Mouth shut, dope.
I pursed my lips and tried to glean something from his tight expression. It was hard to look Flor in his green eyes when one was practically swollen shut. Max had gotten in some killer blows. I patted the underside of the table before I remembered that I'd taken my yellow notebook with me. Bleh. I sat back with a sigh and ran my fingers through my hair. I mean, it wasn't like family dinners ever turned out well, but tonight was a goddamned disaster.
"Well?" my dad prompted, his balding head gleaming under the light of River's crystal chandelier. I remembered the day she'd had it installed, forcing Flor and me to come stand in the doorway and watch as she made a weird faux drumming noise under her breath and flicked the lights on. A spark had exploded from the base of the fixture and turned a decent size portion of the nearby ceiling black. It taken Flor, me, and Google to figure out how to fix it. "Either you've finally lost it, Florian, or you did something to upset Max." Flor's lips thinned and I could see a flash of anger cross his face before he spat out the lie that he hoped would save us both. Unfortunately for me, it was almost as bad as the truth, which I'd actually been planning on telling until he'd opened his big mouth.
"Max and Abi have been sleeping together."
Silence.
I choked on my next breath and felt my cheeks burning.
"When he pulled in the driveway with Rhonda, I confronted him about it. He didn't like it." Flor shrugged like this whole thing was no big deal, just another thorn to be brushed off and forgotten about, no matter how badly the wound might bleed. "She took his side and then the whole thing just went to shit, okay? That what you wanted to hear?"
My dad's face was as red as mine, but most likely for different reasons.
"I'm eighteen," I said before anyone else could get a word in edgewise. "We were dating. It's not that big of a deal."
"Are we done here?" Flor said, sniffing and running his hand over his face. He looked so tired, and I felt so responsible. This is not just your fault. That's what Addi would've told me if I'd fully confided in her the way I should've. I glanced over and she raised one single brow at me. I was going to pay for this later.
"I … " Even River seemed at a loss for words. I avoided her gaze as well as my father's and fiddled with my hands in my lap. If my family was good at anything, it was making me feel like I was fifteen again.
"Can I stay here tonight?" Flor said as he pushed his chair back. "Apparently I'm not welcome in my own place anymore." He looked right at me as he said it.
"Of course you can, honey," River said, sounding far too pleased by the prospect of her grown son coming back home. "But that doesn't exactly solve the issue between you and Max. Now, I know Abi's your little sister, but – "
"She's not my fucking sister," Flor griped, shoving his chair back in and moving from the room before my father got the chance to get a single word out.
"Dad," I said, but he lifted his palm and stood up, leaving just as quickly as my stepbrother had.
"Well, I know I'm still hungry," Addi said, bless her fucking heart. My stepmom gave me a long, searching look before getting up and leading my friend into the kitchen to make her a plate. The second they were out of sight, I scrambled out of my seat and followed Flor up the stairs. I didn't even bother to knock before I burst into his room and found him at the window, head bowed, fingers gripping the windowsill so tightly his knuckles had turned white.
Flor lifted his head to glance back at me as I closed the door softly and leaned against it.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I should never have … maybe I shouldn't have told you how I felt. Then none of this would be happening, and Rhonda … "
"How's your nose?" he asked me instead, turning around and perching on the windowsill, the soft breeze from outside teased his dark hair and made it hard to breathe. If anything, all of this drama should've done something to dampen my attraction to him. Surely if this thing between Flor and I was just hormones and lust and sexual tension, some of the sparkle would already be wearing off? I thought of that crimson thread of fate again and squeezed my left hand into a fist.
"Fine," I said, my voice echoing around the nearly empty room. It was nothing now, just some spare guest bedroom with a few pictures on the wall, a bed, a dresser, a desk. Once upon a time, not all that long ago, Flor's room had been like a splash of color, covered in his artwork, filled with his things, tainted with the deliciously wicked masculine scent of him. I'd both loved and hated this room; it was Flor, and it was comforting because of that, but it was also the place he'd brought most of his girlfriends. I glanced over at the bed and wondered if the springs still creaked or if my stepmom had gotten around to replacing it. She kept saying she was going to redecorate in here, make it a guest suite, but it hadn't happened yet. I wondered now if it would become the nursery. More than likely, it would end up being my room.
"Next time I get Max alone, I'd going to beat his ass until he can't stand straight." Flor reached up a finger and prodded at his swollen lip until he cringed.
I crossed my arms over my chest and resisted doing the same. My dad had taken a look at me and decided that my nose wasn't broken, so I wasn't going to dwell on it. Honestly, Flor and I had sort of gotten what we'd deserved, although Max's words had hurt worse than I'd thought.
"This is kind of what we get for cheating," I told Flor, thinking of that steamy bathroom, of his hands on me, his body inside of mine. He looked up at me then with his one good eye, like he could sense what I was thinking.
"Guess so," he said, surprising me. For once, Flor wasn't ordering me around or screaming or avoiding the subject. "I guess I could've handled this better."
"And I guess I could've done the same. Flor, I'm sorry I did this to us, but I couldn't keep it inside anymore. I don't know what to do now or how to go about all of this, but I don't think I can stop loving you."
He cringed, but I didn't care. It felt good to have the words out.
"Abigail," Flor began, but it was my turn to have the last word. I shook my head and gave him a look that told him that maybe, just this once, he didn't know best.
I guess all it took was getting punched in the face for me to realize it.
I tugged on that red string of fate and hoped that Flor would answer.
Appeasing my stepmom was easier said than done, forcing both Flor and me into the kitchen after a tense and uncomfortable dinner to help bake cookies. Even my dad hadn't been able to resist River's stubborn insistence that we all sit together as a family and eat, so I'd spent the last hour staring down at my plate and wondering when and if he was going to address the fight, my involvement in it, or my sex life.
I shuddered as I creamed the butter and sugar, my bare feet warm on the heated wood floor. The idea that my dad would accept me as an adult and let my business stay my business was doubtful. I knew a storm was coming; I just didn't know when.
"It's been so long since I've had you kids in the kitchen together like this," River said with a shiver of pleasure that made my mouth dry. Guilt, yet again, even after I'd gotten all brave and bold in Flor's room. "Baking and listening to music, pure heaven." She sighed and turned towards the cabinet to grab something, giving Flor and me a moment to exchange a look. His face was blank but not unpleasant. It made me ache for him in ways I could barely understand. And the fact that he was in an old T-shirt and sweatpants, his own feet as bare as mine, it was too cute for words. It almost made up for the fact that Addi had abandoned me to my fate, leaving me here well past dark to atone for my sins. I wondered what might happen if River ever really did find out about Flor and me. I assumed it would be something much, much worse than baking chocolate chip cookies. "Too bad Addison couldn't stay and join us. I remember a time when she practically lived her alongside you two and Max." River sighed and I resisted the urge to join her. Those days she was describing felt impossibly far away, less like a memory and more like something that had happened in a fairytale dreamland.
"It's not like they're dead, kaa-chan," Flor mumbled over his own bowl of butter and sugar. Tonight, we were being forced to experiment with three different recipes, all of which looked pretty much the same to me, for some party River was going to with her colleagues. The theme was All American – Perfected, and the goal was to cook something classic, like apple pie or burgers or in our case, chocolate chip cookies, and bring it to what I'd loosely call a 'potluck'. Of course, there'd be catered foods as well as a full bar, people in suits, and the smug smiles of psychologists who think they know everything about everything.