Claudia or Becca. I needed to talk to one of them. They would understand. Becca was probably head over heels for someone, given her track record, and I could have sworn something was going on with Claudia and Eduardo.
I laughed internally, thinking how unlike me it was to seek council on a guy, let alone have actual feelings for them. That was not my style. Then again, none of this was. The minute I stepped on that bus, everything I knew about myself seemed to be left behind in Madrid.
Chapter 9
The next day—day seven of the program—was the first rainy day of the program and the end of the first official week. Only two people had been scheduled just for one week, Yolanda and Enrique, so two more Spaniards were supposed to join us after they left on the morning bus back home.
It was weird to see Las Palabras under a thick layer of soot-colored cloud, to have shallow puddles at your feet. It dampened everything and put my thoughts on a melancholy spin. For the first time, I kind of missed home. Well, actually that was an exaggeration. I didn’t miss home, the rain just reminded me of home. Home meant a place where I couldn’t be myself, where I had to walk on eggshells around my mother. But I missed Josh. And there was part of me that missed being free from…emotional turmoil. Was that the right word? How about sexual frustration and the threat of impending heartache? I couldn’t tell. The rain had dampened my mood.
I had a mostly Mateo-free day—I didn’t have any sessions with him and I didn’t sit with him at any of the meals. Jerry had started cracking down on groups, noticing that the same people kept sitting together and insisted we all start rotating. It was fine with me, except lunch time had me sitting with Tyler, who I realized had some kind of thing with Lauren. I couldn’t really figure out his sexuality—his “Vote for Hilary” shirt and My Little Pony obsession didn’t help—but I knew he and her shared very similar disdain for me.
After lunch, which pretty much consisted of shoving ham in my mouth and getting the fuck out of there, two more Spaniards arrived—Mario the small business owner and Alfonso the financial consultant—and we all welcomed them in. It couldn’t have been easy coming into a program a week in, when everyone already seemed extremely close and cliquey. The passage of time only made me realize that Mateo would be gone in two weeks.
The tiniest part of me felt relief at that, that I could just be me, have fun, and not have my feelings occupied by another. But the larger part, the one that consisted of my skin and bones, it felt sunken in at the thought, eaten away. I felt like my life without him would definitely start lacking vitality, that the spring in my step would disappear, that the butterflies in my stomach would vanish. That I wouldn’t feel…whole.
And that was such a fucked up feeling.
I tried to find Claudia or Becca after dinner. I needed to speak to them. The wine, which I had grown to love, was coursing through my veins, making my mouth loose and my heart pound. I wanted to tell them, to just get it off my chest, to feel like I wasn’t crazy, that I wasn’t a terrible person for crushing on a married man, that I wasn’t a villain.
I ended up finding Mateo instead. There were a group of people outside on the patio, sitting on the wicker chairs and playing cards. The extracurricular activities were called off for the night because the plays had taken so much planning, so the bar was open and everyone was pretty much free to their own devices.
Mateo was there, laughing loudly with Wayne. Both of their cheeks were spotted with red. They were drunk already, and I remembered during dinner that both of them had gone around to all the tables and collected the bottles of wine that weren’t empty, like hooligans at a wedding reception.
Angel, Sammy, Becca, Eduardo, Manuel, Ricardo, Polly and Froggy Carlos were all there, drinks in hand. The rain had stopped and the air had turned wet with humidity rising off of the grass. The sky was growing clearer by the moment, the clouds skirting past the bright gibbous moon.
“Vera!” Wayne shouted at me. “You Canadians play soccer, right?”
I couldn’t help but eye Mateo with suspicion. “Yes, some do. Why?”
“We’re going to have a soccer match next week, the Anglos versus the Spaniards.” He jerked a fat thumb at Mateo. “I’m going to pretend to be a Spaniard, just to be on his team.”
I pulled up a wicker chair and hunkered down. “Sounds like fun, but count me out.”
“Aw, come on Vera,” Sammy complained loudly. “If I’m doing it, you’re doing it. Your legs are so much longer than mine.”
That may have been true but having longer legs just meant more opportunities to trip over them.
“Your legs are as long,” Froggy Carlos said to her with a lusty wink, “if you play with those sexy heels on.”
Sammy laughed and squealed at his remark and I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes. I very briefly caught Mateo’s gaze.
He got up and stopped by my chair, resting his fingertips on my shoulder. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I just sat down,” I moaned.
“You have to work for it.”
I wanted to say no. But I couldn’t. I looked up at him, at his dark, glittering eyes and felt myself rise out of my seat and follow him into the bar. I guessed talking to Claudia or Becca could wait another day. It was a nice idea, anyway.
