The Viper (Untamed Hearts #1)(73)

Some areas had billboards all in English.

Others had billboards all in Spanish.

Some had a mix of both.

Katie knew that part because she had spent at least three hours lost in Miami. There were one-way streets everywhere. It was easy to get turned around, and her phone wasn’t being very helpful.

Finally she was forced to call for directions. She pulled off the side of the road and picked up her phone. She dialed the number, waiting for it to ring.

“?Hola?”

“I’m lost.” She sighed.

“Again?” Chuito asked in disbelief. “You were lost before your interview too.”

“I’m sorry.” She threw up a hand in frustration. “I cannot be the only person who gets lost in Miami, and have you noticed everyone honks here? What are they all so angry about?”

“Ay Dios mio. Just tell me where you are. You cannot be that far. The high school is less than five miles away,” Chuito said as Katie looked behind her, staring at the street signs. She told him where she was, and he cursed. “Are your doors locked?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

“I have no idea how you got that far.” Chuito sounded exasperated. “Just have my mother drive with you for a few days. Maybe it’ll keep her away from the Cuban. Put it on speaker. I’ll stay on the phone with you until you get there.”

Katie put Chuito on speaker and pulled out. After she turned the way Chuito told her, she asked, “Why do you always complain about your mother’s boyfriend? Is it because he’s Cuban?”

“No, it’s because he’s dating my mother.”

“But you said you haven’t met him.”

“If he’s dating Sofia, I guarantee you, there’s something wrong with him.”

“I think you have mommy issues,” Katie announced as she stopped at a light. Someone was honking. “Did you hear that? What are they honking at?”

“Co?o, this is a huge mistake.”

“I survived college out of Garnet. I can do this,” Katie announced more to herself than anyone and then reiterated the statement in Spanish. “Yo puedo hacer esto.”

“If you say so, chica.”

With Chuito as navigator, Katie found her way pretty easily. She wasn’t really sure how he could do that by phone thousands of miles away, but he could, and she was infinitely grateful for it.

When she pulled down the street, she was surprised by it. “Oh, this is nice.”

“You think I’d let my mother live in a shithole?” Chuito sounded insulted. “You have to turn right on Ocean View. Third house on the right.”

Katie just shook her head as she turned. “You definitely have mommy issues. Bizarre ones.”

“You meet my mother, and then we’ll talk.”

“Am I going to like her?” Katie asked not for the first time. “I am sort of moving in with her.”

“I guess we’ll find out.” Chuito laughed. “This whole thing feels like a scientific experiment. It could either go really good, or really, really bad.”

Katie noticed there were men outside their houses playing basketball. Which was insane; it was unbelievably hot out even at four in the afternoon. None of them had their shirts on, and they all had those strong, powerful builds like Marcos and Chuito. She pulled into the driveway of the biggest house she’d seen in the neighborhood and then looked behind her to the guys in the driveway across the street.

There was just something she recognized about them. More than their builds and coloring, it was in the way they held themselves. Hard. Intimidating.

“Your friends all live here,” she whispered and then asked louder, “How many houses do you own on this street?”

“Four.”

Katie nodded as she turned off the car and sat with Chuito in spirit, like she’d sat with him at Hal’s almost every night for the past three months. “Thank you for helping me, Chuito.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how thankful you are when school starts. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.” She nodded as she looked around her. It was a nice street. The house was big, pink, and beautiful. Katie loved the color pink. It was a good sign, and she repeated in Spanish again, “Yo puedo hacer esto.”

“You’ll have help.” Chuito sounded confident about it.

Katie took a deep breath and covered her face with her hand. “I don’t think so.”

“I do.” Chuito almost sounded amused by her emotional crisis. “He’ll be happy to see you.”

“He hasn’t said a word to me in three months. Now I’m moving in with his aunt. You don’t think that’ll be a little pushy?”

“He’s Boricua. He likes pushy.”

“This isn’t about him. It’s about me. I want to do this. I would want to do this without him. It doesn’t matter if he’s not interested anymore. Yo puedo hacer esto.”

“You can do it,” Chuito agreed. “I wouldn’t have moved you in with my mother if you couldn’t handle it. Trust me, that takes a certain strength of will.”

Katie turned around and looked behind her, seeing that all the men in the driveway across the street had stopped playing basketball. There were kids in the grass. They had been playing chase, but even the little ones were curious.