The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler Read Free Book Online Page B

vigorously as if that would help the words settle in, and it worked for about ten seconds. But in all that rattling, I’d shaken loose an image my mind had captured and stored without permission—Emilio, winking at me and jumping on the kickstart, the bike roaring beneath him. My treacherous little beast of a heart fluttered.
    I took it for what it was: a warning. The heart—in all its infinite wisdom (with some backdoor bribery from the hormones)—was totally edging in on this Vargas boy situation, and the heart didn’t know the meaning of terminado .

Chapter 6
    Emilio Vargas was officially a no-show.
    Papi, Pancake, and I had waited for two hours the following morning before I finally grabbed the keys and zoomed us all down to Duchess.
    Forget summer theater. I was starring in a lovely little production from the comfort of my own head.
    All the world’s a stage!
    “Here to complain about the kid already?” Duke looked up from his magazine and smiled when we approached the service counter. “Ain’t even been a week.”
    “Just wanted to look at some accessories,” Papi said. He’d agreed to let me handle this since Emilio and I seemed to “hit things off.” Yeah, I was about to hit things off, all right. Starting with his head.
    Duke directed us to a row of shelves stocked with chrome bike parts and dusty manuals that looked like they’d been there since the Industrial Revolution. Or at least the eighties.
    “Is Emilio working today?” I asked.
    “Yep. Go on back.” Duke nodded at the glass door. “Just stay close to the wall—too many loose parts and sharp edges back there.”
    I didn’t know whether he meant the bikes or the boys, but I heeded his advice and pushed through the doorway. All eyes were on me as I scanned the crew. No sign of Mr. No-Show.
    “E!” one of the guys yelled. “ Tu novia está aquí. ”
    Your girlfriend is here? I can’t believe he told them about that.
    “Ro-milio, Ro-milio!” one of the other guys said. The rest giggled. They were worse than Zoe and me on a Pixy Stix bender.
    Emilio entered through a propped open door at the back of the garage. He punched the first guy in the arm as he walked past, and I let out a big ol’ sigh, totally rocking my poker face.
    There was only one problem.
    Freaking Ro-milio wasn’t wearing a shirt.
    He nodded when he saw me and turned to grab his T-shirt from the back of the blue Honda I’d seen him working on that first day. He had a tattoo on his left shoulder, black words and numbers, too far away to make sense. There was a nasty scar on his lower abdomen and another on his right shoulder. An accident, probably, and I wondered what happened, but I looked away when I realized the Romilio-calling guy was totally watching me.
    What a creeper!
    I mean, the guy. Not me. Obviously.
    Emilio yanked the shirt on in one fluid motion. “Duke know you’re back here?”
    I forced myself to focus on the shiny tools spread out near the Honda. “He said it was okay.”
    “Cool. So . . .” He rubbed a hand over his bandanna and all that “I’m about to hit off his head” stuff evaporated.
    “Where were you today?” I asked. “My father waited for two hours.”
    Emilio shook his head. “I ain’t on with you till day after tomorrow.”
    “You aren’t?” I pulled out my phone calendar. “I must’ve gotten the dates mixed up. I could’ve sworn . . . No, you’re right. We ain’t—aren’t—on again until the day after tomorrow. Which is when we are.”
    “You sure about that, princesa ?” Emilio’s eyes held a playful spark. “Maybe you should write it down on paper this time.”
    Behind him, three of the guys whispered to one another in Spanish and laughed, which only magnified the mortification. It was obvious they didn’t know I could understand them, and the one guy kept saying how hot I was and if Emilio screwed it up, he’d be happy to mend my broken heart. And then something something something naked.
    “Oh,