Breaking Down (The Breaking Series Book 4) Read online

  “Are you okay?” was the first thing he asked, his voice full of concern, and a lump rose in my throat. He was worried about me, and I was about to make him very mad at me. “What happened?”

  “Hm, bom, I didn’t tell anyone before …” I started then pressed my lips together. Tche, this was harder than I thought it would be. “Actually Garrett knew, but not the others, and—”

  “Gabi, what is it?” my mother asked with urgency. They were probably thinking the worse right now.

  I placed my shaking hands and sweaty palms on my thighs under the counter, where they couldn’t see it. “I’ve been dating an American guy for over a year now, and this week, he proposed.”

  Like the night before, silence met me.

  My father burst out laughing. “Gabi, I didn’t know you could tell jokes like that. Good one.” He chuckled once more, then took a long breath to calm himself down. “Now, tell us, why didn’t you come home?”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, not sure what to say next.

  My mother gasped. “Meu Deus, Luis Carlos, she’s serious.”

  My father snorted. “She can’t be serious.” He leaned closer to the screen as if he could see me better. “You’re serious?”

  I nodded. “Sim.”

  His eyes bulged and the look of horror on his face made me cringe.

  “How-how did this happen?” my mother asked. “You haven't told us anything about this man. What is his name?”

  “Tyler. His name is Tyler Reid.” And then I told them what I told the rest of the family last night. That Tyler and I met through Garrett—poor Garrett—and that we began seeing each other, and we spoke even when I was away. And things moved quickly until we realized we didn’t want to be so far apart anymore. Lies, lies, and more lies that made me sick to my stomach.

  My mother listened with a hand over her mouth, as if she was afraid that she would yell at me. And my father paced behind my mother, his eyes downcast and his shoulders tense.

  After a moment of silence, my mother lowered her hand. “W-what now? You’re just gonna stay there and get married? What about us?”

  “De jeito nenhum, porra!” my father shouted and I flinched. He rarely cussed and he rarely shouted. That he did both at the same time … I was in big trouble. “This is nonsense. You’re going to stop this madness and you’re coming home right now.”

  I took a long breath. “I admit I may have handled this situation wrong. I should have come home last night and told you all about this face-to-face, but it’s done now. I’m here and I’m staying. Tyler and I still haven’t decided—”

  “You’re not deciding anything!” my father shouted again. “You better be on the next flight home, or so help me—” He pressed his lips together, his jaw ticking. “Just … come home.”

  I inhaled sharply. I hated hurting them, but the mess was done now and I had to show I was an adult who could stand behind her decisions. “I’m sorry, pai. My home is here now. I wish you tw—”

  “The hell it is!” he yelled. He slapped the counter where the laptop was set, making the screen shake a little bit. “You better be here by the weekend, young lady, or I’m going there to get you.” Then, he stomped away.

  My mother and I watched him until he disappeared from the room. A few seconds later, I heard as the door to his office slammed shut.

  My mother grimaced. “Hm, I’m sorry, Gabi. You caught us by surprise.” Welcome to the club. She tried to smile but failed. “I’m going to talk to him, okay? Try to calm him down.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay. Tchau.”

  “Tchau,” she said and promptly turned off the call.

  I stared at the screen for a couple of minutes, trying to take it all in. Droga. When the iPad’s screen went black, I turned my gaze to my breakfast. I had barely touched my food, but now my stomach was in knots and I couldn’t eat anything.

  I stood from the stool and put everything in the trash.

  15

  Tyler

  In the end, Gabi and I agreed to meet for lunch at a diner near her brother’s apartment. After all, it was lunchtime and we had a lot of details to talk about, and we had to start studying the questions for the interview, even if it was still a couple of months away.

  I barely had taken time off for lunch breaks. I usually brought a pop tart or a frozen meal to the office, heated it up, and ate while filling out reports or checking inventory, so as not to waste time.

  But now my account was momentarily full—soon all that money would go to paying the bigger bills on my long list—and I could afford to eat better.

  She was already seated at a corner booth and looking over the menu when I arrived. A lot of things would be hard to get used to with this deal and one of them was how pretty she always looked. Her hair was loose today, falling like a wave down her back, and she had on a blue blouse.

  When I slid into the booth across from her, she lifted her face to me and I sucked in a sharp breath. Shit, the blouse made her blue eyes pop.

  “Hey.”

  She offered me a small smile. “Oi.” We stared at each other and the air around us became awkward. “Hm, how was work?”

  “I took the day off,” I told her. “In fact, I took next week off too, since we’ll probably be moving into a new apartment.”

  “That is a good thing, I guess.” She frowned. “You’re at vet school with Garrett, right? So working at a clinic must be nice.”

  I pressed my lips tight, not sure what to say to that. I sighed, remembering I would be living with this girl for the next two years, so I decided to tell her some basic stuff. “I didn’t finish vet school, so I’m an assistant. Plus, I work more with dogs and cats. Dr. Bohm knows I want to treat the horses in the area, but he doesn’t share those with me too often.”

  Her frown deepened. “So you’re also a horse lover?”

