associate,” he added. Braith was tall and muscular and had a full-day growth of stubble on his face. His black hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. His eyes were nearly black and his skin was a deep bronze. He sort of looked like a young Yul Brynner.
“Awe, sorry,” Braith said, climbing out of the hummer and extending his hand. “Not usually so crude around young ladies.” He smiled and, god, if I thought those guys on the hills were gorgeous it was only because I had never seen Braith or his dimples or heard his accent. Oh, man, I flip for accents.
I shook his hand and studied his face. Like Heike, Braith seemed familiar. “No problem. I didn’t understand a word of what you said.” This was, apparently, hilarious to all of them and they laughed until they were holding onto their knees.
It was weird, really weird, because the situation on the mountain felt so serious, like there was a chance those guys could have killed us and now, here my papá and two strange men were laughing their asses off and no one was explaining anything to me and I was getting pretty pissed off.
Heike must have seen the seriousness of my expression because he smacked my papá’s shoulder and gestured for the hummer. “Let’s go back home. Hope Molly doesn’t mind us dropping by.” We climbed into the SUV but I paused. No one ever called my mom Molly except my papá on rare occasions. She’s usually Magda or Mags or sometimes Meg or Maggie, but never Molly to anyone but my papá.
This whole day was getting weirder and weirder.
The morning was quickly fading by the time we got home. If this was a normal day, papá and I would have finished our run and would have been in the middle of a sparring match. I’m glad papá didn’t make me train, but being sweaty and smelly and dirty next to the most handsome man I have ever seen really did not build a girl’s confidence. The drive home lasted 20 minutes, but I tried to push myself as far away from Braith as I possibly could so he wouldn’t get a glimpse - or a whiff - of my grossness.
Not that I entirely cared by the end of the car rid, as Braith was progressively getting on my nerves, anyway. Whenever a gorgeous guy opens up his mouth I get turned off almost immediately, because usually they know they are gorgeous and feel they need everyone else to know this fact as well. Braith was no exception and filled the conversation with a constant stream of macho bullshit that my papá and Heike found hilarious. I never thought my papá would laugh at immature, brutish jokes, but he did. God, men were so perplexingly annoying. Braith’s accent, a big plus. I swoon for accents. But, on top of the cocky bull crap spewing from his mouth - holy crap - he kept winking at me.
I found winking incredibly creepy. Winking just reminded me of a moustached guy hanging outside a high school trying to get a teenage girl into his windowless van.
When we got home, Heike parked the ostentatious vehicle in the street because it wouldn’t fit in our driveway. My grandparents’ car was parked outside so I knew my abuela was waiting to help me get ready for my party.
When we walked in the house, the twins were running around in their underpants screaming and my sister was trying to occupy them. When she saw us her eyes got wide and she stared at Heike. I mentioned before how scary looking Heike was and my sister must have nearly crapped her pants seeing us walk in with this guy, towering over our father with black leather and muscles rippling through his chest and stomach like a Dutch Terminator.
“Gabriela,” our papá said. She started but still looked wide-eyed and terrified. “This is my friend Heike,” my papá nodded to Heike.
Heike smiled and extended his hand. “¿Cómo estás, Gabriela?” I was impressed. Heike’s accent was impeccable, almost like he was a native Spanish speaker.
“Buen,” Gaby said. She was curt and didn’t shake his hand, only stared