RUE

“You know, you've got a pretty awesome car for someone who has been through so much already.”

I glanced at my car through the window.

“I convinced the judge to let me keep my old car because I needed transportation for Drés. I sold it when we had to leave the lake house and go to a motel. I was going to buy a washed-up Subaru with some of that money when an old family friend got me the Kia Telluride... as a gift. I used the money from my old car to get us a motel and keep us going until I found a job. And then I met your mom and she introduced me to the Bloom's and it’s been a lot better since then.”

He had me go up the ladder for the smoke detector in my son’s room. It took me a couple of tries, but I managed to pop the cover without falling off the ladder. Then I took the battery from him and replaced it. I replaced the plastic cover on the first try and grinned down at him, feeling proud of myself.
He smiled back at me.

“You should have been an electrician.”

Laughing, I started back down the ladder, taking his hand to steady myself without thought when he offered it. But when my feet were back on the carpet and his fingers were wrapped around mine, I suddenly felt self-conscious.

“Thanks,” I forced myself to say in a casual tone, pulling my hand free.

The awkwardness only felt more pronounced when he carried the ladder into my bedroom for me. At least my bed was made and I didn’t have underclothes strewn about. But being up on the ladder, arms over my head, with my bed as a backdrop, made me keenly aware of his proximity.

When I fumbled the cover and dropped it, he simply picked it up and handed me a battery. I finished the job as quickly as I could and breathed a sigh of relief when we were back downstairs in my kitchen again.

In my nervousness, I shoved at my bangs, which were hanging in my eyes again. Pretty soon, I was going to have to get the scissors and trim them herself. They might not be straight, but at least I’d be able to see.

“We have a couple of salons in town who could help you with that,” Willy suddenly said.

“I just haven’t had the time.”

That was only part of the truth.

“How long can it take for a woman to trim your bangs?” he chuckled.

“I don’t have the extra money to spend on a trip to the salon right now.”

I saw the understanding cross his face and willed myself not to be embarrassed by my confession. I’d felt enough shame in the months after Armando’s arrest and refused to now.

“When I think of the thousands of dollars I’ve spent just on my hair... look at me now, reluctant to spend forty dollars, even though the color’s growing out and it looks funny.”

“You should ask my mom to let you know when Fernanda is coming to visit,” he said. “She went to beauty school and used to cut hair until she had her first kid. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind trimming your hair in Ma’s kitchen. She’s done mine enough times.”

“Willy, I think your family’s done more than enough for me.”

“You’re very focused on what my family has done for you, but you should also think about what you’ve done for my family. My parents were together almost forty years, since high school, and my dad passing left a huge hole in my mother’s life. I can already tell Andrés helps get her through it. And your friendship, too.”

“Since meeting Rosario, I’ve learned what friendship is truly supposed to be,” I said quietly, trying not to get too emotional. “She’s like family to me already.”

“Hey, I don't mean to pry but, what about your parents or your other family?”

I bit the inside of my cheek.

“My parents were killed in a freak ski lift accident in Switzerland shortly after Armando and I got married. Both of them were the only child in their families and so am I. I've never met any of their families so I don’t have any close family.”

“Hang on, but if your parents were wealthy, don’t you have money from them?”

I felt as if I was being interrogated, but I didn’t let my annoyance show. He was the kind of guy who’d look out for his mom and probably be suspicious of a stranger insinuating herself in their lives.

Or maybe he was just nosy.

“I did. But I gave it to my husband to invest for me, and now it’s all gone too.”

“Okay, what about your husband’s family? His parents would be Andrés’ grandparents. Didn’t they offer to help?”

“The Garcias were willing to take care of Andrés and to give me money,” I said, remembering that horrible conversation.

When I’d been down, it was my in-laws who kicked me the hardest.

“But you said no?”

“To have my baby taken care of and to receive an enormous sum of money that I could have lived on extravagantly for a long, long time, I had to sign custody of Andrés over to them.”

It still turned my stomach just thinking about it.

“Wait, they wanted to buy their grandson from you?” Willy asked, and I appreciated the note of horror in his voice. “From his own mother?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I hope you told them to go... I assume you told them no.”

I hesitated and then told him the truth.

“I thought about it... hesitated for a while. It was terrifying, not knowing how to take care of myself, never mind my son. But they started talking about the Garcia legacy and how Andrés had to be raised to their standards and I remembered that these were the people who raised Armando.”

