Then it happened. I kind of exhaled sharply, through my nose and unable to control it I pressed my face in his throat and started to giggle. Within seconds, I was beyond giggling straight to laughter, my body shaking with it.
Hector rolled to his back, taking me with him so I was on top. The whole time, I kept laughing.
Later, when I was kind of laugh-hiccoughing, I lifted up, my forearm on his chest, my other hand coming up to wipe my eyes.
“That was funny,” I told him, eyes rolled to the ceiling, swiping underneath my right one.
“I can see,” Hector said.
I looked at him. He was grinning but I realized belatedly he hadn’t been laughing.
“Didn’t you think it was funny?”
“Mamita, it was funny but I’ve never seen you laugh like that before. No way in hell I was missin’ the chance to watch that.”
My stomach pitched at what he said and I was left speechless, the smile dying on my face.
“And there it goes,” he mumbled, watching my mouth.
“Do you laugh a lot?” I asked but for some reason I didn’t expect him to answer. Maybe because it was kind of a personal question.
His arms were around my waist and he gave me a small, affectionate squeeze.
Then to my surprise, he answered, “On a scale of one to ten with one being Sadie and ten being Indy, I’d say I’m at about a five.”
“Does Indy laugh a lot?”
“All the time.”
My body, which had gone tense, relaxed and I smiled at him.
“That’s good. I like her,” I told him. “She’s nice. She deserves a life of laughter.”
Mr. Mood Swing’s face grew dark and his voice sounded angry when he asked, “And you don’t?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It was implied.”
I thought about what I said then my eyes narrowed in confusion. “I didn’t imply that either.”
“Wasn’t it you who stood in this room last night tellin’ me you didn’t belong with ‘my people’, sayin’ you were Seth Townsend’s daughter and that’s the reason you didn’t belong?”
“Well, I am Seth Townsend’s daughter.” And I was!
“Tu padre was drug dealer, you were a drug dealer’s daughter. You can’t pick your father. No one blames you for the choices he made. You did the best you could with the hand you were dealt.”
I tried to rewind our morning from kiss to now to see where we went awry but Hector gave me another squeeze and the rewind hit pause. This squeeze was affectionate but it was an annoyed affectionate.
“Your lot in life is not payin’ for what your father did. You got a different lot in life, you chose your path the minute you started feedin’ information to me through that drawer.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means a lot of girls livin’ your life wouldn’t make that decision if it meant they couldn’t live in big houses, wear designer clothes and drive expensive cars.”
I blinked at him. “Hector, I don’t know if you know this but I do have a trust fund.”
“You got three million dollars in a trust fund. That is not gonna give you the kind of life you lived with your father.”