Never Just Friends by Katerina Winters
Chapter 3
"Yes, of course," Maritzia tried to cut in with the talkative woman. "But…but as I was saying this case is becoming more of a civil matter than a criminal matter, Mrs. Martinez," she explained. "From your account and a few other witness statements, we know that it was your ex who took your kitchen appliances—" she was forced to pause as the woman began to argue again. "—but Mrs. Martinez, this is where it gets complicated." She leaned both elbows on her desk and willed the difficult woman to listen to her. "Your ex, Mr. Martinez, claims he has complete right to take them because he can provide receipts that he bought the items."
Holding the phone away from her ear, Maritzia closed her eyes and listened to the flurry of anger from the woman.
A ding on her computer drew her attention away from the woman's rants and Maritzia clicked on the notification at the corner of her screen. Pulling up the email, she smiled at the beautiful images of the Swiss Alps. Leaning back in her chair with the phone still cradled on her shoulder, Maritzia looked at the occupant of the desk opposite hers. Leaning back in his own seat, Cade gave her an eyebrow-wiggling grin before mouthing "let's just escape."
Good Lord, she wished.
The ring of his own phone demanded his attention and forced her to tune back into the current rant on her phone. Even through the woman’s now frantic tirade, Maritzia still managed a smile at the image on her screen. Clear blue skies, no doubt crisp air, the snowcapped mountains in the distance of the rolling green valleys, it all looked like a dream. She had always wanted to travel abroad, more so than the trips to Mexico and the Dominican Republic that she had taken with her friends and cousins. Real travel that required special clothes and gear, that required the basic knowledge of a new language—an adventure.
It seemed from the time she graduated high school, her life had been a predestined, greased slide shooting her down the barrel of life. When she had told her Uncle Andres, in all seriousness years ago that she wanted to be a police officer, he had told her exactly what she would need to do to be accepted, and once she was ready, he would transfer her to his station. From high school to college, then directly into the academy, it felt like her life was starting to run on an automated course, no longer needing her consent. Only two years in now to their relationship, Victor had begun dropping little hints about their future and starting their own family. A conversation she knew that would soon escalate from mere hints to actually happening—something she desperately did not want to happen.
She hadn't even been able to travel and see the world like she had always wanted, dammit! Yes, she was fortunate to have the career she always wanted, especially considering the complete nepotism that put her in that position. She should be happy, a phrase her mother hammered down on her head whenever she even sensed her only daughter's wanderlust.
Maritzia could imagine her mother's flurry of Spanish aimed at her.
"You said you wanted to be a police officer. Well, you got it, thanks to the kindness of your uncle. Not everyone can get a chance like this. How would it look now that you got promoted and then leave for weeks to go off and have fun?"
And she was right. For years, Maritzia held off on taking any serious vacations, stacking up her paid leave and busting her ass at work to show not only her uncle, the chief, that he did not make a bad decision, but also to show everyone else that her promotion, though a flagrant use of her family connections, wasn't just means for her to goof off and not take it seriously. She just couldn’t help but wonder when she would ever get to use the time she had saved and live the dreams she wanted.
~*~
"Hey, where have you two been? We've been waiting." Carlos called out from the other end of the lunchroom.
Holding the door open for Maritzia, who still had their basketball resting under her arm, Cade gave Carlos a tired look as Ritz answered.
"Oh really? For what…" Maritzia held up her watch and returned a critical look to her brother. "Ten minutes, now?" She gave him a doubtful look. "That was just too long to bear, was it?"
Sitting next to Valerie and across from Victor, Carlos smirked as all three of them waited for Maritzia and himself to walk across the empty police cafeteria. It was a little past one o'clock and all the personnel had gone back to work after their lunch break, leaving the cafeteria deserted and the little café shuttered. It was just the five of them in the big empty room.
Approaching the table, Cade glanced from Carlos to Victor and stopped himself from sneering as the man watched Maritzia come closer. The look on his face was a mixture of surprise and humor as he took in her attire, as if a quip about her clothes sat at the edge of his tongue.
