Chapter 4 Girl Time
Lola’s POV
Natalie decided she was getting out of the house before I had finished my first cup of coffee. She came into the kitchen wearing black leggings and one of Max’s oversized T-shirts, rubbing the side of her stomach as she headed straight for the refrigerator. At eight months pregnant, even standing still looked uncomfortable.
“I can’t stay in this house all day.”
I looked at her over the rim of my mug. “Nobody said you had to.”
“I mean it. I need out.”
“You were out yesterday.”
“I went to the doctor. That does not count.”
She opened the refrigerator, stared inside for a few seconds, then closed it again without taking anything. I watched her turn around. “What exactly were you looking for?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s helpful.”
“I want to go shopping.”
“Of course you do.”
She gave me a look as she eased herself onto the stool across from me. “Don’t sound so excited.”
“I’m thrilled. I can barely contain myself.”
“You’re coming.”
“I figured.”
There wasn’t much worth shopping for in Nowhere unless she suddenly needed motor oil, groceries, or another Son’s of Doom T-shirt, which meant we would have to drive to the next town. Natalie reached across the counter and stole half a piece of bacon off my plate, so I slapped her fingers away.
“You have food.”
“I ate it.”
“You ate yours, so now mine is communal property?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
“I’m eight months pregnant. I’m using it until this baby comes out.”
“Fair.”
She smiled and finished my bacon anyway.
I took another drink of coffee and glanced toward the window before I could stop myself. Emilio’s bike had been gone when I woke up. I knew because I had looked, and I knew I was an idiot for looking. After last night, I had expected something from him. A text. A stupid comment. Maybe him showing up at breakfast and acting like he hadn’t stood in the hallway at the Devil’s Den and told me that maybe me not being his was the fucking problem.
Instead, nothing.
Probably for the best.
Natalie slid off the stool and grabbed her purse. “Come on.”
“Right now?”
“Yes.”
“You haven’t even brushed your hair.”
She touched the messy knot on top of her head. “This is intentional.”
“It looks like you lost a fight with a ceiling fan.”
“You’re mean when you’re grieving.”
“I was mean before.”
“True.”
She headed for the front door, and I followed with my coffee.
Marge’s truck was parked beside Max’s, and Natalie went straight for the driver’s side. I stopped behind her. “No.”
She looked over her shoulder. “No what?”
“You’re not driving.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Since when do you care?”
“Since I watched you try to get behind that steering wheel last week.”
“I can drive.”
“You can barely reach it without your stomach getting there first.”
“Lola.”
I held out my hand. “Keys.”
She stared at me for a second before laughing. “You don’t drive.”
I frowned. “Who told you that?”
“I’ve never seen you drive.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“You always ride with somebody.”
“Because why would I drive when half the club is already going wherever I’m going?”
Natalie looked at me like I had just announced I knew how to fly a plane. “You have a license?”
I set my coffee on the hood, dug through my purse, and held it up. Her mouth actually fell open.
“You have a fucking driver’s license?”
“Apparently.”
She snatched it out of my hand and stared at the picture. “Lola, I have known you for how long?”
“Long enough to stop looking at me like I committed fraud.”
“You can drive?”
“Yes.”
“Why have I never seen you drive?”
“I just told you.”
“That’s insane.”
“It’s a license, Natalie, not a secret identity.”
She turned it over like the back might explain something. “I seriously thought you didn’t know how.”
“I grew up in El Paso, not on an island.”
“That does not answer anything.”
I took the license back and tucked it into my wallet. “Keys.”
“You’re seriously driving Marge’s truck?”
“Yes.”
“Does Marge know?”
“Marge throws her keys at people like candy. She’ll survive.”
Natalie hugged her purse closer. “I can drive.”
“So can I, and unlike you, I can actually see my feet.”
“You don’t need to see your feet to drive.”
“You say that now.”
She finally dug the keys out and tossed them to me. “I swear to God, if you wreck Marge’s truck—”
“I’ll tell her you did it.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
She muttered something under her breath as she went around to the passenger side, and she was still staring at me when I pulled out of the driveway.
