Chapter 23

23

My sisters and I decide on lunch at Moonshine Pizza, where they'll give us three free garlic breadsticks with our order. I don't typically indulge in simple carbs this many times in a week, but with everything that's happened in the last forty-eight hours, I order not one, but two Sicilian squares topped with extra Parmesan cheese, and I eat my garlic breadstick first, while waiting in line to pay, dipping it in the complimentary garlic butter they offer by the plastic forks and knives. Because who cares what I smell like when I'm never going to touch Carter, or any man for that matter, again?

"Tell me about your job," I say to Sky as we wait for them to heat up our slices.

Sky's face breaks into the biggest smile I've seen on her in a long time. "Oh, my gosh, Teal. It's so fun. The basement is dark and creepy, like in a horror film, and it's dusty . There are little windows at the tops of the walls and you can see the dust motes dancing in them like magic fairy dust!"

I huff out a startled laugh. "No offense, Sky, but literally nothing you've just said I would describe as fun ."

She grins even bigger in response, and seeing her so happy…damn. It makes my chest feel warm and fuzzy, like that one scene in the Grinch film when his heart just about busts out of his chest. "Seriously. It's fun. The books are so old that I have to wear dainty white gloves when I handle them. Right now I am documenting the most damaged ones so we have digital copies of everything before they basically disintegrate."

"Are any of the books cool?" Sage asks between texting Tenn.

"They're okay. Kind of hard to read, 'cause a lot of them have been eaten by little book bugs."

"Ew." I wrinkle my nose. "Well, I suppose dainty little white gloves matches your sexy librarian aesthetic." I nod to her outfit. She's got on a gray button-down tucked into what I'm pretty sure is the tweed Chanel pencil skirt Amá Sonya and I found for her when we had that all-damn-day shopping excursion. Her stockings are black and lacy, and her shoes are adorable-yet-hot Mary Janes.

"I guess," she says, her face turning pink. When we walked in here, nearly every person turned their head to check her out, regardless of their gender. And it wasn't that she's the "town freak." Trust me. I know lusty gazes when I see them, and people are still giving her bedroom eyes. She still has no idea how beautiful she is, but my guess is that will come with time.

"So Nadia and Abuelo Gene?" Sage says when we're settled at a table with our food. "Are you for serious about that?"

I raise an eyebrow. "It came from the elder bitch's lips herself."

"Who, Amá?" Sky asks.

I snort. Fair assumption, I suppose. "No, the other elder bitch. Abuela Erika."

"So she still hates you, huh," Sky says.

I shake my head with a sarcastic smile. "The word ‘hate' doesn't even begin to touch it. If we were in this same scenario a couple hundred years ago, she'd frame me for witchcraft and toss me in a river herself."

My sisters laugh, but my laugh isn't as robust. It was something in Erika's last words to me. How much even truer they ring now. You are broken, just like her. Just like your mother, and your sisters. Broken.

I don't think my sisters are broken. But there sure was something off about Mama…and no one can deny my own brand of fucked-up-ness.

"I want to hear Erika's exact words," Sage demands, pointing a breadstick at me.

I can feel the damn blood sinking from my face to my heart, and both Sage and Sky tilt their heads at me in confusion.

"Was it really bad?" Sky asks. "Did she try to curse Nadia as well?"

"Oh." For some reason, my brain malfunctioned, and I thought they were asking about the other crap Erika told me. The stuff I was literally just repeating to myself. I try really hard to make my sigh of relief silent, but there's no way I'm fooling either of these mujeres. I swear, both Sage and Sky have a secondary gift of sussing out people's exact emotions.

"What did you think I was asking, exactly?" Sage asks after she finishes her pizza crust. Normally she goes for plain old four-cheese, but the baby must have ruined her taste buds for the time being, because she is now working on her second piece of bacon, olive, and pineapple .

I decide that ignoring her last question in favor of answering her first is the best course of action. "Erika said something like You Flores women think you're all powerful and you hypnotize men with your evil, stupid magic, but you can't get away with it while I'm around, and blah, blah, Gene chose me over Nadia despite her witchy and wicked ways! "

Sky laughs. "She didn't say it like that, did she?"

I shrug and force a smile. "Look, it may not be verbatim, but that definitely covers the essence of her message."

I check my phone again, where there's been radio silence from Nadia over my asking her about Abuelo Gene.

"So Erika knows, you think?" Sage asks. "About…our gifts?" She lowers her voice so that Sky and I can barely hear her.

