I looked up at Hector. “Hector, let them sit in the hot tub.”

Hector looked down at me, face still angry but for some reason I knew he was not angry at me and he started, “Sadie –”

“What’s it going to hurt?” I broke in.

I watched Hector’s teeth clench and a muscle leap in his cheek.

“That’s okay,” Gloria said and Hector and my eyes moved to her. “We’d have to use the bathroom to change and we’d have to come back in to dry off afterward. We’d probably be noisy,” she explained, now smiling the Glamorous Chavez Smile at me (hers had a dimple, like Eddie’s). “We didn’t know you were here, Sadie, or we wouldn’t have woken you up.”

“No problem,” I told her, wanting to laugh at her implication that if it had been just Hector at home they wouldn’t have hesitated waking him up.

“We’ll come back when you’re here some other time. We’ll all sit in the hot tub,” Gloria invited herself over.

Hector’s body went tight.

I was thinking I’d likely be in Crete by that time, licking my wounds and obsessively sketching versions of Hector’s celebration tattoo, my father’s skull, my beautiful rose even though I didn’t sketch, I’d have all the time in the world to teach myself.

Instead, I said, “I’ll look forward to that.”

“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.

He was still wearing his cutoff pajama bottoms but he’d added a dark-gray, long-sleeved, skintight thermal. He was standing by the sink on the opposite side of the room, his side was partially turned to the counter, hip resting against it, eyes looking out the window over the sink, coffee cup held aloft but forgotten in front of him.

His mind was on something.

I stared at him and thought for the millionth time that he never looked better.

The kitchen had not been renovated and it looked like an extension of the restoration efforts. Paint brushes and drying rollers lying out on rags on the countertops, buckets on the floor, bags filled with I didn’t know what stacked in the corner.

I must have moved because Hector’s eyes sliced to me, his thoughtful face warmed and he demanded softly, “Come here.”

As if guided by their own personal brain, my feet moved me toward him as I watched him put his mug on the counter. When I got within reaching distance, one of his arms came around my shoulders, the other one around my waist and he curled me into his heat.

His head came down and he gave me a soft, sweet kiss (with tongues) that lasted until my arms slid around his waist and my body melted into his. Then his head lifted.

“You want coffee?” he asked quietly.

Robbed of speech by the kiss, I nodded.

Before he could move, there was a clamor from the other room. A loud clamor.

Our bodies grew tight in unison before we heard Blanca call, “Hola, mi hijo! Dónde estás?”

“Fuck,” Hector muttered.

I stared in horror at Hector’s set face.

“Hector!” Blanca shouted.

“Kitchen!” Hector shouted back.

Oh no.

Someone, please tell me Hector didn’t just tell his mother our whereabouts.

I was standing, in Hector’s t-shirt, in Hector’s arms, in Hector’s kitchen and Blanca (from what I could hear, carrying rustling bags) was headed our way.

My body prepared to flee. Hector’s arms went tight. Blanca filled the kitchen doorframe.