“Stop.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re watching me drive.”
“I’m processing.”
“Process quietly.”
“I really thought you didn’t know how.”
I glanced at her. “You thought I moved from El Paso to New Mexico at twenty and somehow avoided learning how to operate a vehicle?”
“Yes.”
“That says more about you than me.”
She laughed and finally settled back against the seat.
Ten minutes later, she wanted coffee.
“You had coffee at the house.”
“I want iced coffee.”
“You drank iced coffee yesterday.”
“And?”
“I’m just keeping track.”
“Nobody asked you to.”
“You’re welcome.”
We stopped anyway. Natalie ordered something that took so long to explain I watched the girl at the drive-through window lose interest halfway through. I ordered an iced dulce de leche latte with extra cinnamon, and the second she handed it to me, I thought about Emilio.
I took a drink before pulling away.
Natalie glanced over. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You looked mad at your coffee.”
“I’m not mad at coffee.”
“You were definitely mad at something.”
I kept my eyes on the road. “Maybe I’m mad at you.”
“You usually tell me when you’re mad at me.”
“That’s because you usually deserve it.”
She smiled into her latte and, thankfully, let it go.
The baby store was our first stop, even though Natalie had insisted she only needed two things. Fifteen minutes later, she had five.
I held up a pack of pink crib sheets. “Don’t you have these already?”
“No.”
“I’ve seen these.”
“You’ve seen pink sheets.”
“These are pink sheets.”
“These are blush.”
I looked at the package and then at her. “And the ones at home?”
“Dusty rose.”
“That’s the same damn color.”
“It is not.”
“You’ve become unbearable.”
She smiled and put them in the cart.
One aisle later, she stopped in front of a rack of baby dresses and made a sound that told me immediately we were about to buy something unnecessary.
“Oh my God.”
“No.”
“You didn’t even look.”
“I know that voice.”
She pulled out a tiny pink dress covered in ruffles. “Look at it.”
“The baby is going to spit up on that.”
“She can still look cute while she does it.”
“She won’t know she’s wearing it.”
“I’ll know.”
“That’s apparently what matters.”
She held it against her stomach, and I sighed. “Put it in the cart.”
Natalie grinned. “I knew you’d cave.”
“I didn’t cave. I’m tired of standing here.”
“Sure.”
She found a matching headband and tossed that in too.
By the time we reached the back of the store, I understood why Max complained every time Natalie went baby shopping. She had enough clothes at home to dress their daughter twice a day until kindergarten.
Then I saw the boots.
Tiny pink cowgirl boots sat on the bottom shelf with stitched flowers along the sides and rhinestones around the tops. I picked them up.
Natalie leaned over the cart. “Those are awful.”
“They’re perfect.”
“They’re extremely you.”
“Exactly.”
“She won’t fit them for months.”
“I don’t care.”
I dropped them into the cart, but my fingers stayed on the rhinestones for another second.
Mama would have loved them.
She used to complain that everything I owned sparkled, then steal my earrings when she thought I wasn’t looking.
I turned toward the next shelf and started straightening a row of baby socks that didn’t need straightening.
Natalie didn’t say anything.
We checked out with enough bags to completely disprove her claim that she only needed two things. Halfway across the parking lot, she stopped.
“I have to pee.”
“Again?”
“Yes, again.”
“You went before we left the house.”
“That was over an hour ago.”
“I’m starting to think this baby is doing it on purpose.”
“She hates me.”
“She hasn’t met you yet.”
“She knows.”
I waited with the bags while she went back inside. When she returned, she was moving slower, so I stopped giving her shit.
“Lunch?”
“Yes.”
“Mexican?”
Her face brightened immediately. “Obviously.”
We ended up at a little restaurant a few blocks away, and by the time our food came, Natalie had kicked her sandals off beneath the table.
I glanced down. “Those feet look painful.”
“They are.”
“Want me to take a picture for Max?”
She pointed her fork at me. “Don’t you dare.”
