if his hand had to be down Paul’s pants before he would figure it out. Of course, that made El wonder if he could get his hand down Paul’s pants, which was a very dangerous line of thought.

  The object of El’s affection continued to come in every day the rest of the week with oddball things to sell. Having apparently cleaned out his appliances, he moved on to back massagers and in-home gardening systems and all manner of QVC specials El was never in a lifetime going to unload.

  These purchases didn’t go unnoticed by Rosa when she came in on Friday afternoon.

  “Are you hard up or something? Why are you taking in so much junk?” She lifted the lid of the George Foreman grill and let it fall back down in distaste. “Some little old lady pull on your heartstrings?”

  El made a mental note to get rid of Paul’s things before someone dangerous wandered into the shop, like Denver or Jase. “Something like that. What’s up, sis? If you’re in here looking for a babysitter, I sold the last one ten minutes ago.”

  She gave her patented yes, you’re funny, but not very much smile. “No. I need you to come by the house tonight for dinner, though.”

  “You’re making me dinner?” El smirked. “Your latest left you already, did he?”

  If she’d had a knife in her hand, she’d no doubt have held it up against his throat. As it was, she made do with a glare that cut about as well. “Noah’s coming over after he gets off work. I already warned him he might meet my idiot brother who married a pawnshop.”

  So the boyfriend was still in the picture. Well, give him a few more minutes. “He’s getting domestic, is he? Hot man doing an evening at home with the mama and her babies? Smart play.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Noah isn’t my boyfriend. He’s this guy from work.”

  This was new. “A guy who’s coming over to your house?”

  Rosa flicked her finger hard in the center of El’s forehead, making him yelp. “He is the babysitter. Do you think you could let go of my love life for ten seconds so I could explain about Mom?”

  That made El pause. “What about Mom?”

  “When she found out I’d given Dante’s clothes to Goodwill when he outgrew them, she lost it and started inventorying the house. The kids woke up this morning freaked out because they heard something downstairs. It was Mom going through the cupboards in the garage. I pitched a fit, and she started crying.”

  El reached for his cigarettes, suddenly tired. “You invited her to dinner too, didn’t you. You want me to talk to her.”

  “Hell, yes, I want you to talk to her. She’s not turning my house into Abuela’s. I don’t give a damn what Uncle Mariano says.”

  “You think she’s going to listen to me? She’s going to cry again, and then Uncle Mariano will yell at me, and it’ll be the same damn thing as always.”

  Rosa’s jaw was rigid. “It has to stop, El. If Mariano wants to baby her, I’ll send all my trash to his house and she can sort through it in his garage. I need you there because she upsets the kids, and then I’m trying to yell at her and calm them down at the same time, and it’s shit.”

  She was right. It was nothing but shit. “All right. I’ll be there at seven.”

  “Six. I want her back home before Noah shows up. It’s too early for him to see our freaky side.” She turned to walk out, shaking her head at the row of appliances as she left. “You really fell for that grandma.”

  She wasn’t kidding.

  Dinner was spaghetti, meatballs, and baby spinach salad, the latter of which Rosa’s kids protested loudly, all but Gabi who happily painted her highchair tray with marinara using the leaves. Patti talked nonstop about pretty much everything under the sun, from who she’d seen at the bank that morning to what Abuela was having for supper, and of course, she told everyone about recent things she had found or bought.

  “I found the cutest baby blanket. Absolutely precious, handmade. It has a green border and yellow cross-stitched flowers.”

  Rosa gave El a hard look, and he had to suppress a sigh. Here we go.

  “Who’s having a baby?” he asked.

  Patti, unsurprisingly, only shrugged and dug into her spaghetti. “Somebody will have a baby, and then I’ll have a present.”

  “No, you won’t, because it’ll get buried under your pile of crap,” Rosa muttered.

  Had she been closer, El would have kicked her under the table. “Mami, we’ve talked about this.”

  She was very fixated on her plate now, swirling the noodles in a circle. “It’s a blanket. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.”

  “It’s a blanket, and a picnic set, and a croquet mallet, and a set of dishes, and that’s just the stuff you’ve told us about. I bet I could go out to your car right now and find all kinds of bags with receipts from today.”

  Her eyes filled with angry tears. “You shouldn’t treat your mother like this.”

  “And you shouldn’t treat your family like thi
s, making us deal with all your trash.” Rosa flung her napkin onto the table, ignoring her children’s worried glances at each other, except for the baby who was still spinach-painting. “Five-thirty in the morning, Mami. My neighbors saw you going through my stuff.”

