“You want something, let me know,” he said and he sounded distracted.
Obviously the game had called his attention.
So I thought it might be safe to ask an eensy, teensy, tiny, little personal question just because I was dying to know and since I didn’t get the gift I intended to give myself that evening, I was going to go for something different.
“What’s the tattoo on your chest mean?” I asked casually like whatever answer to a brokenhearted tattoo question would mean nothing at all whatsoever to me.
“Belinda,” he replied, still sounding distracted.
I was not distracted. My body went still again.
“Belinda?” I asked.
“My ex,” he answered.
Oh… my… God.
He had a tattoo of a broken heart on his chest. No, he had a tattoo of a broken heart over his heart on his chest! A tattoo he got for Belinda!
“Was it a bad break?” I was still going for casual but my voice sounded breathy.
Now, why did I ask that? Why? What was wrong with me? Now I was punishing myself and getting myself into stupid, terrifying situations.
“You could say that, since she broke it off three months before the wedding.”
Before I could think better of it (or, say, think at all), I shot up to a seated position and twisted to look at him, my mouth open.
Then I snapped it closed.
Then I spoke. “She broke up with you three months before your wedding?”
Oh my God!
Hector had been engaged. He’d nearly been married!
Oh my GOD!
He didn’t move, his body still reclined on the pillows, the sheets to his waist, his chest displayed, only his eyes came to me.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“Why?” I asked.
“She wanted a nine-to-five guy who mowed the lawn on the weekends. I’m not a nine-to-five guy who mows the lawn on the weekend. She couldn’t handle me being on assignment, away for days or weeks or even months not being able to contact her. She tried to talk me into a desk job. I told her the man who put the ring on her finger was a field agent for the DEA and that’s who she’d have to marry. She saw I was serious, pawned the ring, got her Mom to call the church, hall and guests and took a vacation at an all-inclusive in Acapulco.”
My eyes narrowed.
“She pawned your ring?” I spat, sounding frighteningly like Ralphie.
But seriously. Who would pawn Hector “Oh my God” Chavez’s ring? Who would try to make Hector something he was not? Who would go to Acapulco alone when they could go to Acapulco with Hector? On their honeymoon even!
Was she nuts?
I realized belatedly that Hector was smiling a huge, blinding white smile at me.
Oh no.
What had I given away?