I shrug. "She seems to know something but honestly, I wasn't exaggerating that she thought it involved hypnotizing good men into behaving badly. So she obviously either didn't get any true information, or she twisted it in her vindictive mind." I cross my legs under the table and wince. Damn, I'd forgotten to bring my painkillers and my ankle's already throbbing like a bitch. Car shopping after this is going to suck so bad.

"Do either of you have Advil?" I ask.

Sage murmurs yes in response as she digs through her bag. "So you tripped on the beach, huh?" She hands me two Tylenol pills while surveying my leg. But she's not seeing anything unusual because the lounge pants I wore are low and wide-legged and my comfiest Adidas cover everything else ankle-related. As in, my whole feet.

"Yeah, while running." I don't make eye contact with either of them as I down the pills and push up, holding almost all my weight on my good side. "Let's go, chicas. The car dealership closes at four today."

"Wait," Sky says. "You were serious? About getting me a car? Like… what ?"

"Yes. I am buying you a car. And you know what? Sage, I'm getting you a car, too." It's not really fair that Sage had to save up to buy that raggedy old van that she's still driving over a decade later. I insisted that Nadia buy me a new car—and it had to be new, because I was a brat—and I didn't bat an eye when my sister came home with what is basically a warped, paint-chipped metallic rectangle stapled to wheels. There's no way she can drive that for much longer, and it can't be safe for a baby, either.

"So Erika gave you the money?" Sage asks.

"Yes. Sort of." It feels too complicated that Carter gave me an advance on it, but whatever. "Come on, muévete, muévete!" I hurry out, putting too much weight on my bad ankle in the process. Tears sting in my eyes at the pain, but I push on.

Sky chatters about old books and dust motes all the way there, and at the car dealership, both Sage and I push her to make a decision, since she can't seem to manage it even after an hour and a half of looking at the same three cars. "This feels like too expensive a gift," she tells me, but it really isn't. If we were at a Lexus dealership, okay, or even a new car dealership, I'd understand. But these vehicles are all used, and they're working well, and they're all around ten to fifteen grand.

Compared to eight years of her life gone? That's fucking nothing .

After only twenty more minutes of hemming and hawing, she chooses a two-year-old Volvo C70—a convertible!—in a shimmering baby blue. She's so excited, she can't stop clapping her hands together like a little kid. "Look! The interior seats are red!" she tells us with several hand claps. "Oh, gosh, it still smells new!" She somehow manages to clap her hands while sticking her whole head through the front passenger-side window.

"What about you?" I turn to Sage, who's watching Sky with a faint, sweet smile on her face.

"Hmm?" She raises her eyebrows as she turns to me.

I gesture to the glare emanating off the vehicles surrounding us for a mile in each direction. "Which one do you want?"

"I don't need a car, Teal."

I scoff. "Uh, yeah, you do. You shouldn't be driving that old garbage anymore."

"Come on." She laughs. "The van isn't garbage! It hasn't broken down once in ten years!"

"The back window is held together with packing tape, Sage."

She sighs and I feel my heart lift, because I am certain she's about to give in. But instead, she says, "I don't need a car because Tenn's giving me one for my birthday."

It's stupid that I'm disappointed by this news. Look, I'm not mad that her awesome, hot, soon-to-be husband is buying her a car. But how else am I supposed to make it up to her? All that crap I put her through, blaming her for Sky's death? Punching her in the face so that she needed stitches? Growing a few dahlias doesn't really cover that. "Are you sure, though? What if Tenn and I put our money together and got you something extra nice?"

She runs her hand over her belly. If you squint, you can make out the first hints of her bump, even though the baby's still the size of a very small marble. "I'm sure."

I run a hand over my face and lean against the car to take my weight off my feet. Sky's inside, adjusting the seat between bouts of hand clapping. The Tylenol took the edge off, but now my good side is sore because it's doing all the work. "What if I got you whatever you needed for the nursery? The crib, the bouncer, the décor. Bookshelves, paint—"

"Teal. We're good on all that. Plus, that's what baby showers are for."

"But—"

"Teal." Her voice is firm. "We're good."

Even though I know she doesn't mean it that way, I feel it like a gut punch. Old Teal would've snapped at her with something hurtful, to try to dull the pain of what seems like Sage's rejection of my goodwill. Instead, I hold my breath. I should be counting it, but whatever. When I finally let it out in an annoyed huff, thunder rumbles in the distance.

"We should get the paperwork done before it storms," I say to Sky, and then I limp toward the main building.