We walked past a few people who were on the computers and over to the bar. I leaned against it, my fingers resting on the cool copper top while Mateo ordered us two beers. His body was pressed right to the side of mine and I could feel the heat between us, the firmness of his waist and hips against me.
Deep breaths, I told myself.
“Did you think you’d get away with it?” he asked in a low, gravelly voice.
Shit. What now?
I swallowed and looked up at him reluctantly. His face was so close, I knew he could count the freckles that had sprouted over on my nose over the last week. His scent teased me, making me feel gooey inside, a melting pot of tingling lust.
“Get away with what?” I whispered.
He gave me a slow, sexy smile. “The day is almost over and I have not asked you my question.”
Oh. That. Oh, god, seriously? After what happened yesterday?
“I promise it will be more…fun,” he said, reading me. He was good at that.
“Fine,” I said, pretending I wasn’t thrilled that he had sought me out to ask me something. That it didn’t make me all kinds of floating on the clouds happy that he had been thinking about me.
While he paid for our drinks—I’d barely added any to my tab since I got there—I leaned in closer to him, taking advantage of the moment. Tonight he was wearing a black silk shirt and black pants that fit his body perfectly. That panther analogy I had a while ago, well, that was back in full swing. He was sleek, dark and dripping with slinky self-assurance.
“You did a great job last night,” I told him. “Your skit was the funniest.”
Mateo’s group ended up being all male, so they decided to do a faux Miss Spain contest. Which meant they all dressed up in drag. Mateo, was, by far, the most masculine of them all, even with a blonde wig, lipstick and a feather boa.
“Did you think I made an attractive woman?” he asked, handing me my beer.
I thanked him for it and then said, “No. You were the hairiest woman I have ever seen.”
He gave me a crooked smile and clinked the neck of his beer against mine. “I don’t think I could handle being a woman. You are far too…complicated.”
“We are?” I asked dubiously.
He nodded and put his hand on the small of my back, something he’d been doing more and more. I felt myself momentarily melt into him before I straightened up and let him lead me out of the bar and outside. Instead of stopping by the drinking game that was now taking place, he kept his hand there and took us out toward the path that sloped between the cottages.
The night now was dark, the stars clear and shining. I put my head back and could see Draco, Arcturus and Ursa Major, strings of diamonds i
n this velvet night.
“I was hoping we would see the stars tonight,” Mateo said. “Come, let us get away from the lights.”
Get away from the lights? Why?
My body shivered with the unknown and I immediately started to have a minor freakout in my head. What if Mateo wanted to kiss me? What would I do? I mean I couldn’t kiss him back, it would be wrong. But fuck if it would feel anything but right.
I was never very good at any battles that pit my body against my mind. My body almost always won.
He took me away from the patio, where Angel was drunkenly yelling “shithead!” during the drinking game, and over toward my cottage. For a split second I thought he was going to take me upstairs, to my room, to my bed, but he pulled me to a stop beside the low stone wall and patted the top of it with his hand.
I couldn’t tell if I was relieved or disappointed. Either way, it was for the best. From the light upstairs I could see Sara was home and spotted the shadows of Jorge and his roommate in the level below. Nothing was ever secret here.
I gingerly hopped up onto the wall and he sat down right beside me, his long, soccer-player legs dangling over the side. He swung them, the backs of his heels gently hitting the wall. I’d forgotten he was a little bit drunk.
“So how was your first week?” he asked me before taking a swig of his beer.
“Good,” I said, so utterly conscious of how close we were sitting, our thighs touching each other. Every time his leg swung, it shook mine. “Yours?”
“I am tired of talking,” he said. “My throat hurts. I have been having honey tea before I go to bed every night, like an old man.”
I nudged him playfully with my elbow. “You are an old man.”
He nudged me right back. “This is a new thing.”
I tilted my head and eyed him curiously. “What is?”
“You, touching me,” he said.
“Touching you?”
“Yes,” he said earnestly. “Like you touch everyone else.”
I felt my cheeks flush but I still had no idea what he was talking about.
“Angel, Eduardo, Ricardo,” he listed off. “You touch them, kiss them, hello and goodbye and when they make you laugh. Like this.” He placed his large hand on my thigh. My eyes widened in response. I couldn’t move. “Or like this,” he said as he put the same hand on my shoulder. His warmth seared through my bare shoulders, spreading throughout my body.
Oh, Jesus.
I sucked in a breath and tried to keep my voice steady. “I do that to everyone. That’s just how I am. It’s automatic.” Honestly, I don’t even realize it half the time, but I’m often touching someone if they’re close to me, man or woman, young or old.
