Page 87 of Unbreakable Thread

I must have called him drunk.

Scrubbing my face, I shrug. “I did⁠—”

“Then, it’s best to move on, Max… Why do you keep on with her? She’s probably going to get knocked up by her professor, anyway. You know all those girls have kinks like that.”

Something went still in me. “She didn’t sleep with him.” My voice is hard with a bite at the end.

“Here you go again, defending her.” Carlos drops a shell to the side, then reaches into the bag.

I get up slowly. Walk to his desk. Place both palms flat on the surface and lean in until I can see him decide whether to hold my gaze. He held it. I’ll give him that. “Let me get one thing straight when it comes to my woman. It’s not your damn business. I might be pissed at her, but it doesn’t give you a free pass to talk shit about her.”

He lifts his hands up. “Perdón.” Something in his expression changed that I can’t pinpoint.

“I’ll meet you in the ring.” My voice drips with rage.

My watch reads nine fifty a.m., and the heat is already pressing against my skin like an iron. A droplet races from my collarbone to my navel as I guide the final wooden beam into place, the concrete still wet enough to accept it but already stiffening at the edges, completing the skeleton of what will become a gazebo. I grab a shirt from the floor and wipe the sweat off my face that stings my eye. Today is the first time I’ve canceled all my plans in a long time. Saturday morning, I’d started it at six a.m. I didn’t have a plan exactly. Just the wood and the concrete and something to do with my hands that wasn’t hitting anything. Bob and Henry usually have something set up for me. Today I wanted to get this gazebo started.

As I head to the kitchen for a drink of ice-cold water, the doorbell chimes. When I open the door, the air is knocked out of me. I wasn’t expecting her. We both stare at one another, what feels like minutes when it’s only been seconds. My gaze is on her oversized sweatshirt. It’s a hundred and ten today, and she’s wearing that. She’s going to cook herself in there. Her eyes hold everything she wasn’t saying. I’ve always been able to read her. Even now, even angry, I could see it all—the hurt, the love, the fear, the exhaustion underneath all of it.

“Hi,” I say dryly. I picture her laughing and having a good time with the professor. But I don’t know if she did all that.

Her gaze is on my chest. “Why are you sweaty?” The look on her face tells me exactly where her mind went—in some sexual activity. Then again, I did put those thoughts in her head the last time we spoke.

“I was working.” I cross my arms over my chest. “Did you need something?”

The keys rattle in her shaky hands. A small part of my heart softens only because I hate to see her like this, but I can’t help it; I’m pissed and not ready to talk to her.

“Sorry to bother you… Um, I…asked you last time if you could go to Utah with me. Can you come today? Like now.”

Utah. Johnny said she was spending some time there visiting someone. “Why?”

“I want to show you something.” Or someone, but she doesn’t say.

“I’m not going for a two-hour drive if you don’t say where.” Then I’ll be stuck with her in the car, breathing the same air. Either will fight like roosters, or I’ll end up fucking her in the backseat of my car, reminding her who she belongs to. No, she’s not an object, but she’s fucking mine.

“It’s a surprise…and happy birthday, Max.”

That’s unexpected. I don’t know why. Something moves in my chest that I wasn’t ready for. I turn twenty-six today, but I’ve never really celebrated it besides Carlos and Ness inviting me for dinner. I’ve never spent a birthday with the woman staring at me with hope in her brown eyes.

Before I can stop my loose lips, the words spill out. “What are you going to show me, or who? Is it another man who’s been keeping your bed warm?”

A flash of outrage flares through her eyes. “Don’t be a dick, Max.”

Sweat is rolling down her forehead, and out of habit, I wipe it off her. It only has her frowning at me. I’m curious to find who she’s been visiting. Maybe Rowan is in a mental hospital, but would she be visiting him? I highly doubt it. “Come in.” Into your own house that you have a key to, I want to say instead. I gesture, stepping back. “I’m going to shower, then we’ll leave.”

She nods, and I run up the stairs.

Thirty minutes later, we are on the road. I blast the AC and turn up the radio. “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinéad O'Connor plays. Every chance I get, I glance at her. She’s on her phone or moving the box at her feet. It’s the birthday gift she left at my desk. I brought it home to open it, but I ended up forgetting it in here. Turning the radio down, I say, “I didn’t get a chance to open it. I will when I get back…and gracias corazón.” I jut my chin. “For the gift.”

“You’re welcome,” she whispers, glancing out the window, staring at nothing but desert sand and cactus.

I raise the volume and set my truck on cruise control. It’s an awkward drive. There is so much I want to talk about, but I don’t even know how or where to start. Should I do it now? Or would it be best to wait until we’re on the way back? Or when we get home. It’s like we lost our way somehow.

Thirty minutes later, I park at a truck stop to pump gas. I stretch my legs and twist to my side. Sol steps out of the truck. “I’m going to the restroom.”

“Give me a second. I’ll walk you,” I tell her in our native tongue.

“It’s okay.”