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  As I run the sand through my fingers, I nonchalantly as possible ask, “Who’s Alberto?”

  Amelia huffs, her tiny chest covered in a pink Disney princess swimsuit rising and falling in a single movement, pinning me with a stare that says I’m the dumbest dude on the planet. I want to laugh out loud at her fierceness. For such a shy girl, she will tell you how it is if she feels you’re a dumbass.

  “Mica’s boyfriend, cabrón! I saw Alberto kiss mi tía. Just like mamá and papi.”

  I’d almost laugh out loud for her calling me stupid if it weren’t for the strange wave of seasickness that surges and swells in my belly – even though I’m not even on the water right now. The air around me stiffens and swelters, and my breath becomes choppy.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Mica’s voice calls out, as I drag my head up to see her beautiful face looking down at me in concern.

  And before I can stop myself, I vocalize my displeasure and vulnerabilities in a harsh statement, completely forgetting we’re in the presence of minors.

  “You have a fucking boyfriend?”

  Mica’s wet braid slaps at her shoulder as she whips her head back in shock. And then realizing my error, my eyes dart to Amelia, who’s sweet cupid-bow lips are opened in awareness of what a bastard I am.

  She clucks, pointing a sandy finger at me. “Tía, he said a bad word. Is he mad at you?”

  I mumble my apology. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was wrong of me. I’m not mad, little angel.”

  My reassuring pat on her chubby hand seems to do the trick and she resumes her play. But then I hazard a look back at Mica, and I don’t get the same offer of forgiveness.

  She drops the baby on his butt and he scoots over like a tiny Godzilla to demolish part of the sand castle Amelia has been working on, which Amelia tries to thwart with a high-pitched, “no, no little brother,” and a wave of her hand.

  When Mica finally sits down next to me, I feel the distance; like an ocean between us that I’ve created with my anger and hostile question. Even though she’s mere inches away from me.

  “Why would you ask that, Lance? You know I don’t have a boyfriend. Because if I did, I wouldn’t be…” she shakes her head, her hand reaching up to wipe some sand off her face.

  She’s misses a few grains, and I assist her with a brush of my fingertips to her cheek.

  “You wouldn’t be what?”

  Instead of moving my hand away, I keep it there, and she instinctively leans into my palm. Her face is warm and flushed from the water activity and the heat of the summer sun.

  “Here with you,” she says, closing her eyes, her lashes fanning out across her sun-kissed cheeks.

  It’s time to grovel. “I’m sorry, Georgie. Amelia mentioned someone named Alberto. Said she’s seen you kiss him and that you’re going to marry him.”

  She gasps slightly and her eyes pop open in alarm, her face tensing under my gentle pressure. She allows my thumb to stroke her cheek – the softness of her skin generates a heat so strong up my arm it’s almost mercurial.

  “She’s just a little girl. She doesn’t understand anything. You might not either.”

  Mica’s deep brown eyes – so trusting and loyal – blink at me with an expression I can’t quite read. Regret. Guilt. Something else that seems to cause the frown at the edge of her mouth. A mouth I’ve touched with my own lips. Devoured until I felt I was going crazy with lust. Kissed as I fantasized about what it would feel like to get lost inside her.

  I drop my hand, picking up a shovel and mindlessly scooping sand around the baby’s feet, who giggles and wiggles his tiny little toes, kicking his legs excitedly.

  “What does that mean? What wouldn’t I understand?”

  Mica turns her head out toward the lake, presumably either to avoid my eye contact or to keep tabs on Alvie, who’s made friends with a few other kids and is playing by the water’s edge.

  “My parents…my papi…are very traditional.”

  When she returns her gaze to me, her lips are pursed in a tight expression.

  “It’s important to him that I marry someone who is Mexican.”

  Married? The word spins in my head like a tornado of confusion. Mica’s only twenty. She’s got two more years of nursing school before she’s graduated. I can’t imagine that she’s ready for marriage.