Cade glanced back at Maritzia as she pulled out her own seat next to Victor. Dressed in a pair of grey basketball shorts and a t-shirt that read "Bronx Police" across it in colorful lettering, Cade smiled. He liked her laid back, sporty look. With her thick hair pulled into a messy bun at the top of her head, he enjoyed seeing her natural curls fighting to be seen again in the areas where she had sweated. He liked the sheen to her brown skin and thought back to the time when he had left for the army when he was eighteen and she was only sixteen. There were so many of her basketball games that he had missed during his service. Games he had been forced to watch recorded, sent days later from one of her brothers or cousins. It just wasn't the same. He had to cheer on his best friend from a folding chair in the barracks halfway across the world, knowing the game had long since been over and the winners already determined. But playing with her now, seeing her sweat and glare at him as she attempted to cross him up on the court more than made up for those lost chances.
"Yeah, well," Carlos sighed loudly. "You don't have to listen to Victor explain how he thinks the Celtics are really going to pull through and defeat the Heat in the playoffs.”
"Oh, yes I do, believe me," Maritzia grumbled and Cade didn't miss her eye-roll.
More of a sports player than a sports watcher, Cade knew Maritzia did not necessarily appreciate Victor's almost fanatic love for talking and watching sports.
Cade sat down at the head of the table, with Maritzia on his right and Valerie on his left. Handing him a yellow and white Tupperware container, Valerie gave him a friendly smile before passing one to Maritzia and the rest.
Cade felt the warmth of the food and felt himself grow excited.
"My god, Val, I have no idea how you keep guys from banging down your door every day," he said, giving her a broad grin.
With the same thick, black hair like Maritzia, Valerie wore hers curly and loose around her shoulders. She was a soft, curvy woman that would make any reasonable man want to reach out and hold her. A homemaker through and through, she was a sweet gentle woman with only a hint of that fiery DeLeon personality buried deep inside.
Valerie lifted her chin and tried to give him a haughty smile, but her cute, round face just turned it into a pout. "I'm very discerning," she admitted.
More like her brother and father were practically feral. Hell, Cade had even seen Luis and Carlos threaten would-be suitors away from their angelic cousin.
"Good, because the men out here are trash." Cade smiled mischievously before pointedly looking at her cousin sitting beside her. "Just take Carlos for example."
Everyone laughed at that, including Carlos, who gave an unapologetic shrug.
Taking a drink of water, Maritzia looked at her cousin. "How's business?"
"It's good," Valerie answered, not looking up from her food.
Cade could hear the pitched tension in her voice.
Carlos waved his spoon in the air as he spoke around a mouth full of food. "Oh, business is great. Your brother on the other hand is being an asshole."
"You mean your brother as well?" Maritzia corrected as she braced her elbow on the table and placed her chin in her hand as if preparing herself for a long-drawn-out conversation on the subject.
Carlos muttered something in Spanish and Cade was sure he heard the word culo under the man's breath.
"You know how serious Luis takes the business," Maritzia tried in a mollifying tone.
"And I don't?!" Carlos exclaimed, thankfully swallowing his food. Leaning forward against the table, he stared at his sister with a determined look. "Let me tell you what this pendejo said to me…"
Cade just smiled as he scooped more of the delicious black beans, chunks of savory sirloin, and rice onto his spoon. At least he wouldn’t have to hear this explanation when he went home tonight. Taking another bite, Cade didn’t bother biting back a groan at the wonderful flavor, earning him a glancing smile from Ritz and a beaming look of pride from Valerie. Everyone ate and listened as Carlos went into detail about how Luis was micromanaging his decisions at their family’s real-estate firm and making life at the office miserable with his superiority complex. Occasionally, Valerie calmly interjected with an agreement or added detail that Carlos forgot.
After about twenty minutes of ranting, to which Cade could see Maritzia listening intently, nodding, and trying to mediate her brother's temper, Carlos finally calmed down. Visibly relaxing in his seat, Carlos began eating his food that sat forgotten during his venting. Angry as he was, everyone at the table knew not to take his tirade too seriously.
Ever since Cade had met the brothers, he had realized the two were like oil and water, their personalities clashing like a cruel joke. As a kid, he would come over and hang out, playing video games or watching TV in their room, and Cade always found the condition of their room highly amusing and insightful at once. Sloppy and carefree, Carlos's side of the room was a haphazard zone of strewn clothes, lopsided posters, and random sports equipment. The other side of the room, cleaved in half by an invisible but well-known and respected line, made the room look like a before and after photo. Fastidious to the point of a complex, Luis's side of the room was military neat. There was absolutely nothing out of place. Even the sheets on his bed, unlike his brother's, were pulled taut making the bed appear as flat as a board. Cade always liked to imagine the day they had both moved out to their own places was a night of intense celebration, not only for them, but for Ritz, relegated her whole life as a mediator between the two.
