Wait for It

by Mariana Zapata

To the one person I’d trust to protect me in jail: my sister, Ale. I wrote this book imagining what it would be like to not have you around… and it sucked. A lot. (Obviously.) Luckily for me, evil never dies so you’re stuck with me forever.

His face was all angles and sharp lines like a gangster in a Russian mafia movie.

“Not your daddy,” a low, unfamiliar masculine voice replied.

YOU CAN BE 🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️🧎🏻‍♀️

My mom had always said you could tell a lot about a person by their eyes. A mouth could be formed into a million different shapes, but eyes were the windows to a person’s soul and shit.

“Outliving your friends isn’t a competition, you little turds,” I said to them as we walked up the steps toward the front door. “It’s not?” Why did they sound so surprised? “No. It’s sad. I mean, it’s good she’s lived for so long, but just….”

Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.” “What? You could.” There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.” “Because you love me?”

One day I would grow into my own person who didn’t care about doing the right thing. One day when hell froze over.

My grandma had told me once you couldn’t make someone love you or even like you, but you could sure as hell make someone put up with you.

I hated admitting I was wrong to other people,

REAL REAL REAL

“Okay, maybe if he’s really nice to me and good to me, and I’m the love of his life, and he writes me sweet notes on a regular basis telling me that I’m the light of his life and he can’t live without me, I’ll give him ten women tops. Tops.” I let out a breath. “I’m getting mad just thinking about it.”

DALLAS THE MAN THAT YOU ARE FOR REMEMBERING THIS

an orange German national team soccer jersey my uncle had given him for his birthday a few months ago,

AHHHHGHHHHHH

“You can help me cross the street.” I watched Lou and Dallas walk out of the house hand in hand and it sent this terrible bittersweet grief straight through me.

babies🥲🥲🥲

“Since we’re good, can I ask why you have Pop-Tarts in your back pocket?”

“Pretty sure she’s telling you to fuck off.”

“I know.” He knew.

he knew.

“Goodnight, Mr. Dallas.” He sounded grumpy. Too bad. “Night, Louie,” Dallas answered back, that big, gruff hand lowering so he could get a high five from a hand so much smaller than his.

goodbye i’d melt

The older man gave them a look too. “I told you, you can call me Dallas.”

“Sal!” I yelled, waving. “Come in!”

MY GIRL

Dallas squinted a little as he asked, “Did he write my name on the invitation?” I couldn’t hold it. I burst out laughing. “Yes.” I could see the corners of his mouth twitch up a little more. “It said Dal-ass on it. That’s how he wrote it. D-a-l-a-s-s. Dalass.”

“I got it.” There was a pause. A sigh. “I know you got it, but I’ll help.” There was another pause. “I’m offering.”

Real love was gritty. The real kind of love never quit. Someone who loved you would do what’s best for you; they’d stand up for you and sacrifice. Someone who loved you would face any inconvenience willingly. You didn’t know what love was until someone was willing to give up what they loved the most for you.

I swore I could feel pressure at the back of my head like maybe he was cupping it. I didn’t move. I would swear on my life he made this “shh, shh, shh” sound, like he was trying to soothe me. “This is my fault.” When I didn’t say anything, he leaned in even closer to me. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry.”

“I’m gonna hug you as long as you promise not to grab my ass, okay?” I almost laughed, but it sounded more like a broken croak.

Dallas reached up and touched my forehead with one of his thumbs briefly before snatching the cap off his head and settling it over my hair. The tips of his fingers brushed high over my cheekbones for tears that had disappeared by that point. “Go watch your boy.”

when i tell you i screamed

The corners of my mouth tilted up just a little, and it made his lips do the same. He blinked and told me in that bossy, military voice, “Don’t leave.” I swallowed and couldn’t help but duck my head for a moment. “Don’t leave,” he repeated.

“I don’t want you to go anywhere if that means anything, Peach.” This smooth motherfucker was killing me. How? How was he single? How could his wife be such a dumbass? What could he have done to ruin a marriage? I couldn’t see it. I couldn’t.

she’s so real for this dal is perfect

My little Vanny, who had eaten dinner at my house almost every night while we were growing up, had come so far in life. Fancy bitch.

