Moreno's (Moreno Brothers Series) - Elizabeth Reyes Page 0,55

their world of food on the move. Alej sensed that the festival would be special. Or maybe it was just that the coming year was. Life was pretty perfect at the moment, but Alej could feel it. Something big was coming. His mom used to say it when he was a kid. “Sometimes you just feel the future bringing big changes in the air.”

He always wondered if she’d sensed her untimely death in that car accident. Shaking off the bittersweet memories of his mother so long ago, Alej focused on the positive. Changes were coming. Taking a deep breath as he locked up the truck at the commissary he smiled. “Big changes are coming. I feel it.”

Capítulo 15

Forward or Backward?

Three Years,

Ten months,

One week, and

Three days

Since she last heard

From Alejandro

Isabella

Not a day went by still that Isabella didn’t think of Alejandro. Even a day like today when she and her mom were packing to move into the makeshift apartment behind Cido and Octavio’s house. It was originally just an extra storage space above their garage. Octavio and his younger brother had turned into a small living area for his brother and his young bride to live in when they first moved here. But with the success of their catering trucks, they’d since moved into a small home when she became pregnant.

They’d built a tiny bathroom in the apartment with a shower. It was no bigger than a small closet. The toilet was actually in the shower area. But after living in their mobile home for more than nine months Isabella and her mom were no strangers to tiny showers. This would more than suffice.

They’d also be paying less than what they’d been paying at the trailer park. But the best thing about the arrangement is they’d be out of that trailer park where they’d been witness to way too much drama already. Each time Isabella or her mom told Octavio or Cido another story about the trailer park, they mentioned the apartment above their garage being available.

At first, they’d hesitated. Already they felt so indebted to the Ochoas. Octavio had begun to flirt with her mother, and Isabella had been spending so much time with Cido even on her off days. It sometimes felt like old times with the exception of the huge void. Something nagged at her that moving onto their property, even if it was in a separate apartment, might not be the best idea. Already more than once she thought Cido had acted a little territorial of her. Even Magdalena had noticed.

“He’s got a thing for you, Isa,” she’d said more than once now. “He never acts that way around me.”

Her mom said he was just being protective. She’d been witness to one of the times when a tipsy customer had flirted with her a little too aggressively. Cido snapped at him, telling him to have some respect.

“He’s probably never had a chance to defend Magdalena as fast as that girl is to bite anybody’s head off who crosses her,” her mother had quipped.

But Isabella couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t feeling a little more entitled now that they were spending so much time together. Their riding out at Border Field whenever they had time off on the same days had sort of become their thing, even if anything remotely romantic had yet to develop. She’d started taking business management classes at the local community college a few months ago. Specifically, a restaurant management certificate program since it’s what she knew best. But it was slow in coming. Because of the hours she needed to put in at work so that they could eventually save up to get out of that trailer park, she could only take one or two classes per semester .

But in the end, after another incident at the trailer park had kept Isabella and her mom up half the night, they decided it was better to be safe. It didn’t mean this was forever. They already had some money saved up for an apartment on their own. Just not enough. So for now, this was their best option.

Cido and his cousin Augustine came over in Cido’s pickup truck to help move their things. Augustine stayed back at their new apartment taking everything up while Cido came back for her and her mom.

“You weren’t kidding about that place,” Cido said, shaking his head as they drove away from the trailer park for good. “There were two guys ready to go to blows when me and