Nodding, Maritzia looked down at her food, her brown eyes deep in thought. "I’ll call Luis later and talk to him."
"I don't need you to call him, Ritz," Carlos snapped back.
The whole table went quiet.
Cade had the uncontrollable urge to reach across the table and slap the back of Carlos's head, but he didn't have to. Looking at Maritzia's face, everyone tensed. Contrary to her brothers, both whose tempers flared wild and quick, Maritzia was more of a slow, simmering burn. It took a lot to get her well and truly angry. She was the type to suffer in silence, suppressing her anger until the final straw fell.
Arching one perfectly arched brow in silent warning, Maritzia stared at her brother in a wordless look that calmly said "say that again. I dare you."
Dropping his gaze back to his food, Carlos gave her an apologetic mumble. "Just tell him to ease the hell up before I fart in his bougie ass eight-dollar water."
Maritzia blinked and burst into laughter, the tension from the table immediately dispelling.
"So, what's been going on with you guys?" Valerie asked in a cheery attempt to change the subject. "Any new exciting police drama?"
Carlos snorted. "What the hell is Victor going to tell us?" he asked, giving Victor a taunting smile from across the table as he ate another spoonful of his cold food. "Horror stories about coming in to find the guns not organized by size?"
"Hey," Maritzia shot back. There was a thump underneath the table and Carlos groaned in pain. "Supply sergeant is a coveted position," she informed him. "There are loads of people who would sell their left foot to have Victor's job. Isn’t that right?"
The prideful smile Victor wore at Maritzia's immediate defense faded when they all realized she had turned in Cade's direction for backup.
Flicking his gaze over her head to Victor's, Cade could see the burning dislike in the man's eyes towards him. A mean smile edged at the corner of Cade's lips. He so very badly wanted to fuck with the guy, but he resisted. Ritz had enough on her hands with Luis and Carlos always picking on the poor bastard. He knew she would not appreciate it at all if he joined in too. Dropping his gaze from the man, Cade looked to Ritz's waiting eyes and gave her a big smile and nodded, her shoulders visibly relaxing at the support.
"Yep," he said sitting back in his chair nursing his bottle of water. "Every guy I knew in the army would've killed for that position," he lied.
Only the guys too lazy or too chicken-shit to see any action wanted that dumb position. The role of supply sergeant was normally reserved for older seasoned vets or someone that had been injured and needed light duty.
"See," Maritzia said, giving Carlos a challenging look.
Knowing when to back down from a fight, Carlos lifted both hands and began to say something.
"Hey, you can make fun all you want," Victor said, his tone sharp. "But I much rather do this than have to be stuck in the family business, told what to do all day."
Bright anger flashed in Carlos's eyes and Cade inwardly groaned. This was one of the many problems with Victor, the man always went too far when he tried to take shots back. Luis, Carlos, and Valerie's brother, Pedro, were professional shit-talkers. On day one of meeting the three guys years ago, Cade had gotten ragged on, from the way he dressed to his supposedly bad edge-up, all the while they helped carry his boxes from the moving truck to his new room. Having grown up in a neighborhood in Philadelphia where guys his age talked the same type of shit, Cade was well versed in throwing it right back without any sort of intent behind it. The goal was to make each other laugh. A few pointed blows here and there just to show each other you weren't soft and to be funny, but none of the shots ever held malice. They were just ribbing jokes to see what the other guy was made of and to keep the humor going. Victor grew up with only older sisters and a couple of little brothers that were way too young to go back and forth with, and it showed. The man took everything as a personal blow and always came back with an ill-placed low-blow.
Maritzia shot Cade a panicked look, a look that pleaded for his help. And he swallowed a sigh. Of course, he would come to her rescue, but God, he'd much rather watch Carlos rip into him.
Turning to Valerie, Cade gave the woman a dimpled smile he knew would capture her attention. "Yesterday, we arrested this guy who told me in Spanish to go fuck myself and my mother. So, as you know, I handled myself with the highest of decorum and politely responded back in—Espanol," he said, dragging out the word until it sounded like a hillbilly saying "Es-Span-Yole."
"Oh God, no," Valerie shook her head in a shudder, trying to rebuke his words.
