Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
And that reminded me that I needed to start trying to be nicer to his future wife the next time I saw her, which was fortunately not going to be today because she was working in New York or something.
We made our way outside, and I had barely gotten through the sliding glass door that Boogie had shoved open for us when I heard, “Ah, shit! Las güeras are here!”
Connie and I looked at each other.
“Zac? Is that you?” the same person called out. I was pretty sure it was my cousin with the neck tattoo. No matter how many times Boogie told him to stop calling us las güeras, the white girls, because we were half, he still did it. Fucker.
And in true Boogie fashion, he muttered, “Shut the hell up, Rico.”
I loved him.
But I still called out, “Don’t be jelly my Spanish is better than yours, Rico.” You’d figure after this long he’d stop pointing out our dad was Irish, but nope. He still said something about it every time we saw him.
He didn’t say anything in return.
“Bianca!” one of my little cousins shouted from out of nowhere, and I barely had time to set my plate of cake and tamales down before a small body banged into the back of my legs. “Will you come jump on the trampoline with me?”
Glancing down, I found my six-year-old cousin with her arms wrapped around me, blinking up at me with deep brown eyes. She had pigtails, one was higher than the other, and she was missing two front teeth. She was fucking adorable, and I had no idea how she was related to the cake-eating demon inside.
“Please?” she begged.
Well, shit. I looked down at her and knew there was only one answer. “Yeah. Give me one second, okay?”
She nodded, and I looked up to find Zac watching me, a little smile on his face.
“I’ll protect your food, don’t you worry.”
I was pretty sure I heard Connie snicker under her breath as she went around me.
I told everyone hi really quick—even annoying Rico—as my cousin tugged me toward the trampoline, and once I was done, I chased her to it, thanking God I’d worn tennis shoes. There were two other cousins already on it, sweaty and laughing. But the six-year-old, who I’d played with on it the last time we’d come to my aunt’s house, kept on pulling at my jeans, saying, “Do it again! Do it again!”
It.
The backflip.
“I don’t know…,” I told her as I jumped a little. “Can’t we just jump?”
“No! Please!” she begged.
I had literally done gymnastics for like three months twenty years ago.
“Please,” she begged some more.
I knew I was going to regret it, I really did. “Okay, let me try,” I told her, already hating myself but not sure how I could get away with it when she was shrieking.
So I did, with a seven-year-old, a six-year-old, and a five-year-old cheering me on.
Well, I tried to do a backflip.
And my back said nope.
I landed it.
But nope.
“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself as I rolled to lay flat on my back, gasping for air because somehow tweaking my lower back had me unable to fucking breathe.
“Are you okay?” my little cousin whispered as she stood over me.
“Are you dead?” the older cousin asked.
“I want to be,” I told them with a groan.
“Want me to get Connie?” my same older cousin asked.
Oh hell no. She was the last person I wanted to come see this and laugh at me for trying to do a backflip I had no business or enough experience to do. “I’m fine, just give me a second,” I grunted, still lying there, flat on my fucking back.
“Peewee?” a familiar voice came out of nowhere. “You okay?”
Well, Zac was marginally better than Connie. I moved my head to the side to see him standing on the opposite end of the trampoline from where we’d entered. He didn’t have a worried expression on his face, but it was something.
“Yeah, you know, just threw my back out a little, I think.”
I could tell the corners of his mouth went up. “Just a little?”
“Yeah, just a little.”
His lips were still trembling from trying not to smile or laugh as he asked, “Need some help?”
“That would be nice.”
Then he grinned, and before he told me what he was doing, his hands went for my ankles and he was dragging me across the trampoline toward the edge. I sat up as much as I could once my butt hit the metal edge, but his arms slid under the backs of my knees and shoulders, and he hoisted me up into his arms, smiling the whole time.
Well, at least until he turned, kneeled, and lowered me to the grass right there, where the majority of the trampoline blocked us from being seen by everyone on the deck.