I rubbed my arm.

“Not that I hold them responsible for what Mando did, but for them to sit there and imply I was somehow less than a man who’d stolen money and left his wife and child bankrupt... God. Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake, though. When I’m trying to figure out the math to make sure I can buy food and pay the heating bill, I wonder if I made a mistake putting my pride in front of my son’s welfare.”

“You didn’t.”

They were only two words, but Willy said them so immediately and with such certainty, I felt tears well up in my eyes. Since my life had been turned upside down, I’d been in a constant state of doubt, second-guessing myself and my ability to get through each day every time I closed my eyes to sleep.

Even though I hardly knew this man, he sounded so sure I’d made the right decision. It helped soothe that anxiety.

“Does he see his dad at all?” Willy asked after a while.

I shook my head.

“Armando doesn’t want Andrés to see him in prison. Even if he doesn’t serve his entire sentence, he’ll be away so long that... I don’t know. Honestly, I’ve been focused on the two of us. If Armando decides he wants to see him, I’ll deal with it then.”

“Must be hard on the kid.”

“That’s the really sad part” I let out a sad chuckle. “Armando was away so much and so wrapped up in his work even when he wasn’t traveling, Andrés doesn’t seem to really feel his loss.”

“You’re right. That is the sad part.”

Willy looked at me, his dark gaze meeting mine.

“It’s a good thing he has a mom who loves him enough for both parents.”

Emotion welled up in me, threatening to make me break down into actual tears, and I shoved it down. Calling on a lifetime of not making a scene, I inhaled slowly through my nose and steadied myself. Then I smiled.

“I bet this is just how you wanted to spend your Saturday,” I said. “Changing my smoke detector batteries and listening to my sob story.”

“Unlike that shark tank you came from, we take care of our own here.”

“I’m one of your own?”

The inclusion almost brought me to the brink of tears again. Guillermo chuckled.

“You became one of our own the minute my mother walked into your life.”

“Ay. Rosario’s such a blessing.”

“You got to miss out on being a teenager under her roof but, yeah, Ma’s pretty great.”

He picked up the stepladder.

“Andrés seems like a great kid, Rue. Just keep doing what you’re doing, but don’t forget you have friends now. That’s all.”

After he was gone, I sank onto the couch and rested my head against the cushion. It had been a long time since I’d thought about myself and sex in the same sentence. Armando had always been busy—and now I wondered if he’d been as loose with their marriage vows as he had with my money.

And then I’d been too stressed and tired to even think about it. But I was thinking about it now. And I needed to stop before I screwed everything up making a fool of myself.

You have friends now.

And I intended to keep it that way.

***

WILLY

Over the next week, I realized there was one thing about Ruelle that really annoyed me.

I spent way too much time thinking about her.

Even though we hadn’t crossed paths other than a quick hello if I happened to be downstairs when she picked up Andrés, I couldn’t seem to put her out of my mind. I even found myself glancing across the street way too often, as if hoping for a glimpse of her.

It was ridiculous and I was getting disgusted with myself.

It wasn’t as if I’d gone without female company for the last seven years. It had taken a while, but I’d finally worked my way around to some one-night stands with women who didn’t want any more from me than I wanted from them.

Some stuck around longer than others, and I’d even had a few relationships that almost met the definition of the word. But I hadn’t been able to open up enough to keep a woman happy and eventually they moved on.

That wasn’t a bad way to do things when our only connection was some fun in the sack and I could pack up and move on to the next town whenever I wanted.

But that wouldn’t be the case with Ruelle.

Even if she was willing to have some no-strings fun, this was my hometown and she was a friend and neighbor. As crude as it was, the phrase “you don’t shit where you eat” was something I was needing to remind myself of several times a day.

Even turning the shower knob to cold when I was done scrubbing away a day of working at Elton’s shop wasn’t helping.

Looking for a distraction, I opened my old laptop and waited while it took its sweet time hooking into my mother’s Wi-Fi network.

I should probably replace it.

But I only really used it for the photos of the kids and quick notes my sister emailed me sometimes. I mean I had a phone.