  “So, this guy, Alberto, is he like your fiancé or something?” I swallow back my jealousy and anger over the fact that someone else has a claim to her.

  Her laugh does little to alleviate the pressure building behind my eyes. I wish I had a cold beer with me to douse the heavy ache in my chest. Or some pills to smooth out the edges of my bitterness that bites deep into my stomach.

  “No, Lance. I’m not engaged to Alberto and he’s not my boyfriend. But if my parents had their way, he would be. In fact, they are torn between pride and irritation that I’m in college right now. I come from a very traditional family and it’s just natural that I would marry someone and begin a family soon. I had to fight tooth and nail to make them understand why my scholarship and attending nursing school at ASU was so important to me. No one else in my family has ever gone to school, except my cousin Juan who attended a technical college. And to make matters worse, because I’m a girl, there’s an antiquated expectation that I marry and have babies as soon as possible.”

  My hand stops playing in the sand – the warmth between my fingers a physical mirror of the warmth from Mica’s voice.

  “Okay, but what does that mean? Do you like this guy? Will you end up marrying him after you graduate? Help me out here, Georgie. I’m at a loss.”

  Something deep inside my chest begs her to say no. To tell me there’s nothing about this guy that she likes. That all she wants is to someday be with me. To be my girl. To wake up in my arms in my bed on some future Sunday morning after a night of crazy fucking, where we lazily draw circles on each other’s backs, our touches igniting the heat once again as we cling to one another.

  God, I’m a fucking pussy.

  Mica shakes her head and the exhale, letting go of those worries and inhaling relief.

  “Alberto is a long-time family friend. He also employs my dad and my brothers Carlos and Mateo. He’s been around my family for years and is kind of like another cousin. He’s much older than me and my dad thinks he’d be a perfect addition to our family. But I don’t and won’t. I don’t feel for him the same way I feel for…”

  Our eyes snap together to hold the other’s gaze. I see everything she isn’t saying to me. All the secrets she’s kept hidden over the last year as it pertains to me and to our friendship. They mirror my own feelings.

  It’s a potent alchemy of attraction that bonds us together. One that can’t be easily replaced or broken. One that I want nothing more than to commit to for the long-haul.

  But one thing at a time.

  There’s still a reluctance that Mica has about giving into me. A yardarm of resistance that keeps me from getting too close to her. To staking my claim with her. I have to find a way to break down those barriers she’s erected and prove to her I’m the man for her. I can’t just storm the castle and pillage her heart. It’s going to be slow and easy, something I’m not accustomed to.

  Just as I’m about to take her hand to show her how she makes me feel and how much I want to be with her, we hear screaming.

  Little kid screams.

  Coming from the lake shore.

  Where Alvie no longer appears to be.

  “Oh, Jesus God…”

  8

  Mica

  My heart stops.

  It stops and the only thing that starts it again and gets the blood pumping once more is the vision of Lance jumping to his feet and running toward the water.

  His actions are swift and fast. Unbelievably fast.

  Whereas my own reaction is slow. As if I am underwater or in a dream slogging through mud and bog to make my way to my nephew.

  I pick AJ up in my arms, who flings his tin
y fists and feet at me in petulant anger because he doesn’t want to leave the sand, but I don’t pay it any attention. I then grab hold of Amelia with unkind force, yank her to her feet and hoist her up to my other hip.

  Making haste, I rush to the water’s edge, where there’s now several parents gathered, grabbing hold of their children, their empty hands placed at their foreheads to shield against the glaring sun that attempts to blind us all as we stare out into the water in alarm and dread.

  My heart literally bottoms out.

  Lance is already chest deep in water, dunking his head underneath the waterline every ten seconds or so, popping back up for breath and orientation before submerging back down again. He looks like a porpoise – up and down, up and down – but with an intensity bold and shark-like.

  The baby wails in my arms and Amelia stands next to me in stunned confusion.

  I’m muttering the Lord’s Prayer in my Spanish language – over and over again.