“He’d come get us.”
“He’d bring Doc.”
“That would be funny.”
“It would not.”
For a while, we talked about nothing important. Natalie complained that Max had tried to talk her out of adding another lamp to the nursery because apparently four different light sources were enough. I told her he was right. She told me nobody asked. I reminded her she had dragged me shopping.
Somewhere in the middle of her explaining why the pink canopy over the crib absolutely needed different bows, I realized I hadn’t pictured Mama in the casket since we left the house.
Natalie stopped talking when I started moving rice around my plate.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
I kept my eyes on the plate. “She would’ve liked those boots.”
“The rhinestones?”
“Definitely.”
A smile pulled at my mouth before I could stop it. “She used to make fun of everything I wore, then steal my earrings.”
“That sounds like something a mom would do.”
“She was good at that stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“The normal stuff. Cooking with me. Doing my hair. Coming to school things. She used to wake me up early on Saturdays and make pancakes even when we didn’t have anywhere to go.”
I put my fork down.
“She wasn’t like Octavio.”
Natalie stayed quiet.
“She wasn’t cruel. She didn’t come home drunk and beat the shit out of me.”
My thumb rubbed along the condensation on my glass.
“But she watched him do it.”
Natalie didn’t interrupt.
“She knew what he did to her. She knew what he did to me, and every single time there was some reason why it wasn’t really his fault. He drank too much. He had a bad day. Money was tight. I made him angry. She made him angry. There was always something.”
“You loved her.”
“Yeah.”
“And you were mad at her.”
“Still am.”
Natalie nodded. “You can be both.”
I looked at her.
“Loving somebody doesn’t make what they did okay.”
I picked my fork up again, although I didn’t eat. “She called a lot after I left.”
“Did you answer?”
“Sometimes.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing, mostly.” I looked down at my plate. “She’d ask if I was eating enough, tell me about cousins I hadn’t seen in years, offer me money when she barely had any.”
“She missed you.”
“Yeah.”
I swallowed. “I missed her too.”
Natalie let that sit for a while, then her eyes dropped toward my phone.
I knew immediately where this was going.
“What?”
“You’ve checked that thing like six times.”
“I have notifications.”
“You don’t have any.”
I flipped it facedown. “There. Problem solved.”
She smiled. “What did Emilio say?”
I stared at her. “That was a hell of a jump.”
“It really wasn’t.”
“My phone has nothing to do with Emilio.”
“Sure.”
“You’re annoying.”
“I’m bored.”
“You have enchiladas.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
I should have ignored her. Instead, I sighed.
“I told him I wasn’t his.”
Natalie’s eyebrows lifted. “And?”
“He said maybe that was the fucking problem.”
Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth.
I pointed at her. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
She lowered the fork. “What do you think he meant?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I know what it sounded like.”
“Which was?”
I glared at her.
She smiled. “Exactly.”
I leaned back against the booth. “He could’ve said it years ago.”
“Maybe.”
“He could say it now.”
“Also true.”
“I’m not chasing him around the Devil’s Den asking him to explain one sentence.”
“I didn’t tell you to.”
“Good.”
She took another drink. “You want him to explain it.”
I looked down at my phone. “I want him to stop saying shit like that if he isn’t going to explain it.”
“That sounds fair.”
“What happens if he actually means it?” she asked.
I looked at her. “Means what?”
“That you not being his is the problem.”
I picked at the corner of my napkin. “I don’t know.”
Natalie gave me a look.
“What?”
“You’ve slept with him how many times?”
I laughed. “I wasn’t keeping a spreadsheet.”
“More than once.”
“A lot more than once.”
“And that part doesn’t bother you.”
“No. That part is easy.”
It always had been. We could spend half the night arguing, end up in bed, and wake up the next morning insulting each other over coffee like nothing happened. No promises. No conversations about what we were.
At least that was how it used to work.
Natalie leaned back. “So what part isn’t easy?”
“This.”
“That cleared up absolutely nothing.”