The pillow hit me in the face so fast I didn’t get a chance to dodge out of the way, and by some miracle managed to catch it before it hit the baby and woke him up. “What the hell, Van? You trying to wake him?” “He sleeps like his dad. He’s fine. There’s a guy you didn’t tell me about?”

aiden, baby, i miss you.

“I always wanted a cousin…,” Louie started to say, blinking. God, he was so cute. “And a sister.” I coughed. I coughed like I’d come down with emphysema randomly. What the hell did he want a little sister for? What was I supposed to do? Pull one off a tree for him?

😭😭😭😭😭

Josh had just turned around to continue on with practice when I happened to glance to the side and saw him. Dallas was standing off by third base with his hands in the pockets of his frayed, ancient jeans, and he was staring over in my direction. He wasn’t casually looking; he was definitely staring. I waved, and I was pretty sure he smiled.

He was putting glasses on. Narrow, black, thick-framed glasses. Shit. He must have sensed me staring because he gave me a goofy face. “Reading glasses. I’m farsighted.” Reading glasses? More like sexy glasses. God help me.

holy shit

Didn’t he know he wasn’t supposed to be this damn… perfect?

and by god he is

You don’t know anything about love if you aren’t willing to wait for it. Wait for it.

“I always figured I’d grow old with someone, so I need to make the next one count since it’s for keeps.” My heart started acting weird next. And he kept going, signing her death warrant without even knowing it. “She wouldn’t be my first, but she’d be the only one who ever mattered. I think she could wait for the time to be right. I’d make sure she never regretted it.”

When I’d gone for the bill, Dallas had swept my hand to the side and said, “That’s cute.”

🫡

“Which one is he?” “Dallas, stop, it isn’t him,” I said, reaching for his shirt and grabbing a handful of it. “It was a long time ago.” “A lifetime wouldn’t be long enough,” he ground out. “Which one is he, Diana?”

GIGGLING

“Tell me what his name is, and I’ll put him six feet in the ground.”

that has NO right being so hot

“It’s like you’re purposely trying to get me to love you, Dallas. I swear to God.

He’d been sitting pretty high up in the air, but as I gave him another good look I realized why he seemed to be taller on the couch than usual. It was the Iron Man blanket under him that hadn’t made me look too closely at the couch, but now that I did… I realized he was sitting on something. Sitting on someone. It was a long man with short, dark hair, asleep faced down on the couch with a bicep covering the side of his face. And Louie was sitting on what I could only assume was his butt as he played video games. “Are you sitting on Dallas?” The five-year-old smiled and nodded, whispering, “Shh,” at me. “He’s sleeping.”

You can’t always wait for someone else to do the right thing when you can do it yourself.”

“Don’t go far,” Dallas and I both said at the same time, watching each other carefully. Josh gave us a horrified expression, but just like that, he disappeared.

HAHAHHAHAHA

“If something had happened to you—” I choked. Me? He’d been worried about me too?

“If something happened to you, I wouldn’t be okay. I would never be okay,”

i cannot put into words how much i love this man

Just like that, Dallas crouched and scooped Louie up. One of those little arms went around my neck, and I would bet my life the other was around Dallas’s. The only other thing I knew for sure was that an arm too brawny to belong to a five-year-old wrapped low around my back. The side of my head went to a shoulder and one half of my chest was crushed against a much harder one.

Because on my lawn wasn’t a stranger, especially since he’d let me just about bawl my eyes out in front of him more than once. It also wasn’t just Dallas cutting my lawn like it was no big deal. It was Dallas on my lawn with his shirt off, pushing his lawn mower. It was Dallas on my lawn with his shirt off.

And those arms and forearms. I loved forearms. Loved them. Especially his. I could even see the veins lining his from my window.

she’s me i am her

I focused on one thing and one thing only. Baby? Me?

“You are so fucking stubborn,” I said. “Pot meet your kettle.”

cackled

“Anything for you.”

me????🤭🤭🤭

God help me. It hit me. It hit me right then. I was crazy in love with this motherfucker. I really, really was.

realest thing ever