Romero (The Moreno Brothers 4)

“Looking for anything in particular?”

He glanced up at the girl behind the counter. “Nah, I’m just browsing.” His eyes went back to the rings under the glass.

“Browsing for engagement rings?” He brought his attention back up at the blonde girl. Something about her eyes was very familiar. “No, not really. Just curious, what does something like this go for?” He pointed at a square looking diamond.

When she didn’t answer, he glanced up at her. She angled her head slowly to one side, then smiled big. “Oh my God. Is it really you? Moe?”

Romero studied her. He knew her from somewhere but he still couldn’t place her face. Then he glanced down at the gold necklace around her neck with the name Cecelia, and it hit him. “Cici?”

“Yeah.” She put her hand over her mouth.

“Holy shit!” He took a step back “Are you kidding me? You look so different.” She really did. The last time he’d seen her, that night, she had dark brown long hair. Now she wore it in a cute blonde bob. He would’ve never thought this was the same person.

“So do you! C’mere.” She leaned over the counter and held her arms out. He leaned in and hugged her. Her perfume was as strong as he remembered her wearing it even back then.

An older woman walked out of the back. “Cici, you wanna take your lunch now? You’ve been here four hours.”

Cici turned around. “Okay.” She turned back to Romero then grabbed her purse from a cabinet inside the rows of glass counters.

He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast and it was almost three. For years, he’d been curious about what had happened to her. “Where you going for lunch?”

She walked out from behind the counter. “Umm, I’m not sure. I’m so sick of everything in the food court.”

“How long you been working here? I come here a lot and I’ve never seen you.”

She touched her hair. “Almost a year. You probably have. You just didn’t recognize me. I still change my hair color and style a lot.”

Romero smiled as they walked around the corner, his favorite restaurant coming into view. “How ‘bout Frisco’s. You can never get tired of eating there.”

“Yeah, but compared to the food court, it’s expensive.”

“Let’s go. I’m buying.”

He hoped as much as her appearance had changed, everything else in her life had changed, also. Memories of that night came crashing down on him again. Never one to beat around the bush, he asked her straight out once they sat down at a booth. “So you still with that ass**le?”

The smile on her face disappeared and she shook her head. “No. He’s in jail.”

That didn’t surprise Romero. “Good—for hitting you?”

“Well, having had two priors for domestic abuse helped put him away longer, but that’s not why he’s in.”

She went on to tell him about how the idiot got arrested for assaulting someone at a nightclub and how he’d pulled a knife so the charge was heavier. That coupled with the two recent arrests for assaulting her, he was looking at doing fifteen years minimum.

Romero didn’t even realize he’d fisted his hands until the waitress interrupted them to take their order. He ordered his usual and Cici ordered a chicken salad.

“A salad? You don’t come to Frisco’s for a salad.”

“Have you had their chicken salad?”

Romero shook his head giving her a disgusted look.

“It’s the best. You’re probably thinking it’s this dainty little salad but it’s not. It’s a monster. Watch, you’ll see.”

After their food came, she told him about finding out that she was pregnant just after Fred had been sentenced. She’d been devastated, but there was no way she was not having it. So she now had a two-year-old boy. She showed him a picture. In it, the little guy wore jean overalls and nothing else. He sat on the grass hugging a dog.

“His name’s Moe.”

Romero’s eye shot up and met hers. “Your kid or the dog?”

She laughed. “My son. I never forgot you, Moe.” Her smile dissipated slowly. “You’re the reason why I quit. I knew if I went back, I’d end up being with you eventually. I wasn’t sure what I wanted back then but I knew what almost happened that night would happen, and I was afraid of what Freddy might do. He wasn’t right.”

Romero stared at her. “So you named your kid after… me?”

She nodded and he saw her face tinge with color. “I also liked the uniqueness of the name. Not too many Moes out there.”

Romero didn’t have the heart to tell her that wasn’t even his name. But it’s what she knew him by, so he supposed it’s all that mattered. He glanced back down at little Moe again, feeling very strange about this news. “I’m flattered” is all he could think of to say. But he wasn’t sure flattered was the right word to describe what he was feeling. She named her kid after him. She’d hardly known him.

“The moment I met you,” she said, digging into her salad. “There was something about your eyes. Your uncles, they spoke so fondly of you. I had some of my best laughs listening to the stories they told of you growing up. Then that night…” She stopped moving her fork and just stared at her salad. “There was so much passion in your eyes. You were beyond concerned about my safety and me not going back home to Fred.” She shrugged and moved her salad around again. “I dunno. You just stuck with me. They told me I was having a girl so for months I focused on all these girl names. Then when he turned out to be a boy, I was at a loss. My sister told me to think of people in my life that stood out for good reason. Then I thought of you and it just felt… perfect.”