Next to her, Carlos, whose mouth was opening to lay into Victor, closed with a snap and he turned and gave him a pained look. "Tell me you didn’t?!" he asked, horror etched across his face.
Maritzia buried her face in her hands and nodded her head. "Dear God, he did," she mumbled a muffled confirmation.
Grinning, Cade looked to all their faces and silently congratulated himself for diverting a nasty fight that Victor would have no doubt lost. Ignoring Victor’s frowning face, most likely still mad or confused at Carlos's earlier anger, Cade sat straighter in his chair and nodded at Valerie. "Oh yes, I did. And I will have you know my Spanish has improved significantly."
Everyone turned to Maritzia for verification, to which she promptly looked up and shook her head emphatically in absolute rejection.
"Okay, wait a minute now," Cade said, jabbing an offended finger into the table’s surface. "I was holding my own with that guy."
"Oh my God, no you were not,” Maritzia moaned. “The guy was so stunned at how badly you mangled our poor language, he just stopped resisting and started to speak in perfect English."
Carlos howled with laughter and even Victor cracked a smile.
"No, no it wasn't like that," Cade argued back. "He was stunned by my command and dictation of the language."
Sun streaked brighter through the cafeteria's tall windows, gleaming over Maritzia as she laughed and shook her head in denial. Highlighted by the sun, hidden strands of deep auburn glowed within her black hair. Her face was girlish yet serious, which gave her the look of someone always thinking of something slightly perplexing, while on the same hand, getting something past Ritz was damn near impossible. She was very much aware of her surroundings, much like earlier, in the gym, when she had elbowed him in the stomach as she defended the ball. Glancing down at the brown skin of her arm, Cade couldn't help imagining the feel of it against him. He had caught a brush of her arm against his when she moved past him on the court and Cade smiled at the tactile memory. Even through the pain of her jab, he could appreciate the softness of her warm skin.
Looking up from her beautiful, laughing face, he caught Victor's cold, narrowed gaze. Cade gave the man a brief predatory grin before turning his attention back to the others.
"How can you understand Spanish but speak it so badly?" Valerie asked through her laughter.
"I'm telling you I'm not that bad," he defended. "Here, let me say something—"
All at once, Maritzia, Valerie, and Carlos cried out a vehement "no."
Dramatically, Cade sat back stunned in his seat, and held a hand to his chest as he looked at each of them in shocked betrayal. "I've never been so hurt in my life."
With Carlos's anger forgotten, the conversation drifted along peacefully. And though he joked and talked with the rest, Cade did not miss Victor's arm moving to rest possessively at the back of Maritzia's chair. He would never understand what Ritz saw in the guy. In comparison to her, Victor was just so goddamn average it hurt. From the moment she had announced they were dating, Cade had lived in an eternal state of confusion. It physically hurt him to see her with a guy like him. Where she was strong and vibrant, Victor was just—not. Sad and pathetic were the terms he wanted to use, but by God's teeth, he told himself to give the guy a chance. Maritzia loved him and Cade loved her. It would hurt her if she knew how much he despised the guy and that was the last thing he wanted to do. So, every day—every fucking day—he grinned and bore it and tried to play nice with the little man he wanted dead.
Maritzia glanced at her watch. "It's almost time for us to go back," she said, turning to him. He could see her thinking of all the things they needed to do when they got back to their desks. "I still need to shower and change and then we got that meeting with the Lieutenant…"
As she started listing all the things they needed to do, Valerie started packing up the containers around them while Carlos stood up and began to collect their trash. Handing Carlos his and Maritzia's trash, Cade flicked a glance at Victor. Still sitting in his chair, the man looked like a petulant child whose parents stopped paying attention to him. Cade could tell that he wanted to say something more, probably still not satisfied he didn’t get the last word with Carlos or upset he didn’t get the chance to be the center of conversation for once.
Cade watched as Victor looked to Maritzia who was now looking at her phone, going through her notes for the day, and could see him floundering for something to say. His eyes darted from her and landed on him and Cade tensed.
"So, it's been two months now, Cade," Victor began in an artificially friendly tone. "When are you going to get back in the dating field?" he asked, moving his arm from the back of Maritzia's chair to settle along her back until Cade could see his fingers possessively grip the other side of her waist.