  “Way to let me handle it,” El murmured.

  Patti was rigid now. “You threw out the baby’s things. What else are you going to toss into the trash? My grandbabies’ treasures! Someday”—her tears were flowing now—“someday they will thank me for saving their memories.”

  Rosa started swearing, the kids started whimpering, and the baby, with tomato sauce in her eye, started screaming. Already mentally lighting up a cigarette and drinking a whiskey, El pushed his chair back, herded the kids into their bedroom, and turned on the TV. After cleaning up Gabi, El positioned her in front of Dora the Explorer with the others and went back to the argument in the kitchen. Both women were shouting and pointing fingers and, to varying degrees, sobbing, Rosa mostly in fury, Patti largely in hurt. He broke them apart, sending Patti to sit with the kids while he helped Rosa with the dishes, teasing and distracting her until she calmed down.

  Patti was still there when Noah showed up, and El liked him on the spot. It was a shame he was the babysitter, not the boyfriend. A little young, but super-sweet and great with the kids, who came running out when they heard his voice, their faces bright and eager. The guy was good: he had a bag of popcorn, three boxes of candy, and a Disney movie in his hand.

  “Good to meet you, El,” he said when Rosa introduced him, enclosing El’s hand in his grip. He was slight, mocha-skinned, and drop-dead gorgeous. Not El’s team, though, from the longing looks he cast at Rosa.

  El wanted to bang his head on the wall as he realized Rosa had no idea those looks were coming her way.

  Noah was gracious to Patti too, giving her the line about seeing where Rosa came by her beauty, which of course El’s mom ate up with a spoon. It was all going so well, neither Rosa nor El saw the disaster coming.

  “You’ll have to come by my house next weekend. We always have a Fourth of July party, and we’d love to have you,” Patti said to Noah.

  Noah beamed, clearly touched to have been invited. “That’d be great. Usually I get together with my family, but my brother’s deployed and my parents have a wedding out of town.” He glanced at Rosa. “That okay?”

  Rosa said nothing, only stared at El like she wanted him to whip out a gun and put her out of her misery.

  “Hey, that sounds great,” El said, his mind working overtime, “but the thing is, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Mom. We should have the party here at Rosa’s house. So much more room, and more for the kids to do.”

  Now Rosa looked like she wanted to kill him. Her house had just enough room to squeeze the kids into it, and that was all.

  “Don’t be silly. We always have it at Abuela’s house,” Patti chided.

  “Yes, but your projects have gotten very large, haven’t they?” It sounded lame, but El couldn’t very well say your hoard. “With extra people, we’ll want room to move around.”

  It was as if the peace accord hadn’t happened. Patti bristled. “One more person isn’t too much trouble.”

  El’s head spun as it tried to keep up with his mouth. “Rosa wants to host it, Mami. Besides, I’m bringing someone too.”

  Rosa and Patti both turned to him, stunned into silence. El was right there with them. What the fuck had he said that for? Who the hell was he bringing to Fourth of July?

  Paul. You want to bring Paul.

  “I don’t want to get in the way,” Noah objected.

  Rosa, thank God, finally came to life. “No—no. It’s fine. I want you to come. I was going to ask you myself”—like hell—“but El’s right, I wanted to talk about hosting it before I offered. I can’t wait to have thirty people in my house and backyard. And El can’t wait to help me clean up and get ready for it.”

  Everyone laughed at that, but inside, El was groaning and imagining his very own orphanage again.

  As soon as he could escape, El chain-smoked his way down Rosa’s street, but once he made it to the Light District, his phone rang. It was Rosa.

  “What the fuck, El? I don’t want the party at my house!”

  “Hey, I was thinking on my feet. Mom had already invited Noah—”

  “Then how about I uninvited him later, or something that doesn’t upend my life, huh?”

  El winced. “I know. Sorry, Rosa. I’ll help you clean.”

  “You’ll do all the cleaning, you bastard. But first you’re going to tell me who you’re bringing to the party.”

  He stopped dead in the middle of the street, panic shafting through him. “Nobody. I was just bullshitting there, trying to sell the reason for moving the party.”

  “No, that’s the bullshit, what you just said to me. When you said you wanted to invite someone, that was the truth.”

  Goddamn Rosa and her ability to see right through him. “It’s nobody. Just this guy that’s been hanging around the shop. He’s a friend.”

