AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Was it weird that she wanted him to hang out with her family? For them to hang out with him?
“Have you been writing?” her father asked when they all ended up in the music room after dinner.
“A little,” she confessed.
Renata sat on the floor with a glass of wine in her hand. “Are you excited to make tamales tomorrow?” she asked with a glint in her dark eyes.
Zara couldn’t help smiling.
Her dad and Renata had met at a tamalada thrown by Renata’s mom. They had lived in the same neighborhood and the single father with the overly talkative little girl drew a lot of attention.
Renata’s mom—or Abuela as all the kids in the hood referred to her, because she treated them all like her own—had decided to make sure Tony and Renata were stationed next to each other for three tamaladas in a row. By the fourth one, Tony had asked Renata on a date, Abuela offered to babysit Zara who had been only seven at the time.
Zara had thought Renata was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She still did. With her dark, dark eyes, bronze skin, constant smile, and thick black hair. Her dad never had a chance.
Bianca came along a year later. They were married a few months after that. Oscar was born on their one-year anniversary.
Renata was the closest Zara had ever had to a mom. She had never treated her any differently than her other children. It never mattered that Zara wasn’t hers by blood, she’d always felt loved and cared for. Which would forever be something she strived to do for others.
Sometimes Zara wondered about her other half siblings. The ones she’d never met. Maybe someday she would try to reach out to them. But not now when she’d have to go through the woman who had abandoned her and her dad when she was less than a year old.
Maybe she would invite them over for a tamalada. It was tradition after all.
“Zara, my love,” her dad said in a tone she recognized immediately. He took Renata’s wine glass and set it on the nearby table. “Would you do me a huge favor?” he asked, reaching for Renata’s hand. He tugged her gently to her feet.
Zara slid onto the piano bench, snickering at the twin eye rolls from her siblings.
Their dad did this. He loved to be mushy with Renata and the more it annoyed the younger kids, the more he did it.
“Would you play our song?” he asked, pulling Renata into his arms.
Maybe this was why Zara had such hope for long term love. Because this was the standard that had been set.
“I’ll sing.”
Her head swung over in time to see Asa enter the room. She had no idea how long he’d been there. Obviously long enough to know what was going on. He shot her a wink (yes, a fucking wink) and crossed to the chair she’d sat in last night. He picked up the Fender Stratocaster and plugged it in.
Renata and her dad barely noticed as they were already dancing without the music anyway.
But Bianca’s eyebrows were in her hairline as her gaze bounced from Asa to Zara and back again.
Zara was still stuck on the wink to be honest. But also, did he look different?
Hmm. He almost seemed…happy?
He quickly fiddled with the settings on the guitar that he probably knew better than anyone and then looked to her to start.
Which she did.
He came in at the exact right time (how?They hadn’t rehearsed or even talked about playing this one together) and then his voice…
Electricity buzzed along her skin, across her shoulders and down her arms. When the chorus started, she automatically sang the harmony.
Again. Full. Body. Chills.
Like the day they had sung while painting Nikki’s upstairs, their voices joined effortlessly.
He even did the Richie Sambora guitar solo!
