Abel

Chapter 2 - Part 1

Making a quick move toward the front door, Abel walked as quietly as he could.

"Oh, you look handsome."

Damn. Abel stopped and glanced up at his mother who was looking away from the stove where she was making dinner, while his brother Hector and his girlfriend, Charlee, studied at the kitchen table.

Hector smirked, knowing Abel's cover had been blown. "Another non-date with Nellie?"

Abel gave him a look but ignored the question, walking into the kitchen instead of out the door. His mother, on the other hand, as expected, didn't ignore Hector. "Nellie?" She turned to Hector first then back to Abel with a confused expression. "You're dating, Nellie, Mijo? Roni's friend?"

"No, Mom, I'm not dating anyone." He shot Hector another warning look. "I already told you I gotta train. I don't have time for dating right now."

His mother was no fool. She threw the dish towel she held over her shoulder and wiped her hands on her apron with a knowing look. "Then where are you going tonight?"

"To hang out with a friend," he said, stabbing a fork into one of the pieces of chicken she had simmering in green sauce and blew on it. He held his hand underneath in case it dripped. "But it's not a date."

His idiot brother was obviously enjoying this. "I'm pretty sure that's what you called it when Noah asked at the gym."

Abel rolled his eyes, biting into the chicken on his fork.

"Ay, Abel. So just say it. What's the big deal?" his mom asked as she stirred the beans in the other pot. "Wait, Nellie? Isn't she Roni's age?"

Hector laughed. He knew just as well as Abel that their mother had never been too keen about Noah marrying a girl eight years older. It was no surprise this would be the first thing she'd bring up. Both he and his brother knew their mother would have issues with this—issues he wasn't willing to discuss or get into. It didn't matter—he wasn't dating her.

"It's not a date, and who said I'm seeing Nellie tonight anyway?" Abel set the fork down, kissed his mom's forehead, and looked back at his brother. "I told Noah I had a date. I never said with who."

His brother gave him a knowing look. Aside from getting together with Nellie in the past few weeks, Abel had been too caught up in his training and everything else leading up to this fight for a social life, period. Hector knew all too well that Nellie had been Abel's only escape from all the fight madness in weeks. And since Abel was notoriously private about his personal life, Hector was also the only one who would know this. Even one girl was too much of a distraction for Abel's anal ass. Juggling more than one at a time like this in his life would be out of the question, so there was no use denying it.

"Okay, so I'm meeting up with her again, but it's not a date," he said as indifferently as he could. "I just said I had a date to Noah to get him off my back. The guy asks too many questions.

"Yeah, well you know why," Hector said just as Abel walked up behind him and squeezed his shoulder so hard that Hector leaned over. "Because he's nosey, that's all. That's all," Hector repeated as Abel squeezed harder.

Abel squeezed one last time for good measure. Playful banter or not, he was not getting into this now. The bottom line was Nellie was exactly what he needed right now: someone he could spend time with and release all the pent-up stress that was building up because of this fight, without any demands of commitment. And since Nellie was okay with him squeezing in some release time after his training here and there without asking for more, this was the perfect arrangement. God damn it. He'd never needed to release so much in his life.