Defining Love: Volume 1 (Defining Love #1)

  Books by Elizabeth Reyes

  Moreno Brothers Series

  Forever Mine

  Forever Yours

  Sweet Sofie

  When You Were Mine

  Always Been Mine

  Romero

  Tangled—A Moreno Brothers novella

  Making You Mine

  5th Street Series

  Noah

  Gio

  Hector

  Abel

  Felix

  Fate Series

  Fate

  Breaking Brandon

  Suspicious Minds

  Desert Heat Series

  Desert Heat

  DEFINING

  Love

  Elizabeth Reyes

  Defining Love

  Copyright © 2015 Elizabeth Reyes

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover by Amanda Simpson at Pixel Mischief Design

  Edited by Theresa Wegand

  To Marky and P-Nut

  May you always follow your heart.

  Table of Contents

  Defining Love Volume One

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Defining Love Volume One

  Prologue

  Aaron

  They say life is full of defining moments: moments that lead you down the path to becoming the person you were intended to be—live the life you were intended to live—fall in love with person you were destined to be with. I used to think those moments were easily identifiable. I’d know when I met my soul mate. I’d meet her, fall in love, and then we’d have many more defining moments together. It was exactly how it happened for me and Mia, my girlfriend of over ten years. I’d been with her since high school. We’d shared plenty of other defining moments over the years. She’s a great girl, my best friend, and I had every intention of marrying her. After everything she and I had gone through over the years, I was convinced there’d be no more defining moments for me with any other women.

  Until that unforgettable moment I had with Henrietta Magaña.

  The first time I met her had been as insignificant as any of the other times I’d met one of my kid sister’s new friends. I’d barely noticed her that first time and for good reason. I had no business or interest eyeballing my sister’s friends. Bea was more than ten years younger than I, and though she’d just turned nineteen, I still considered her my baby sister. Her friends were all as young as she was. While I was well aware that at nineteen they were hardly babies, I still couldn’t help but think of them at the very least as little girls. Besides, my heart belonged to one girl and one girl only, and I knew that no other girl could change that. Least of all one of my sister’s friends.

  Then New Year’s Eve happened. It started as innocent, trivial small talk. But the small talk turned into one of the most unforgettable conversations I’d ever had. Henrietta was no trivial little girl. Months later, the experience still had me reeling and questioning everything I’ve ever believed about defining moments and knowing when you’d met the one.

  Chapter 1

  A good friend knows all your best and worst stories.

  A best friend has lived them with you.

  Henri

  Age 15

  “Don’t leave me . . . please.” My lips quivered despite my attempts to be brave and try to be understanding as I’d promised I would be.

  Celia reached out and hugged me. “I am not leaving you,” she whispered against my temple then kissed my forehead. “We’ve been through this before. It’s better if I go. There’ll be more room for you now. You may even get your own bed.”

  “I don’t care about my own bed!” I said, straining to fight the sobs, but knew I was losing the battle. “I don’t want my own bed! I won’t be able to sleep without you in it anyway.”

  I cried openly now. My sister, Celia, was all I’d ever had ever since our mother had dropped us off at a homeless shelter and never returned. I’d only been six at the time and Celia was nine. But even before then, our drugged-out mom was never around, or if she was, she was out of her mind. Celia was who I turned to for any comfort and, as far as I knew, the only family I’d ever had. Her leaving me now hurt a million times more than our mother ditching us.

  “Henri.” She cupped my face in her hands. “We’ve been over this already. I’m eighteen. I can’t stay in foster care anymore. I need to get out of this place. But I am not abandoning you. Do you understand that? I’ll be back to visit you often. I’ll get a phone as soon as I’m able to and call you every day. Be strong, baby sissy. Three years will fly by, and before you know it, you can come live with me, and we’ll be together again, okay?”

  I nodded, but the enormous knot in my throat didn’t allow for any words. She could’ve opted to stay until she was twenty-one. They would’ve let her. Instead, she chose to leave—leave me. My heart was completely crushed. When she walked out that door, I’d be all alone. She’d warned me for years she wouldn’t make it here a day past her eighteenth birthday in foster care, and I’d had that long to prepare. But nothing could’ve prepared me for what I felt when she finally left. Collapsing onto my bed, I cried as I’d never cried in my life and for weeks was so inconsolable I made myself sick.