  “Padre nuestro, que estás en los cielo…”

  “Por favor no mueras. Please don’t die,” I whisper, my tears streaking my cheeks and filling my mouth with its saline warmth, even though everything feels cold and wet.

  “Tía, where is Alvie? What is your amigo, Lance, doing?”

  I squeeze both children tight in my arms, watching and counting the seconds that Lance is underwater. Searching with my eyes around the rippled water to see if I can spot their forms. Hoping and praying with all my might and strength that Alvie will pop up at any moment laughing and sputtering without a care in the world.

  That he’ll reappear and alleviating the dread that is about to bring me to my knees.

  And then I hear, “I see him! Over there!” Someone from the crowd yells, as two other people rush into the water.

  It’s almost unbearable to watch, my heart gripped in fragments of fear. Like a vice crushing my organ in its iron fists. It stops. Starts. Seizes again.

  And then, moments go by and we finally see Lance – his tall form emerging from the water, silhouetted by the bright sun – standing to his full height. The limp body of my oldest nephew is cradled in his arms as he makes his way toward us.

  I collapse to my knees and take large, open mouth gasps, as I feel someone – a woman, I think – take the baby and Amelia from my arms. Leaving me weighted down with only my grief as I await the arrival of the lifeless body of Alvie.

  Moments tick by. Enough time for me to agonize and wonder what I will tell mi madre and mi hermana. What will happen to our family if the outcome is the worst possible thing I could ever imagine? How I could bare to ever look at them if this precious little boy dies?

  Drops of water soak the sand in front of me as Lance drops to his shins and knees, carefully but with exact and hurried movements, laying Alvie down in front of him. Lance gives me a glance filled with fear and dread, and then goes to work.

  This is exactly the type of emergency care I should be able to perform as a nursing student – but that I’m incapable of handling in this moment. Instead, I’m paralyzed with the fear that he’s already gone and will die out here in front of all these spectators before he even reaches the age of six.

  Lance leans over my nephew’s body, turning his head to check for breaths, checking his neck for a pulse and then begins the CPR aid with a calm and certainty that I’ve never seen in him before.

  Short, brief pumps against Alvie’s chest – one, two, three – before he pinches his nose and blows life-saving air into his lungs. He does this on repeat as I watch him go through these motions over and over and over again.

  His composure is so brilliant. I realize I’m in shock and unable to do anything more than watch in horror. My body is a lifeless cold, just like my nephews, and I’m violently shaking with the fear of losing my nephew.

  Lance’s sharp voice cuts into my subconscious. “Mica, check for a pulse.”

  I do as he says, reaching for Alvie’s limp wrist, finding the pulse point and begin counting. It’s faint but it’s there. He’s alive, but not out of the woods.

  The desperate sound of relief that rips from my lungs is enough to encourage Lance to keep going until finally…finally…there is a sputter and a cough. Alvie’s chest rises and falls in manic movements as he gasps for air, coughing and spitting out all the salty lake water that had been sucked in and drowning him.

  “There you go, buddy…you’re okay. We’ve gotchya now. Get it all out – let it all go,” Lance prods, turning Alvie to his side to hold his head and rubbing gentle circles on my nephew’s small back.

  The sounds of sirens in the backdrop grow louder and more shrilling, as the babies next to me wail and shriek just as loud. All I can feel is the crashing throb in my head. The rumbling ache in my heart that threatens to be my undoing.

  He’s alive. He’s not dead.

  And it’s all because of Lance.

  I stare at him in a moment of clarity. This giant man – normally just the life of the party – just saved one of my own. The man who didn’t question it for a moment when he barreled out into the water in search of my nephew.

  The tears that I’ve been trying to hold back, for fear of frightening the kids even further, are now flowing like the dam has broken. I suck in big sobs, my entire body shaking in the torrent of tears.

  Lance cradles Alvie in his left arm and reaches out to me, fumbling awkwardly but finding purchase at the top of my bare knee.

