“He’s here on assignment.”
“Which means he’s perfect for you.”
Without even meeting him, Hannah already decided he was perfect for her aunt? Harley raised an eyebrow and waited for an explanation.
“If he’s here on assignment,” Hannah explained, “he’s only here temporary, your ideal guy?”
“No,” Harley lied. Typically this was her perfect guy. Long relationships did not work for her. This gig with the police department wouldn’t last long. Eventually the Special Tasks Bureau will call and send her on another assignment. Men around town wanted a relationship, and those just weren’t her thing. Maybe a lifetime ago, but her career consumed her. Besides the length of being gone, Harley often found out too late she had nothing in common with the men she came across. Men did not understand her affection for weapons and were easily intimidated by a woman with the power to take them down in the blink of an eye. A nagging voice sang into the back of her mind, Dante might be different, at least so far he was. He worked for the FBI. He might understand the long hours.
“Maybe,” Harley shrugged, irritated with herself allowing her interactions with Dante last night and tonight to interfere with her set ways.
“Well, tell me if he’s the one you’re bringing as your plus-one to the wedding.”
Harley doubted this setback would last long. A date as her plus one to the wedding would cause far more questions. Everyone would ask a thousand questions, mainly her mother. Where did they meet? How long had they been dating? What were their future plans? And besides, there hadn’t even been a second date to start thinking about a wedding date. Did last night even count as a first date?
The mere mention of the wedding made Harley frown. It was too soon for Hannah to get married. What did she possibly know about love and hard life decisions? Harley tilted her water back to keep from responding with anything too negative. What were the odds that two eighteen-year-olds could make a marriage work? She sure as hell couldn’t.
“Speaking of this wedding of yours, have you heard much from your parents?”
Hannah’s shoulders slumped and her dark bouncy hair shook from side to side. When Hannah appeared after graduation with a small engagement ring on her left finger from a man no one had met yet, no one was pleased. Harley tried to keep it together.
“They don’t approve,” Hannah tilted her head to the side and gave a grin, “I think it’s because he’s Mexican.”
The water Harley sipped just about choked the back of her throat with laughter at her niece’s comment. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“No it’s not.”
“Hannah, you’re half Puerto Rican. Your grandmother is from Puerto Rico. Your grandparents live in San Juan.”
“Being Puerto Rican and being Mexican are two different things,” Hannah explained simply. “People around here think of Mexicans differently.”
Harley thought of Steve Lundy’s constant ignorant comments. To Steve, anyone who spoke Spanish came from Mexican ancestry. No matter how many times Harley pulled out her Italian-card by bringing in homemade sauce and meatballs, he still thought of her as a Mexican. He also thought today was gang related without even knowing the whole story. He was more pissed off for having to drive out there so early in the morning. But Harley doubted race to be the reason her brother did not like Javier.
“You’re so wrong.”
A thump upstairs distracted Harley. Both of the ladies eyes glanced at the ceiling. Their eyes slowly met each other. Harley raised her left eyebrow. She reached into the pocket of her robe and brandished her pistol. “Something you want to tell me?”
Hannah held her hands in the air, her brown eyes widened with fear, rimming with the threat of tears. “Wait!”
“Who is upstairs, Hannah?”
Harley’s heart sank with disappointment with the idea of Hannah lying to her. “Hannah.”
“Okay fine, Javier is up there.”
“What?” Now, for a split second Harley’s guilt tried to make its way through her veins. Wasn’t she the one who took Hannah to get on the pill? Had her actions caused Hannah to think it was okay to sneak a boy into the house? “Why is he here? Are the two of you? In my house?”
“No. It’s not what you think,” Hannah wailed as her golden brown face reddened. “I didn’t mean for it to seem like I was sneaking him in the house. He and his brother got into some trouble last night.”
Harley held her hand in the air to stop her, “I thought you two were together last night.”
“Javier dropped me off and then went to take his brother home and something happened.”
“What something?”
“Mmm,” Hannah shrugged her shoulders up and down, “He won’t talk about it but he’s freaking out upstairs. He couldn’t stop crying so I gave him some of your anxiety pills to help him calm down.”
Harley’s eyes darted toward the ceiling. The heat of embarrassment crept over her cheeks. The last thing she wanted to do was come off as weak. On rare occasions she’d get panic attacks, typically, like every woman over thirty with no marital prospects. A comforting stroke on her back from her mother would have sufficed, but Harley didn’t have that, so she learned to harden her heart and kept telling herself she preferred to live her life stress free these days with as less involvement from committed relationships as possible