  Even months later, each time she came to visit, I’d feel a little better, but then she’d leave again, and it’d be days before I could recover. My foster parents became so concerned about my depression they put me in therapy where I learned my issues ran so much deeper than anyone had ever imagined.

  ~~~

  Age 16

  Celia was now living with her boyfriend of just over six months. It’d been a year since she left me behind at our other foster care home. She and her boyfriend lived in a small apartment over the tattoo shop he worked at in the heart of East L.A: a noisy place where his loud and obnoxious friends often came over and hung out and partied all night. They were over so often Celia was getting sick of it, and she said it was no place for me.

  I got it. I was sixteen and determined to graduate in two years with honors. A noisy apartment with rowdy guys partying into the night really was no place for me. The foster care system would never allow it anyway, but my foster parents realized how much I missed her, so they did say I could spend a weekend with her every now and again. Even that Celia balked at. She insisted it just wasn’t a good idea, even if only for an overnight thing, because of all his rowdy friends being there at all hours.

  Celia, on the other hand, had no other options or rather she did but said staying with Kevin was the best one she had. The hope had been that together we’d be able to afford an apartment of our own once I was eighteen. Celia said she didn’t get along with some of the other women at the transitional home she’d first been set up in by the state and just couldn’t stand it anymore. But I knew she just wanted to be with Kevin. She’d now have to pay rent and bills. Any
chance of putting money aside for when it came time for us to move in together was squashed.

  Once again, the feelings of abandonment were brutal.

  I’d finally worked through some of my most pressing anxieties and self-loathing issues about feeling undeserving and unwanted by anyone. Then her rejection of me and her refusal to have me over even for one night started up. Symbolically, she’d left me all over again. Still, I never told her, but I cried more, then, than when we were abandoned as children. More than when we got the news that our mother had been found dead in a crack house in downtown Los Angeles. Of all the tragedies I’d been through in my short life, Celia’s leaving me was the one thing I didn’t think I’d ever get over. It was only then that the memories were triggered. Memories I’d worked so hard to block out. Memories of the horrid people I once referred to as my parents. Celia’s abandonment was now a reminder that these monsters were who created me. Their blood ran through my sister’s veins and mine. We weren’t much different from our parents. Obviously, Celia was proving this to be the case.

  Then we got the call from my social worker, and I was able to once again block the memories—for the time being anyway. They’d found a long-lost aunt of mine willing to take me in. I’d be moving once again. This time I knew it would be different from all the other times I’d moved. This time my sister wouldn’t be with me for the change. Celia assured me I’d be fine.

  “This is our aunt.” She pressed her lips together in reaction to my exasperated frown. “Okay, so we’ve never met her, but how bad can she be? And it’ll be just you and her in her house, not you and ten other foster kids cramped up in one tiny house. Think of all the quiet time you’ll get to study and read!”

  ~~~

  From the moment I met Gemma, I knew things would be different. For one, she wasn’t your typical older Hispanic aunt who loved coddling you to death. Not that I’d know what that felt like, but growing up in East Los Angeles, I’d met plenty of kids my age who actually complained about their well-meaning but overbearing families. Something I could only secretly dream of.

  Gemma was as blunt as they came. My whole life both my sister and I had often been asked politely about our nationality. Like most people in the East Los Angeles area, we were Hispanic, but we’d inherited the slant in our mother’s eyes, which she called catlike and exotic and said one day we’d be grateful for. Though I didn’t remember, according to my sister, one of the few things my mother ever tried to teach her was how to apply her eyeliner over the edge of her lids, adding a wisp at the corners, to accentuate the exotic look even further. It was a lesson my sister had passed on to me. Though at sixteen I wore a much thinner version of the sexy liner my sister had been wearing for years now.

  It was the first thing Gemma had commented on when we were left alone for the first time. And she’d done so in a very Gemma-like fashion.

  “So, what’s the deal with your eyes? Was your mom Italian or somethin’?”

  Italian? I’d been asked if I was Filipino or even an Islander before, but this was a first.

  “No,” I shook my head, confused, but at the same time amused by her pronunciation of Italian with the I as in eye. “Why would you think she was Italian because of my eyes?”

  “You have eyes like that old-time movie starlet. What’s her face?” She snapped her fingers in front of her, trying to remember. “Sofia Loren. The young version, not the old Botox puffed up one. She’s Italian, ain’t she?”

  I’d heard of the actress. But she was older, and for the life of me, I couldn’t visualize her at all. Of course, I looked her up first chance I got and understood why Gemma might think my mom was Italian based on this woman’s eyes. But I explained that, nope, I was plain ole Mexican American, to which she quickly replied, “Ain’t nothin’ plain about being Latina and don’t you forget it.”

  Another thing about Gemma she let me in on right away was that I wasn’t allowed to call her Tia or even Auntie.

  “It’s Gemma.” She’d corrected me the first time I referred to her as Auntie. “And just so you know, I had no idea I had nieces until your social worker hunted me down. I’ve been on the outs with anyone in the family for over twenty years. But I’ve been living alone just as long, so if I’d known about you two, I would’ve taken you both in a long time ago.”

