The Biker and the Loner (Oil and Water #3)- S. Ann Cole Page 0,8

her bleeding out on the kitchen floor, with two-year-old me sitting in her blood, bawling for her to wake up. She, too, had moved here from Venezuela for love and a better life.

I remember none of this.

What I do remember is my Mexican padre raising me all by himself and being my favorite person in the entire world.

One night, when I was seven, he brought home Katherine. She was kind and sweet, with a white smile and a pretty accent. We both fell in love with her. In no time, they were married and our family of two became a family of three.

Three years later, Papà was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer. It was aggressive, brutal. In six months, he was gone.

That’s when everything changed.

When I open the front door and hear Selena’s Dreaming spilling from the surround system at a soft volume, I breathe a heavy sigh. I can always tell by the song what kind of mood she’s in. For this song, it’s melancholic with a splash of righteous indignation.

“Leyana, is that you?” she calls from somewhere in the living room, hope in her voice. Her thick accent has somewhat loosened over the years of her being here, but it’s still a bit strong, so whenever she says my name, it comes out as Lough-hanna.

“Yeah. It’s me.”

Who else would it be? No one ever comes to visit except her sister—once or twice a year—and her lawyer. Her pot dealer never gets past the front gate.

As for me, aside from an uncle who resides in Mexico, I know of no other family on Papà’s side. My mother has two sisters in Venezuela, but I don’t have a relationship with them. Whenever they do call, it’s to ask for something—usually money.

In a sense, Kathy is all I’ve got. And I’m all she’s got, since she’s an even bigger loner than I am now. She no longer socializes, chased off all her friends, and seldom leaves the house.

I pad to the living room and find her lounging on a white chaise, a large glass of wine clutched in her fingers. This is what she does all day long. Pop antidepressants and booze up, wallowing in her thirteen-year-long grief.

Kathy is tall and lithe, with long, blonde hair and unique facial features. She has a look about her. A look that tells you she’s from a different place, a place you didn’t even know existed. Papà had loved her so much. So much.

Her emerald eyes which were once full of life and warmth, are now vacant, dull. They’ve been that way since Papà left us.

Releasing a relieved sigh, she takes a sip of her wine. “Thank God, you are back. It was getting lonely around here.”

It’s always lonely around here.

Six bedrooms, seven and a half bathrooms, and we’re the only ones who live here.

Carefully, I ask, “You’re okay?”

“Now that you are here, yes.” She pats a spot next to her on the chaise. “Come sit with me, baby.”

I’ve learned a long time ago never to deny her. Setting my bag and car keys aside, I go to sit beside her.

Gently, she pokes her toes into my side as she swirls her glass of wine, watching me with those lifeless eyes. “Where do you go?”

Avoiding eye contact, I stall, “What?”

“When you leave here in the late mornings. Where do you go?”

I shrug with feigned nonchalance. “To the park. To people-watch. To think.”

“Think about what?”

I blow out a breath and circle my wrist. “To think about the fact that I’m twenty-five and I don’t have a life, or a career, or passion, or goals. I have...nothing.”

“You…ungrateful bitch,” she says in that dead voice of hers. “You have everything. Look around you. How many people do you think can afford to live like this? All of this”—she waves her free hand around—“is yours.”

“No, mom, it’s yours.”

She presses her lips together. “You have a trust fund—”

“That you change the access age to every year.”

At first, I was supposed to get my trust fund at nineteen. Only to find out, on my nineteenth birthday, she had pushed it to twenty-one. At twenty-one, I learned she changed it again. Then again the next year…

Why? Because she’s afraid I’ll leave. It’s her attempt to control me, erroneously thinking that the promise of millions is what’s keeping me here. It isn’t.

Intoxicated, she struggles to sit up and red wine sloshes from her glass onto the chaise. That stain’s never going to come out. There goes another ivory chaise. The fourth