Romero (The Moreno Brothers 4)

Angel came by looking for something behind the bar.

“What do you need?” Romero asked.

“Water.” He bent down still searching. “Didn’t you bring bottled waters out here?”

Romero shook his head. “I’m in charge of the booze, son. Fuck the water.”

Angel frowned, shaking his head. “Useless.”

“Take a shot, Angel. You need to relax.”

Angel barely glanced at him and stalked away.

“So you’re in charge of getting everyone drunk?” Isabel noticed ever since her last shot, Romero’s eyes kept making their way back to one place, especially when she spoke—her lips. It unnerved her. Had he no tact at all?

“Yep, you ready for another?” He reached for the bottle.

“No. I’m not having anymore.”

“Sure you will.”

He was so damn sure of himself. “No, I won’t.”

“You will,” he said, looking up behind her with a smile. “Ready for another one, big guy?”

Angel and Alex walked up to the bar. Angel had a box of bottled waters and Alex held a box of some other kind of bottled beverage. Isabel glanced around but didn’t see Valerie. “Where did Valerie go?”

Then she saw it. Alex looked visibly shaken. He wasn’t the same Alex as when they’d walked in. Great. Something happened already. “I’m out.” He said, his jaw tight.

“What?” both Angel and Romero said almost at the same time.

“I gotta go to the restaurant. I’ll be back.” He walked away without even glancing at Isabel.

“That guy works too much,” Romero said.

Isabel searched around the backyard. She hadn’t even noticed how many more people had arrived. Every table in the big backyard was just about full and there were many people still standing. Then she spotted Valerie. She stood at the opening of the canopy that covered the entire backyard. Something was definitely wrong. She slipped off the bar stool, grabbing her purse.

“Where you going?” Romero asked.

“To see about Valerie.”

“Bring her over here.”

Isabel pressed her lips together as she hurried to Valerie. Yeah, that’s exactly what Valerie needs—to get drunk and stupid, just in time for when Alex got back.

***

“Will you move?” Romero made way for Angel to finish dumping the bottled waters into the ice chest next to the bar. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Isabel. His first impression of her when he saw her walk up to the bar, he knew she’d be uptight. He was right—definitively not his type, if he even had a type. But he knew for sure uptight schoolteachers weren’t it—or at least he knew he wasn’t their type.

He just hadn’t expected her to be fun. He’d never met someone whose facial expressions did so much telling. From the moment he called her narc, he noticed it. Everything he said or did, her face had so much to say about it. From the way her eyebrows pinched in, to the way her eyes opened wide at some of his comments. And her lips were something else. The way she pressed them together suddenly, then fell open in the next instant. He’d also never seen anyone blush so instantaneously. Her face turned beet red in a blink of an eye. It was highly entertaining.

“Don’t even.”

Romero turned to look at Angel, who glanced at Isabel, then back at him. “What?”

“Sarah said she’s a brain—not for you.”

“What? You don’t think I’ve banged a few brains in my time?” He tried not to show how annoyed Angel’s comment made him.

“Easy,” Eric said, as he walked up to the bar.

Romero glanced at Eric then glared back at Angel. Angel laughed. “Trust me, she’s not your type. She’s got some class. Don’t go embarrassing her either. Sarah said she’s shy.”

Romero shook off Angel’s comments when he saw Isabel was on her way back to the bar without Valerie, and smirked. “Too late.”

Both Angel and Eric followed Romero’s wicked smile. “Be cool,” Angel warned.

“Always,” Romero said, pouring himself a beer from the keg.

Angel walked away holding several bottles of water in his hands. Eric asked for a cup and Romero handed it to him. Isabel seemed down when she reached the bar. “Where’s Valerie?”

Isabel took a seat at the bar. “She went to the ladies’ room.”

“You mean restroom.”

Her eyebrows pinched. “What’s the difference?”

“We’re at someone’s house, not a public place. So there is no ladies’ or mens’ room.”

She pushed her glasses up, frowning. He stared at the design on her French tip nails that he noticed earlier. He reached for her hand, and found it was soft, just as he expected. She flinched at his touch but didn’t take her hand back. He pulled her hand gently to him for a closer look. This close, he saw it was the letter M in calligraphy. He glanced up at her but didn’t ask. It obviously didn’t stand for Isabel. He let her hand go and she glanced around, not offering an explanation.

“You wanna beer?”

Her lips twitched slightly. “You have wine?”

There was another ice chest off to the side, with some wine bottles chilling. He’d never been into wine, or into chicks who drank wine. He glanced back at her as he pulled two bottles of wine out. White and pink—was the only distinction he saw. She asked for the blush, which he assumed to be the pink, and poured her a glass.