his eyes. “You know what I mean, Icey.”
“Been a while since I’ve heard that one—”
And then my feet are leaving the ground. His arms are around my waist, and his face is buried in my neck. The eyebrows tickle a little. “Well then.” No clue what to do with my arms.
“I missed you, Danger.”
He murmurs this against the exposed skin just above my clavicle, and sweet mother of everything, is it hot in here. “I can see that.”
He puts me down and I remember my attire. “Did you really just hug me?” I ask, sticking a finger through one of the holes in the hem of my shirt. “I look like hobo-Mufasa on steroids.”
“No you don’t, silly.” He laughs and tries to tuck a part of my mane behind my ear. “Mufasa dies, you know? I was thinking more grown-up Simba.”
“Oh my God, whatever!” Smack to the chest.
Are we flirting? We’re totally flirting. In my busted apartment of all places.
He smiles, and boom: just like that, I’m teleported. There’s no sick brother or overworked mother or missed days of work to worry about.
Only Zan-the-Man.
I really wish he would stop.
“Are you fluent in Spanish?” I say to break the (very loaded) silence.
“Yep.”
“Impressive.”
He shrugs. “Not really. Been speakin’ it my whole life.”
Hmm…I take a good look at the hella tan skin and thick, dark hair. Gustavo comes to mind (as does the reminder that I know almost nothing about this idiot boy).
“Zan?”
“Danger?”
“Are you biracial?”
He grins. “You could say that, I guess.”
I’m about to dig deeper, but then Anna-Maria comes around the corner. She looks at the space between us—well, the lack thereof—and there’s that smile of hers again. “Es muy hermosa, hermanito.” She’s talking to him but looking at me.
“Te lo dije. No te acuerdas porque ya eres vieja.”
“Cállate la boca, imbécil.”
Zan laughs and leans closer to me. “She just called me a moron,” he whispers loud enough for her to hear. “Can you believe that?”
“Vete, llorón.”
Zan winks, scoops up his box, and disappears around the corner.
Once he’s gone, Anna-Maria turns to me, all traces of humor erased. “Rico, how long has Jaxon been sick?”
Crap.
“He’s had a fever and sore throat off and on for a little over two weeks,” I say.
She nods. Which is…interesting? I was expecting Two weeks, and he hasn’t seen a doctor?! I’m calling DFACS! “I swabbed his throat, and he did test positive for strep, so I’ll get some amoxicillin to you before the day is over,” she says. “Just know that if it comes back, he may need his tonsils removed.”
Well, that would be a nightmare. Surgery involves hospitals. Hospitals involve lots of money. I vividly recall Mama once saying she’d “rather die than go to a hospital” during one of her colitis bouts.
I’m trying not to panic.
She looks over into the living room and smiles. “Joaquín and I started dating when Alejandr—Zan, excuse me, was five years old. For as long as I’ve known him, Zan’s wanted a little brother.”
I peek around the corner. Zan has set up an iPad on a pillow across Jax’s lap and is helping him pick a movie to watch.
“Joaquín?” I ask.
“Zan’s eldest brother. He was seventeen when Zan was born. There was another brother who passed away at fourteen in a dirt bike accident the year before Zan’s birth, and then their sister, Tehlor, is twelve years Zan’s senior. He was practically an only child.”
“Oh.” It’s embarrassing that I knew none of this, yet Anna-Maria caught us practically canoodling not ten minutes ago.
“Looks like your brother is making his sibling dreams come true.” She winks.
I retrieve her coat, and Zan and Jax wave to her as she goes out.
And it looks like she’s right. Because when Anna-Maria drops by with the medicine four hours later, Zan is still here.
He picks me up for school the next morning, and then drops me off at work after classes are over.
Same thing the next day.
And the next.
Saturday and Sunday, I work doubles, but he takes me to work, brings me lunch, and shows up to drive me home on both days.
And I go with it. I don’t overthink (read: think at all) or question his motives (for the most part).
But then Monday, we’re sitting side by side in history and I happen to glance in his direction. He’s grinning at me.
Which makes everything I’ve been trying not to think about topple down on me with cold precision like massive hailstones:
Zan’s the reason Jax got the antibiotics we never