  I hardly slept those first few nights, thinking how unfair it was that Celia and I had gone through so much over the years and all the while we could’ve been living with our own blood, in a home with our own bedrooms, since Gemma’s house was a four-bedroom home!

  When I finally got over the bitterness, I was grateful that at least I’d be spending my last two years here—possibly longer since Gemma did mention I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted but once the foster care checks stopped arriving when I turned eighteen I’d need to get a job or something.

  That worked for me.

  Another thing that had come as a huge and welcome surprise was that Gemma owned two vehicles: a midsize crossover she called her every day car and a small pickup truck she used for all her trips to the Home Depot. She was retired and was a gardening fanatic. Obsessed might be better word for her love of gardening. When she wasn’t inside cooking, she spent the rest of her time out there planting, pruning, and pulling weeds. Both vehicles were kept in tip-top shape, and she gave me free rein of the pickup truck to get me to and from school, except for the days she was planning a trip to the Home Depot, on which, of course, I’d then have the crossover for the day. Either way I wouldn’t have to walk up and down the treacherously steep and narrow roads in the Silver Lake community of Los Angeles Gemma lived in to get to the bus stop.

  Starting a brand new school might’ve been hard for some, but not for me. I was so used it by then that it was no big deal. I was used to the staring faces as I entered each room. I’d been through it enough that I knew in a few days the novelty of the new girl would wear off. I focused on my classes, making sure I was enrolled in the dual-credit courses for college. As a junior, I was way ahead of most of the other students my age, sitting in mostly senior classes.

  The day I met Edi I was pulling the trashcans out from the side of the house to place on the curb. Gemma was busy cleaning up the flowerbeds in her front yard. That wasn’t the first time I’d seen Edi this close up. But like the first time I had at school, I felt star struck. She was one of if not the most popular girl in school. Only unlike most of the popular girls in my previous schools, she seemed very down-to-earth, approachable, and not conceited at all. She was always surrounded by a bunch of her girlfriends or girls who appeared desperate to be her friend. It was almost weird to see her alone.

  Edi stopped on the sidewalk as she made her way home from school. I’d been home for hours, but judging by Edi’s volleyball uniform, she’d just gotten off practice or a game. Glancing at her long firm legs, I secretly envied that my awkward ass would never be a part of any athletic team, let alone one that required wearing these kinds of uniforms. A girl practically had to be model material to look halfway decent in them. Edi looked far more than halfway decent. She didn’t just have a body to die for; she was beautiful too. I was sure every guy in school was probably daydreaming of going out with her. And girls like me were daydreaming of being her.

  “Hey, Gemma!”

  Gemma, who was bent over, kneeling, turned around, lifting her head to get a better view from under her sun hat. Her smile was big and instant. She sat back on her feet. “Hey! How’d we do?”

  “How do you think?” Edi winked.

  On top of it all, the girl had dimples. Yep, life just wasn’t fair. I thought for sure the next thing I’d hear was that she had a 4.0 GPA and was already headed to one of the Ivy League colleges with a full-blown scholarship.

  They talked sports and technique for a bit before Gemma turned to me and then back at Edi. “This is my niece I told you about: Ms. Henri Magaña.” Edi turned to me with a smile. “She’ll be staying with me from now on. Henri, this is Edi.”r />
  “My real name is Erendida,” Edi explained with a smile. “But I prefer the shorter version.”

  I could relate. I never really felt like a Henrietta, though I suspected when I got older I’d be leaning toward the more professional sounding name, especially since I planned to pursue a career in social work.

  I smiled, fidgeting with the bottom of my blouse.

  “I’ve known Edi since before she was born,” Gemma explained with a big smile. “Heck, I watched as her newly married, still wet-behind-the-ears parents moved into that house up the street. Ever since, I’ve watched them fill the nest, and now it’s almost empty again. She’s the last of the birdies left to fly.”

  Edi’s eyes were very friendly and inviting. She’d never come across as snobby or full of herself when I’d seen her at school. But as pretty and popular as she seemed to be, it was still naturally what I assumed. Not fair I know, but up until then, it had been my experience with girls like Edi—the ones destined to be prom queen and marry the star football player.

  “You should’ve told me she was here already,” Edi said, brushing a strand of hair away from her face, and addressed me this time. “I saw you around school and heard you were the new girl, but I didn’t put two and two together.” She turned back to Gemma. “I could’ve showed her around. Made her first day a little less painless.”

  Gemma shrugged. “I figured you two would meet eventually.”

  I stared at Gemma, trying not to appear as annoyed as that made me feel. All that week I’d been a loner during breakfast and lunch breaks, sitting on the bleachers with my nose in a book. Even though I was used to that, it would’ve been nice for a change to have someone like Edi with so many friends to introduce me to people. Being part of the popular crowd was not something I aspired to be. Still, as Edi said, it would’ve made my life those first few days much less painful.