  “A friend you want to fuck. Interesting. What’s his name?”

  Fuck. “Bob.”

  “You’re lying,” Rosa declared, sounding pleased with herself. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it out of you while you’re cleaning.” She hung up.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Though it hadn’t been his original intention, El headed to Lights Out instead of back to the shop. When Denver greeted him at the door, the bouncer’s expression changed from welcoming to something heavy and sober.

  “Somebody die?” he asked.

  “No, but I have the feeling I’m going to wish I had.” An idea struck him, and he seized it. “Denver, what are you doing for the Fourth?”

  “Working here, what do you think?” He gave El a funny look. “Why?”

  “Nothing. I just had this—” He grimaced and shook his head. “Forget it.”

  Denver grinned at him. “You’re looking nervous, buddy. Any chance this nothing has to do with Strawberry? Because if it means I get to watch you with him again, I’ll get Jase to find someone else to man the door that night.”

  Murmuring “Fuck you” under his breath, El nudged past his friend and a gaggle of giggling girls playing tourist, heading straight for Jase and the bar and the alcohol.

  I arrived at the office on Monday a few minutes early to unlock, as I usually did. A large cardboard box waited on the sidewalk in front of the door. My first thought was that it was odd for the mailman to have arrived already, but then I heard a scratching from inside.

  The cardboard shook, and then I heard something else: a high-pitched, desperate whine.

  “Oh no.” I got down on my knees, tore open the box, and was immediately attacked by a wriggling ball of black and white fur. “Puppy, who left you here? Are you okay?”

  The dog seemed unharmed and eager to be free. “Where’d you come from?” I asked, and the dog lapped its little tongue ineffectually in the direction of my face.

  There was a note inside the box.

  “MoJo?” I said to the dog, and her wriggling went into overdrive. She was a small dog, and shaggy. My guess was that she was a Lhasa Apso mix, not more than two years old. She had ears as expressive as Yoda’s and about the same shape. “Poor MoJo. How long have you been here? I can’t believe your owner left you! What a bad, mean owner.” I was talking like an idiot to her, but she clearly liked it. Her little tail whipped back and forth so fast it dragged the bulk of her backside along with it. “Are you hungry? Want something to eat?”

  By the time Nick arrived, MoJo was happily snarfing down a can of dog food like she hadn’t eaten in days.

  “Where’d he come from?” Nick asked.

  “She,” I corrected. I showed him the note. “Somebody left her on the step.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll never get why people do that. There’s a shelter two miles away.”

  “They probably worry they won’t get ado
pted, but think if they bring them here, you’ll take care of them.”

  “Looks like this one’s on you,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m maxed out on dogs. I have three, which is already one more than my lease allows, and they’re all big. They’d think that little thing was nothing but an interactive squeaky toy.”

  “I can’t have dogs at my house,” I said.

  “Too bad.” Nick shrugged. “Well, she can hang out here today. I’ll drop her at the shelter on my way home.”

  The shelter. Yes. That was logical. That was the right thing to do. A good dog like her would be adopted in no time.

  Probably.

  And if not . . .

  Well, maybe it was a no-kill shelter? Maybe I should call and ask?

  MoJo finished her breakfast and spent half the morning attacking my shoelaces, and most of the afternoon napping at my feet, and meanwhile I spent every free moment picturing her locked in a cage. Not being adopted. Being put to sleep. All because her owner hadn’t understood the obligation involved in owning a dog.

  All because I couldn’t have pets.

  By the time we closed for the day, I knew there was no way in hell I was letting Nick take her to the shelter. The problem was, I really couldn’t take her home. There was no way in hell I could afford to pay the $5,000 damage clause listed in my lease if caught with a pet. Granted, I might be able to get through the first night without the landlord knowing, but what would I do with MoJo the next day? Or the day after that? I couldn’t risk leaving her alone in the house. Nick was a nice guy, but I couldn’t ask to bring her to work every day.

  Who did I know that could take her? Not Stacey. Not Nick. Not Brooke, who had been sullen all day at work again, sneering at poor MoJo. I didn’t have any other friends. The only other person I knew was Emanuel. And I barely even knew him.

  Still, barely was better than not at all.

  It was absurd, but it was the best idea I had. I took one of Nick’s extra leashes and led MoJo down the street to the pawnshop. El was in his usual spot, feet on the counter while he read a newspaper. No cigarette, but it was probably only a matter of time. He looked up when I came in, and I thought maybe he even looked happy to see me.