  He gives me a reassuring squeeze. “It’s okay, Georgie. Everything will be okay. I promise you. We’re all good now.”

  Paramedics swarm around us, sending the bystanders and looky-loos off to the side as they begin to take over from where Lance just performed a miracle. He saved my nephew from death.

  His hand leaves my knee and we both stand to allow the medics room to work. A mother of the child that had been playing with Alvie has graciously ushered Amelia and AJ away from the scene as Lance moves to my side and reaches around my shoulder to pull me close.

  He’s still dripping wet. “Towel,” I lamely observe, but he just holds me tighter, unconcerned about his physical state.

  It takes about fifteen minutes for the medics to get Alvie’s vitals and to ask me questions about his health and any allergies he might have. And when they ask me if I’m his mother, I realize with trepidation and dread that I’m going to have to face my sister.

  In fact, I should’ve called her already to inform her of the near death experience her son just experienced. That I caused with my lack of attention.

  But instead, I grab onto the warmth of Lance’s embrace. His arm so confidently and protectively fits around my shoulders. How at any other time I would enjoy the feeling and try to snuggle in to his warm, strong body. But right now, it scares me that I allowed this to happen and my focus on Lance had led me astray.

  “He’s my nephew,” I tell the paramedic. “I’ll need to call my sister to find out what she wants us to do.”

  My hands tremble as I bend down to grab the phone from my bag. As I pull it up, all composure is lost, and I can’t see the keypad through my silent tears. And then I feel Lance’s large, calloused hand – the one that was just working life-saving efforts on my nephew’s chest – take the phone in his grasp.

  “I’ll call her. It’s Therese, right?”

  I hiccup and nod as I watch him take a few steps away from the crowd. During the time he’s on the phone, Alvie has come out of his stupor and is now crying steadily over all the prodding and unfamiliar faces. I bend down to hold him, to tell him he’s okay, to tell him I love him.

  And then, as most children have an uncanny ability to do, he lightens the mood with one question.

  “Can we go get ice cream now?”

  9

  Lance

  I fucking hate hospitals.

  Nothing ever good ever happens in them. They stink of death and pain; hopelessness and loss.

  My head is bent and cradled in my hands as I sit in the waiting area hoping for some news soon f
rom Mica. She’s been in the emergency room with her mother and sister for the last two hours.

  All I can do is sit and wait and hope everything turns out fine.

  Once again, it’s all my fault. I’m no good to anyone. Everyone I care about gets hurt or dies.

  It happened to my younger brother. It happened to my mother. I’ve been cursed since birth and have been told that by my no good, lousy father since the day I let my brother die. I’m a failure and should’ve been the one to die.

  My thoughts are interrupted by a male voice.

  “Excuse me, but aren’t you Lance Britton?”

  I’ve been so deep in thought that I haven’t paid any attention to the comings and goings of people in the hospital waiting room. When I look up, I see a guy wearing a button-down shirt and a vest with khakis. He’s holding a notepad and pen in his hand and there’s a guy with a camera in his hand behind him.

  My brain goes on high alert, but my mouth doesn’t pay any heed to the warning bells. So, I answer honestly.

  “Yeah, I’m Lance.”

  The guy sticks out his hand to introduce himself.

  “I’m David Rodriguez from the Tribune. I was informed you saved a little boy from drowning today and I was hoping to get a few words from you.”

  Ah fuck.

  There is no way I want to draw any more attention to this situation than is necessary. I know Mica wouldn’t want it, nor would her family. And I certainly don’t want to be called out for anything, since it was my fault it happened in the first place.

  I pull out my phone and type a quick message to the team’s publicist, Jacquelin. Although this has nothing to do with basketball, it’s been pounded into our brains since the moment we started on the team that anything to do with the press we need to contact her immediately. So, I do.

  After typing the quick 911 message to her, I meet the reporter’s eyes again.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t say anything without first talking to my team’s PR rep. You understand,” I shrug.