THE BIG MOVE (Miami Hearts Book 2) Read Free Page B

I said quickly. We’d been to hell and back several times in our journey to this city. That was worth something, and I didn’t want to discount it or sound ungrateful for Antonio helping me through everything. “Miami is great. We’re doing well, aren’t we?”
                  “But?” Antonio prompted, grinning and tickling me on the back of my neck. “Go on, you grand complainer. You can never be happy anywhere, can you?”
                  “Stop that,” I said, slapping at his hand. “You know I can be happy anywhere as long as I’m with you. I’m just saying I kind of miss the idea of community. Miami’s much safer, and we’re doing much better, but we haven’t really met anyone, have we? We haven’t made any friends.”
                  Both of our families had dwindled in numbers — age, disease, violence, and the desire to be elsewhere serving as scissors to cut ties between blood relatives. The few family members who remained — an uncle and cousin for me, and Antonio’s ancient and sweet grandmother — were more valuable than anything. We’d left them all in Honduras reluctantly and under great duress. I wished it could’ve happened another way, but I couldn’t picture taking Antonio’s abuela clear across two countries before even reaching the relative safety of the Texas-Mexico border. She wouldn’t have been able to make it. Antonio and I had barely been able to make it.
                  “I know you’re lonely for family, amor, ” he said, wrapping his arms around me and planting a kiss on my temple. “We’ll get there, you know. Right now we’re being careful. We’re getting a feel for things. Survival first, right?”
                  I nodded. Of course he was right. We needed to establish ourselves here before we could think about something as silly as a social circle.
                  “You’re all the family I need,” I told him, turning in his arms and kissing him. “I don’t need anyone else.”
                  Antonio returned the kiss, his lips soft against mine, but he pulled away a little. “We need a support system here,” he said. “If anything should happen to either of us …”
                  He trailed off and I shuddered. “Don’t,” I said, burying my face in his neck. “I forbid even thinking about something so morbid. Nothing is ever going to happen to us except for good things from here on out.”
                  “That’s the idea,” Antonio said, amused. He forced me to look in his eyes, lifting my chin with his finger. “But community is something everyone needs, too. Once we get things figured out, once we start saving money, once we get a big enough house to actually entertain friends in …”
                  He tickled me and I squirmed, giggling.
                  “Is it selfish to want to have friends?” I asked him, only half joking. “Is it too greedy of me to want to thrive in Miami and be happy?”
                  “If wanting to be happy is greedy, then may we all be pigs,” Antonio declared, snorting and rooting enthusiastically against my neck and collarbone. I shrieked, dreadfully ticklish, and cackled, twisting to escape his onslaught. My only option was the open door of the bedroom, bouncing across our mattress to conceal myself beneath the blankets.
                  Unsurprisingly, Antonio found me with no trouble whatsoever, triumphantly peeling the covers back to reveal his prize. I cringed, afraid he was going to tickle me again, but instead, he dipped down and kissed me deeply on the lips.
                  “I would do anything for you,” he said, looking me in the eyes, his own dark eyes burning in the dim room. “I’d get you a gaggle of friends tomorrow if it meant making you happy.”
                  “I am happy,” I insisted,