  I nodded. “Yup. Always have been.”

  “Oh,” was all she said, and I felt like she wanted me to say more.

  And for some reason, I did. “I rode a lot when I was younger, but I wasn’t good enough to pursue professional polo or jumping or anything like that. I tried riding on weekends when I was in college, but it was hard to keep up with everything. After a year, I gave up. But my love for horses is still there.”

  Her forehead smoothed and the half-smile was back. “Bom, my family has a big ranch about twenty minutes from town, you know. You’re welcome to go there and ride anytime.”

  This time, I frowned. What was I supposed to say to that?

  The waitress saved me as she arrived to get our orders. Surprising me, Gabi asked for a cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milkshake. From her slender figure, I thought she ate like a bird. I asked for the same, though I switched the milkshake for a soda.

  When the waitress was gone, the awkward silence returned.

  Gabi folded her hands on the table and I saw the ring glittering on her finger. It wasn’t a big diamond, but it was big enough to make me sure I could never afford that. I couldn’t exactly explain why, but I hated that ring.

  “So, hm, I talked to my parents this morning …” she started.

  My gut clenched. “Uh-oh.”

  “Uh-oh indeed. They didn’t take it well. In fact, my father said that if I’m not home by the weekend, he’s coming here to get me.”

  “Would he do that?”

  She nodded. “Sim, he would. And I wanted to give you the heads up because it means he’ll be here soon and he’ll come hard at us. Bom, more at you than at me. I think.”

  Shit. “Are you trying to make me back out of our deal?”

  Her eyes widened. “Of course not! But I feel like I should prepare you for the challenges ahead.”

  “Will there be many?”

  “Maybe. Probably.” She sighed. “Sorry.”

  “For?”

  “When I offered you this deal, I had the illusion that all the pieces of the puzzle would al
ign and all the bad things that could happen would simply vanish.” She shook her head once. “It seems I’m too optimistic.”

  “Sometimes that’s a good thing.”

  The waitress brought our drinks and instead of drinking her milkshake, Gabi started playing with her straw.

  “I was thinking …” Gabi started.

  “About?”

  “Maybe we should go to Brazil instead.”

  I stared at her. “You mean instead of your parents coming here?”

  She nodded. “I think it would be easier to control the situation there. We’ll be at their place, where they are most comfortable. Here, they will be on edge all the time.” One corner of her lips tugged. “Besides, I really could use that trip to bring more of my stuff here.”

  “Just back up a minute. You’re talking about going to Brazil?”

  “Hm, sim.” She played with her straw again. “Not now. Maybe in a month? I don’t know. But we shouldn’t wait too long.”

  I shook my head. “Can I think about this first?”

  She shrugged. “Sure. Just consider that, if we don’t go, my father will come here. He’ll expect to meet you as soon as possible.”

  Go to Brazil? Even if for a few days? That sounded ludicrous. “Do you do everything your family expects you to?”

  She stared at me as if I had thrown my drink at her. “This isn’t only about my family, you know. I wouldn’t mind going to the immigration office tomorrow or this afternoon, really, to get everything rolling.” Her voice rose. “If I could simply hand you the money and you handed me the green card, the situation would be perfect. But it doesn’t work that way. My family is from Brazil. It makes sense if we go there to visit and spend time with them. The immigration office will see pictures we can post online from there, and they will see we’re having a good time there, that we aren’t faking. In fact, we should take pictures of us together all the time and post everywhere. That will make our relationship seem real to the party that matters.”

  I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all, but … “It makes sense.” It really did and now that I had agreed to this, now that I could see myself debt free in a couple of years, I didn’t want to let this deal go. Even if it meant having to go through some seriously uncomfortable situations. “Sorry I’m such a pain in the ass. I guess I’m just having a harder time getting used to all of this than I thought.”

  “You think I’m not?” She grimaced. “I confess that getting hitched to get a green card had crossed my mind a couple of times, but I had never really considered it. I’m not the most romantic girl out there, but I visualized my future wedding, and let me tell you, it was never, ever like this. So, don’t think you’re the only one suffering here.”

  I cringed. That was a strong word. “I’m not suffering. The entire situation makes me uncomfortable, that’s all. I guess once we move in together and settle down for the next two years, I’ll be able to relax again.” I was about to ask her something when the waitress came back with our burgers.

  Gabi thanked her then dug in, without even glancing at me again.

  She was halfway through her burger and fries when I couldn’t hold the question anymore. “Are you suffering?”

  She stopped eating and stared at me. “What?”

  “You said I’m not the only one suffering, so I’m assuming you’re suffering.”

  Sighing, she leaned back on her booth. “Not suffering, but … like I said, I never considered this situation. I didn’t think things through.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My horse. Tostado, my beautiful horse, is in Brazil.”

  “Oh.” That sucked. If I had a horse of my own, I wouldn’t want to be that far away from him. “There’s nothing you can do about that?”

  “My brother and my cousins brought some of their horses when they moved here four years ago, but … it’s not a fast or easy process. I won’t bring my horse here until I know—” She pressed her lips together.