Cade wanted to reach over and break the man's hand. The startling urge of it made his fingers jump in anticipation. He could just imagine Victor's howl of pain and feel the satisfaction of the sound roll down his spine. But it would be Maritzia's reaction that would seep all the warmth from him. Her fear, her anger, her hatred towards him, all for Victor. Cade would rather walk across hot coals than experience that from her.
"Who knows, I mean everything I want is here already," Cade replied, waving his hand over the table but stopping at Maritzia with a challenging smile.
Victor's chair screeched across the tile floor as he leapt to his feet, face contorting in fury.
Next to Cade, Valerie gasped and Carlos, still holding the gathered trash in his hands, eyes went wide in shock and gleeful anticipation. Only Maritzia looked momentarily confused, looking up from her phone to Victor and back at Cade for much-needed clarification.
The door to the cafeteria opened, bringing in the interrupting discordance of sound from the busy hallway beyond.
"Hey Uncle," Carlos said brightly, looking over Cade's head.
Maritzia turned away from Victor and looked past Cade. "Hi, Chief," she said respectfully, though despite the honorific there was still the happy tone of a niece seeing her favorite uncle.
Peeling his eyes from Victor's who shot him one last glare before turning to look intently at the chief, Cade turned in his chair and grinned mischievously.
"Hello, Dad."
The chief's normally stoic expression hardened as he looked back at Cade.
Practically ever since he had left for the military, the reserved, even-tempered chief of police, and one of the four main brothers who owned the little white apartment building on Tremont, had been secretly dating Cade's mother. When he first met him years ago, Cade had resented the stern man with a passion. Over the years, Andres DeLeon would show up to his family's dinners and gatherings, always a silent and indomitable presence. He had hated the man's permanently serious attitude that seemed to clash with his own forever jovial one. To Cade, the unsmiling man was a giant stick in the mud. But what made it even worse was his mom's complete infatuation with the man.
In abject horror, he had watched the woman slowly succumb to the officer's nonexistent charms. After finding out it was his apartment they were renting, an apartment his mother still rented to this day, Cade had been ready to just move away, even if it risked leaving the new family and friends he had come to love. The man had been trying to replace his dad, that was what Cade had told himself at least. It was only as he got older and realized that the grim-faced man was being highly considerate and careful to make sure he didn’t do just that.
Andres never shied away from the topic of Cade's dad when brought up, even going so far as to acknowledge and praise his dad's military career. Later when Cade realized he too wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, Andres was the one who talked down his crying mother and even drove him to the recruitment office, helping him ask the questions Cade would need to know. Even now, he suspected the reason Andres still hadn't asked for his mother's hand in marriage still had something to do with his respect for his father's memory. Cade had tried telling the older man he didn't care, but the obtuse bastard wouldn't listen. So now he was forced to use slow indoctrinating tactics—like getting him used to the title of "dad."
Pulling out a neat little navy blue flipbook from his uniform's breast pocket, Andres pulled out a tiny silver pin from his other pocket and began writing in the tiny notepad. "Memo, write Officer Moore up for insubordination later."
Cade laughed and stood from his chair, forgetting about Victor. "Aww, come on, Chief. How you gonna do me like that?"
Andres just gave him a severe look before turning to Maritzia, his eyes softening for his favorite niece. "I came here to say hi to you all, and to tell you," he indicated to Maritzia, "that you have a phone call from an Antwon Thomas holding on the line."
"Oh, I have been waiting for his call," Maritzia jumped up excitedly. "Thank you, Chief."
Excusing herself from the chief, she waved goodbye to Valerie and Carlos and gave a silent unreadable look to Victor that Cade didn't care to try and decipher.
"Well, I guess that's me, too," Cade said with a grin at the chief.
Wrapping Valerie in a big hug, he shared a knowing glance with Carlos that promised an entire conversation about this event later. Ignoring Victor, he waved goodbye once more to Valerie and followed the chief out of the cafeteria.
It was getting harder and harder to deal with Victor, Cade realized as he walked down the hall to the locker rooms. How the fuck had he done it up until now? Was it because he had Bethany to deal with? Was it coming to work and getting to wordlessly commiserate with his best friend each day, enjoying her company and forgetting about their relationships? He had no clue; all he knew was that Victor was tap-dancing on his last nerve.
Remembering the look on Maritzia's face at the bar months back when she discussed Victor, Cade couldn’t help but wonder just how the hell she dealt with him as well.