I sighed. “Sex with Emilio is simple. I know what happens afterward.”
“You steal the blankets?”
“He steals them.”
“Sure.”
“He does.”
I ignored her smile.
“We fuck, somebody leaves, and the next day he annoys the shit out of me like usual. Nobody asks questions.”
“And now?”
“Now he’s punching men because they insult me, getting pissed when other guys look at me, and saying shit about me not being his.”
I tore the corner off my napkin and dropped it onto my plate. “That’s different.”
“Because it sounds like feelings?”
“Don’t say that word.”
She laughed.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I looked toward the window. “If Emilio wants to fuck me, fine. We already know we’re good at that.”
“Very modest.”
“It’s true.”
“But if he wants something else?”
I folded my arms. “He’s Max’s VP. He’s at the Devil’s Den every day. He’s at your house half the time. He’s family. If we make this real and fuck it up, I don’t get to block his number and pretend he died.”
“Neither does he.”
“Exactly.”
Natalie took another drink. “Maybe you two stopped being casual a long time ago and neither one of you wanted to admit it.”
“That sounds like one of your romance books.”
“You’re a stripper sleeping with the vice president of a motorcycle club.”
I blinked.
She lifted one shoulder. “Maybe don’t judge my books.”
I laughed and threw the balled-up napkin at her.
We made it through two more stores before Natalie finally gave up. By three, she climbed into Marge’s truck, shoved a pillow behind her back, and groaned.
“I’m never walking again.”
“That’ll make motherhood convenient.”
“Don’t ruin this for me.”
I started the truck, and she closed her eyes.
“You better not critique my driving all the way home.”
“I’m still shocked you can drive.”
“You’ve been watching me do it for hours.”
“I’m processing slowly.”
“Must be the pregnancy.”
“Bitch.”
She was asleep ten minutes later.
I turned the radio down and let the road fill the truck.
Mama came back to me, only this time she wasn’t lying in a casket. She was standing in our kitchen with flour on her cheek, laughing because the tortilla I tried to roll looked more like Texas than a circle.
Then my brain moved somewhere else.
Maybe that’s the fucking problem.
I glanced at my phone in the cup holder.
Nothing.
I kept driving.
When I turned into Max’s driveway, Emilio’s bike was parked beside his truck.
I looked at it before I could stop myself.
Beside me, Natalie spoke without opening her eyes. “You’re staring at his bike.”
“Go back to sleep.”
Her mouth curved. “I wasn’t asleep.”
“You were snoring.”
“I don’t snore.”
“You sounded like a chainsaw.”
She opened one eye. “Still staring.”
I grabbed my purse. “I’m leaving you in the truck.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
She was laughing when I climbed out.
I hooked shopping bags over both arms, and the front door opened before I reached the porch.
Emilio stepped outside.
His eyes went straight to mine.
No grin. No comment about the mountain of baby shit hanging off my arms.
Natalie climbed out behind me, took one look at us, and shook her head. “Oh, absolutely not. I’m taking my pregnant ass inside before whatever this is starts.”
“There is no this.”
“Sure.”
She grabbed one of the lighter bags and walked past Emilio into the house.
I headed toward the porch. “You planning on helping or just standing there looking constipated?”
He came down the steps and took the bags from my right hand. “Max told me you went shopping.”
“Did he also give you a play-by-play of my bowel movements?”
“No.”
“Give him time.”
Nothing.
I looked at him. “What?”
“We need to talk.”
I shifted the bags higher on my arm. “I spent half the day talking about you. I’ve hit my limit.”
His eyebrows pulled together. “With who?”
“Nobody.”
“Lola.”
“Forget it.”
I reached for the door, but Emilio caught it before I could open it. Not me. The door. His arm stretched past my shoulder, close enough that I could smell soap and leather, and his voice dropped low enough that Natalie couldn’t hear us from inside.
“You wanted to know what I meant last night.”
I looked up at him. “Yeah.”
For once, there wasn’t a joke waiting in his face.
“Then quit running away every time I try to tell you.”
