It doesn’t seem to bother her much. That’s good.
“Good morning, love birds,” I say lightly.
That makes Mia flush. I shouldn’t take pleasure in it, but three nights. She needs to go back to kindergarten and learn about sharing.
Mateo merely takes a sip of his coffee and raises an eyebrow at me, unimpressed that I’m purposely embarrassing Mia.
I wrinkle up my nose at him in displeasure.
A moment passes. I eat my eggs, but I’m starting to get annoyed. I signed up to be part of this thing, not watching from the bleachers. He’s mine. I’m the one who agreed to share.
Mateo brings me out of the snit I’m just about to work myself up in when he says, “We should go out tonight.”
Mia and I both look at him, but he’s looking at me. This calms me down, considerably.
“We should,” I agree, smiling at him.
Then he glances over at Mia, seeing traces of disappointment on her face. She probably thought he meant her. A logical assumption since he has been fucking her pretty much nonstop for three goddamn days.
But hey, who’s counting?
“We’ll go tomorrow,” he tells her. Then he pauses, realizing tomorrow is Sunday. “Make that Monday. We’ll go out Monday night.”
I latch onto this, not intentionally, but because I have killer instincts and her jugular’s right there. “Ooh, yeah. Tomorrow’s our first family dinner since the shake-up. That’s gonna be fun. How’d Vince take it?”
I feel a little mean when she turns scarlet, and the dread that’s been absent from her shoulders for a couple of days makes a sudden reappearance.
Glancing at Mateo instead of me, she says, “I should probably go talk to him tonight.”
Mateo nods. “Adrian’ll be with us, but I’ll call Colin and see if he’s free.”
“I don’t think I need a bodyguard just to talk to Vince,” she says, uneasily.
“He has a temper. This could escalate things. Better safe than sorry.”
“He’s not going to hurt me,” she insists.
“Well, if you’re wrong this time, I’ll fucking kill him,” he states calmly.
My stomach drops. Now I sort of feel like I have something to worry about. I guess that’s unfair—of course he cares about Mia. Of course he wants to keep her safe. Of course he’d kill his own cousin for hurting her.
Well, maybe the last one didn’t warrant an “of course.”
This is harder than I convinced myself it would be. I need us to go out tonight. I need a night of Mateo to myself. I didn’t want to do something as crass as creating a Mateo schedule, but if she’s going to hog him—and he’s going to let her—we might have to reconsider.
Her wide eyes remain on Mateo for a moment, then she nods, submitting to his demands. “All right. If it makes you feel better, send Colin. But he needs to wait outside. This is obviously personal and I don’t want an audience.”
“He can’t protect you from outside, Mia.”
“Mateo… this isn’t going to be easy. He’s going to be really hurt by this. I’m not going to further humiliate him by bringing Colin with me. That’s too mean. I can’t do that to him.”
“And I’m not going to let you put yourself in a dangerous position for the sake of Vince’s ego. Keep arguing with me and I’ll accompany you myself.”
That makes her panic. Obviously that would not go over well. She gives in, her gaze sliding to her plate of food. “Fine.”
Since I kicked this shit up, I try to distract her from it. “You’re at the bakery this morning, right?”
Mia nods, brightening a little. She brightens because Mark is stopping in to visit. Now that he doesn’t work there anymore, he’s taken to stopping in on Saturdays for his sugar fix. Because Mia always works Saturdays. Mia realizes this and holds my gaze, warily. I understand why. If I said that in front of Mateo, he might take issue with it.
But that would be mean.
I smile instead and say nothing.
She doesn’t look relieved. I realize my smile may have come off differently than I intended. I wasn’t trying to be threatening. It’s just, well, I’m feeling a teeny bit threatened.
—
I’m so glad he took me dancing.
Well, dinner and dancing. He orders a ridiculous amount of food when we go out to eat. Not because he can eat that much, but because he’s always worried about someone tampering with it. I guess he figures if we order enough food for six people, they won’t know what he’s actually eating. Unless they get their poison from Costco, they’re bound to run out.
He’s a weirdo, but he’s my weirdo.
“What?” he asks, seeing me smiling as we dance.
“Just thinking about you,” I tell him, smiling up at him.
My heart fills up as he smiles at me. “I’m glad you’re having a nice time.”
“I am,” I agree, nodding. “Thank you. You know I love to go dancing.”