“Jesus,” Hector for some reason muttered again.
Gloria was close to laughing when her gaze swung to her brother. She said something to him in Spanish, his body grew tighter and Ines and Tia started giggling.
“You do that,” Hector said, his voice as tight as his body, “there’ll be retribution.”
“Bring it on,” Gloria returned, still smiling and not at all scared of Hector’s threatened “retribution”.
Then they hitched their bags over their shoulders, waved at me calling, “Hasta luego,” and they were gone.
Hector let me go and I watched him lock the door behind them. He flipped the light switch and came back to me. Throwing his arm around my shoulders again, he turned me and guided me up the stairs.
“What did she say at the end, before she left?” I asked as we walked up the stairs. I felt weird with his arm around me like that so I put mine around his waist and immediately didn’t feel weird anymore.
“She told me she was gonna tell Mamá you’re here.”
Since, apparently, Blanca knew he was spending the night at my house, I didn’t know why this was a big deal.
“Why is that a big deal?” I asked.
“She tells her, you’ll find out,” Hector said ominously.
Oh no.
We went back to his room, I crawled into bed while he put his gun away and then he joined me, moved into me, turning me so my back was to his front and his arms were around me.
His heat seeped through me and I started to relax, feeling safe, snug, comfy, lovely when he called, “Sadie?”
“Yes?” I replied in a sleepy voice.
“Gloria gets you in the hot tub with her posse, they have any bright ideas, you ignore them and go your own way.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means Gloria, Ines and Tia make Indy and Ally look like amateurs.”
I blinked in the darkness. “Now, what does that mean?”
“Indy has her own police code,” Hector informed me.
Oh my.
* * * * *
I woke to a cold thus, I knew, empty bed.
I rolled, looked at Hector’s side but, sure enough, he was gone. I sat up, pulled my hair out of my face and looked around the room.
No Hector.
Then I realized I had to use the bathroom.
I slid out from under the covers, walked out of the room and down the hall, looking into empty rooms, two more bedrooms (neither of them refinished, one unused save to store more stacked boxes and furniture, the smallest one being utilized as an office), one bath.
When I got in the bathroom, I noticed Hector had already renovated it. A handsome, what looked like top-of-the-line (but what did I know, I was no plumber) bathroom suite and lots of warm, Mexican tile up the walls, cobalt, mustard yellow and terracotta designs against a buttery-cream background.
I did my business and walked down the stairs in search of Hector. I found him in the kitchen.
At the sight of him, I stopped in the doorway.