Isabel let out a sarcastic laugh. “Looks aren’t everything, missy. I think you know that better than anyone.”
Valerie pouted.
Isabel jumped off up and sat next to Valerie, putting her arm around her. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Valerie shrugged. “I’ll get over him if it’s the last thing I do.”
Even as she heard her own words, after last night, she knew it would be a long time, if ever, before she got over Alex Moreno.
*
It was almost impossible to concentrate on the payroll with Valerie on his mind again. The whole damn week Alex thought of Valerie constantly and how different it felt to kiss her now. He was still trying to figure out what bothered him more, that she moved on or the fact that he’d been so blown away by seeing her again. He’d figured as much about her moving on. What didn’t make sense was why the hell it troubled him so much.
When he first met her, his freshman year of college, it was supposed to be just for fun. She was still a senior in high school and Angel had just started seeing Sarah. When she mentioned her cousin having a crush on him he was curious. After meeting her it had been just that, fun. Then his grades started plummeting and it almost cost him his scholarship.
In the very beginning, Valerie was all for a physical relationship, no strings attached. And though he didn’t like the idea of her with anyone else, he pretended to go along. He needed to find the time to get some school work done, and still try to get his fill of her on his down time. But he never seemed to be able to. The more he was with her the more he wanted her.
Though their relationship had never been classified as a bona fide exclusive one, the time he’d spent with her was the closest he’d ever come to being in one. For a while she seemed content with their off and on rendezvous, some of which began to last longer and longer. But then he’d have to leave for road games and cram for tests and it was off again. Sometimes he disappeared on her for days without answering her calls. He never told her why. He couldn’t, even though he knew she was thinking the worst.
Then after showing up and catching him with his tutor, it was over. The only time she’d bothered to answer her phone in the entire time since then was a few days after that night. That was only to warn him not to show up unannounced at her place in case she had company. She said she didn’t want things getting ugly. Things sure as hell would’ve gotten ugly, and he was furious. But after calming down he knew it was his own fault.
At first he thought it was just like one of the many other times she’d cut him off. But he soon found out she meant it. After the one maddening call she answered, she never once picked up any of his calls or returned any of his texts again. He thought if he gave it some time she’d come around. But after months of not hearing from her he figured she’d moved on. Strangely, all this time he thought he was okay with it.
With everything going on in his life, he had little time to dwell, on his love life. After breaking his ankle pretty bad during one of his college football games, several surgeries later the doctors confirmed the worst. His playing days were over and just like that his scholarship was gone. Alex had fallen into a major self pity, damn-it-all-to-hell, funk.
His parents insisted on paying the rest of the way until he was done. Alex knew how expensive that would be, and as hard a time as he’d been having keeping his grades up, he wasn’t going to waste their money. He dropped most of his classes, promising he’d finish up eventually. He was now down to one online class a semester, and had taken the restaurant on full-time.
With the restaurant doing so well, the family decided it was time to expand. His father had talked about it for years. Since his dad had been smart enough to purchase the property years ago rather than continue leasing, the place was theirs to do what they pleased. So, in the last year, on top of everything else that was going on in his life, Alex took on the major task of overseeing the renovations.
They weren’t just any renovations either. In the past couple of years it had become harder and harder to accommodate large parties without having to reserve a big part if not the entire restaurant. Alex suggested adding some kind of banquet room so they could reserve that for private events without having to shut down the restaurant. He meant a small room off to the side that maybe held forty to fifty people.
He should’ve known better. Like the wedding, his father thought big. A second floor was added with a lavish banquet room that could accommodate up to five hundred people but could also be broken down into smaller rooms for smaller parties. The restaurant was under construction for months.
With everything going on, he hadn’t put much effort into reconnecting with Valerie. Though he had to admit he’d never stopped thinking about her and every now and again still called in vain.
Ironically, as bitter as it was losing his scholarship and having to go to therapy to get his ankle back to at least feeling normal, it served as a distraction.
Then his parents started leaving for weeks at a time to visit his ailing grandfather in Mexico. They left him with the full responsibility of running the restaurant while they were gone. When his grandfather passed, his father took it very hard. He decided it was time to retire and spend more time with the family back in Mexico.
The reigns were passed on to Alex, who was the only one of his brothers not in school full time. He took his responsibility of keeping the family business running as well as it always had very seriously. His older brother Sal was working on his masters, and his younger brother Angel just graduated from college… before him. This was his way of making it up to his parents about school, and he’d be damned if he screw it up.