After a moment’s hesitation, I punched Ruelle’s husband’s name into the search engine. There was no shortage of results outlining Armando Garcia’s crimes. The legal and financial mumbo-jumbo went over my head, but the gist of it was that a bunch of very rich people had trusted Garcia with very large sums of money and he’d engaged in some kind of illegal scam that lost it all. It was all there on the internet—indictment, divorce, and a whopping prison sentence.

Oh God.

I amended my search bar to include Ruelle’s name and hit the search button. A line of images popped up and I clicked on a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Garcia at a charity ball.

Well damn!

She was wearing a deep blue gown that, combined with the jewelry, probably cost more than my parents’ house. Her hair was swept up into some kind of fancy twist and she had that polished, perfect look only a great deal of money could buy.

There were more and I clicked through them. Different gowns, different jewelry, different hairstyles. Even in the casual photos, taken at teas or luncheons, the dresses were more high-class than anything I’d ever seen. And she always had the same polished look with a polite smile on her face.

The photos left me cold.

The Ruelle Espinosa I’d shared a meal with had been warm and, when she smiled, it lit up her face. Since even a mediocre photographer should have been able to capture that, I could only guess she hadn’t let her personality shine through until the world on the laptop screen had turned its back on her.

She had been slimmer in the pictures, too. The kind of slim that came from fancy restaurants that put a thumb-sized piece of chicken and some green leaves on a plate and called it a meal. She had some more curves now, and she not only looked sexier but happier, too.

When she’d been on the stepladder, with her arms stretched over her head to reach the smoke detectors, I had to stare at the ceiling to keep myself in check. With her jeans hugging her hips and ass, and a soft sweater draped over her breasts and lifting just enough to give me a glimpse of smooth skin over her waistband, I’d been tempted to make a move.

With a growl of frustration, I left the search results and signed into my email account. Nothing but junk, which wasn’t a surprise.

Fernanda had called me a few days ago, absolutely beside herself with joy that I was back. The littlest one was sick, so she couldn’t visit yet, but she’d see me on Thanksgiving.

My cell phone rang and I snatched it up, thankful for the reprieve from my thoughts. When I saw the number for my mother’s landline on my screen, I smiled because a glance at the clock told him this was a dinner invitation.

“Hi, Ma.”

“I have a hankering for fried chicken, but it’s too messy to make for one. Care to join me?”

Since I’d been contemplating a microwave pizza, I didn’t have to be asked twice.

“I’ll be right down to help.”

It was quiet when I walked into my mother’s kitchen, and I realized the television wasn’t on in the living room. By now Andrés had usually finished his chores and homework, which meant he could have cartoon time until his mother picked him up.

“Where’s Drés?” I asked my mom, who was rummaging through the fridge.

“Rue said she’d work Thanksgiving, so they let her take off early today. She took Andrés to the movies.”

“Cool,” I said, trying to sound disinterested, but in truth, I was a little disappointed.

Andrés was a good kid and, obviously, I didn’t mind seeing the boy’s mother.

“I hope you don’t mind having Andrés over here on Thanksgiving,” my mom said.

“Of course not.”

“I didn’t think you would. So...” she stood up, a jar of mayo in her hand, and smiled at me, “I invited Rue to dinner, too.”

She was killing me.

“There’s no sense in the two of them eating alone, but didn’t you just say she’s working on Thanksgiving?” I asked.

“Only until early afternoon, so we’ll eat a little later than usual, but not so late Fer and her family won’t be over for pie.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” I took the mayo from her and grabbed a spoon.

Since it was obvious from the big bowl of rinsed macaroni noodles that I was expected to work on the macaroni salad while she fried chicken, I got to work.

“Do you think Fernanda would mind cutting Rue’s hair while she’s here? Her bangs are long and her color’s growing out because she doesn’t have money to get it done professionally anymore. It looks long enough so Fer can cut off the last of the dyed stuff without making it too short for those ponytails Rue likes.”

My mother turned from the stove to give me a look.

“Well, aren’t you the observant one, cariño?”

Only knowing from experience she’d whack me with a towel kept me from rolling my eyes.

“I helped her change the batteries in her smoke detectors last week and she had to keep brushing her hair out of her eyes, so it came up. That’s all.”

Then I turned his back to dump mayo in the bowl of macaroni. My mother was far too sharp for my own good. Even worse than being upset I was attracted to her young friend would be her getting it in her head that we’d be a great match.

In an intimate setting like the family Thanksgiving dinner, I was going to have to stay on my toes and keep my eyes on my plate.