  “Until you know what?”

  I thought she wouldn’t answer me, but after a moment, she continued, “Until I know this deal will really work out and I have the green card in my hands.”

  “It makes sense,” I said. We both wanted it to work, but we never knew what could happen. The immigration office could be onto us and deny her the green card, or something could happen along the way and she could need to leave.

  We finished our burgers surrounded by tense silence and the loud chattering of the other customers.

  “So,” Gabi started after she was done eating, “after you left last night, I went online and searched for apartments that seemed nice.” She pulled out a thick sheet of paper from her purse and spread them over the table between our plates. “These are the ones I liked the most.”

  I leaned over the table and glanced at the apartments staring back at me. “They seem … expensive.”

  She waved me off. “Don’t worry about that now. Let’s just take a look at them.”

  I sighed, not in the mood to argue more. I nodded, and once I was done with my lunch, I paid our tab—she wanted to split it—and we left to go apartment hunting.

  16

  Gabi

  I could feel the tension and pain radiating from Tyler’s body all afternoon. Right after lunch, we met with a real estate agent who specialized in rentals, and we went around town, looking at the apartments I had pre-selected and some I hadn’t seen.

  Agent Lucy Bowman took us first to some luxurious apartments in downtown—only one of those were on my list. The others I had selected were less expensive. Tyler cringed the entire time we looked at those. Soon, I was cutting most of the list and sticking to the lower end on pricing. It wouldn’t hurt me to live in a smaller, simpler apartment, but apparently, it would hurt Tyler’s ego if I chose something out of his price range.

  Besides the price, Tyler’s only request was an apartment with three bedrooms, which didn’t really make sense since we only needed two—one for him and one for me, but I didn’t ask about it, since he looked like he would bite my face off if I spoke to him. In the end, I didn’t mind. If my parents did come to visit us at some point and wanted to stay with us instead of at Gui’s, then we would have plenty of space.

  So, by early evening, we had narrowed the list down to four possibilities. They all looked nice and were a good distance from the vet clinic and my brother’s apartment. And the most important point, according to Tyler, was that they weren’t too expensive.

  I had gotten that money was a sensitive subject, but I didn’t get why he turned so sour when I mentioned paying the rent. Didn’t it defeat the purpose of me giving him money to pay off his debt if he used it to pay his rent instead?

  He was driving me back to Gui’s apartment when my phone dinged.

  Hil: We’re leaving for Malcolm’s party. You’re coming, right?

  Droga, I had forgotten about Malcolm’s party. I was supposed to be in Brazil, not apartment hunting in Santa Barbara.

  “Hm,” I started, not sure how to phrase it. Since we were a couple now, we had to go to these parties together, right? “Hilary just reminded me of a party tonight. It’s the birthday of a guy from polo, Malcolm. Want to come with me?”

  His brows narrowed. Tyler glanced at me, then returned his eyes to the road. “I can’t. I already have something scheduled tonight.”

  My gut twisted. I opened my mouth to say and ask so many things.

  We’re a couple now. You have to come with me.

  Already tired of me?

  Do you have a date? With someone else? What if anyone sees you? What if the immigration officer finds out?

  Please, please, don’t put our deal at risk.

  But the afternoon had already been tense and I was tired. What I wanted was a nice hot shower and my pajamas. No more talking, no more walking.

  So, I swallowed all my worries, and sent a quick reply to Hilary.

  Me: I had forgotten. Tyler and I already made other plans. Sen
d a happy birthday to Malcolm for me.

  Hil: Oh, okay. Will do. Have fun!

  Me: You too.

  A minute later, Tyler pulled over in front of my brother’s building.

  I turned to him. “Hm, so, if you can, take a look at the apartments online again, and let me know which one you like the most. If we can, we should make a decision by Monday.”

  He looked out to the street. “Will do.”

  “All right.” I opened the door, feeling like something was off, like many things were off. “Thanks.”

  “Bye,” was all he said.

  I hopped out of his truck and walked to the entrance of the building. He didn’t even wait for me to reach the front door before he peeled away.

  I frowned, watching as his truck turned onto the next street and disappeared from my sight. I really, really wanted a shower and to eat some pizza while watching The Bachelor, but that would have to wait a few more minutes.

  Hilary had mentioned they were leaving for the party, which meant they could still be here—getting ready to leave or leaving at this second. If they saw me, I would have to lie more, and I was so freaking tired of lying today.

  Determined, I turned away from the building and jogged to the nearest coffee shop, where I bought a caramel latte and waited the next thirty minutes. Meanwhile, I texted Priscila, since she was going nuts over the fact I had stayed here and I hadn’t told her anything yet.

  But now I would have to lie to her—something I had never done before.

  Me: So, I have something to tell you …

  Then, I spilled the same lie I told my family. I was lying to everyone, and that just wasn't right.

  17

  Tyler

  This afternoon had been painful.

  All those apartments, and Gabi looking rather excited about it all.

  I shuddered.

  And what was that about rent? Like hell I would let her pay the entire thing by herself. I was her future roommate for the next two years, not her new toy.