He had a sip of his beer and looked down at the bottle in his hands. “You do not touch me.”
So, he noticed.
“Well…you’re married,” I said unevenly, wishing my heart would slow the fuck down, feeling completely exposed even in the dark of night.
“And so are many of them.”
“It would be inappropriate…”
“How do you know? Is this inappropriate?”
He took his hand and every so slowly, ever so gently, brushed a strand of loose hair from my face, tucking it behind my ears. His fingertips felt like whispers, telling my skin secrets. I closed my eyes at the touch, feeling it travel down my spine, bathing me in starshine.
I couldn’t remember how to speak. I felt like I was on beautiful drugs, the shivery feel of warm sun on a cold day. “No,” I managed to say, my voice no more than a wisp. I could practically see it float away.
“Then you do it to me,” he said, his voice even lower. “And let me decide.”
I opened my eyes and stared at him in trepidation. His features were so dark and mysterious in the shadow of the moon, the tension between us mounting.
“This is getting weird,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “This is why I don’t touch you.”
He grinned. “Maybe the more you touch me, the less weird it will get. You can start, maybe, with my toes.”
I let out a small laugh, grateful for it. “You are such a freak.”
He shrugged and finished the rest of his beer. A weird, thick silence wrapped itself around us. I started wondering if he felt hurt that I wouldn’t touch him. I started wondering if he had expected me to. I started wondering why I wasn’t, why I was so afraid.
I reached over and delicately touched my fingers to his temple. I slid them along his smooth skin, catching his silky strands and pushing them behind his ears. The tips of his lobes felt so soft, I had to fight every single instinct to not wrap my lips and tongue around them. I wanted to bite them, feel them between my teeth. I kept my fingers there, now gently nestled in the luxurious feeling of his hair.
His eyes slid to mine, burning, smoldering, like they were lit on fire and my gaze back only stoked the flames. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t take my hand away. I felt like I was drowning.
His full lips parted slightly, enough for me to catch a glimpse of his pink tongue. The heat inside me pooled between my legs, demanding I pay attention to my needs, to my wants, to my desires. I wanted to straddle him, right there and then, right on that stone wall, and feel his wide shoulders beneath my palms, his firm waist between my thighs.
There was only one way out of this. The moral police that I had never known existed had apparently taken up some real estate in my brain. They reminded me that he was married, and a bit drunk, and I should know better than to act on a damn crush.
Without warning, I suddenly blurted out, “I hope you’ll be satisfied with that. There is no way I’m touching your toes.” I then burst out laughing, a crazy, hyena-type laugh that was half-fake, half assfuck insane.
Mateo blinked a few times, shocked by my apparent descent into Crazyville. With the spell broken, he chuckled and gave me his patented shrug again. “It was worth a shot, yes?”
“Yes,” I agreed, giving him a wan smile. “So.” I cleared my throat and shifted my focus to the field in front of us. “Was that the question?”
“Oh, no,” he said. “My question for the day, my dear Estrella, is about your tattoos. What are they, what do each of them mean?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I was used to this question. I started with my ankles. I pulled up my leg and rolled up the hem of my jeans. “This was my first tattoo,” I told him. “It’s a tattoo of the moon from the Little Prince. I got it when I was fourteen.”
“So young,” Mateo remarked.
“Yeah,” I said but offered no further comment. I rolled up the other leg and showed him the dots going around the ankle. “This is the constellation Auriga.” Knowing he could barely see it, I looked up at the sky and nodded to the horizon. “It’s right there. That bright star, that’s Capella. It’s part of it.”
“Are all of your tattoos of stars?” he asked, his eyes following my gaze.
“Most of them. I have the solar system on my back. I have Pegasus on my neck, Scorpius on my hip, Gemini on my ribs, Cassiopeia as a tramp stamp.”
“Tramp stamp?”
“Um, it’s what you get when you’re young and stupid.” I pushed at my lower back. “Right here.”
I showed him my newest tattoo on the inside of my right arm. “I got this done before I came here, Sagittarius…with skulls, to mix it up. Then I have the shooting stars on my shoulders and on my chest, plus a quote I like by Oscar Wilde right below it. I have a mermaid and ship on my bicep.” I flexed my arm for him. “And a maple leaf on my ass.” I quickly took a gulp of my beer and let him process that.
He laughed, his brows raised to the heavens. “Really?”
“Yup.”
“Did that hurt?”
“Nah. I have a lot of fat there. The stuff on the back of my neck hurt, ribs too. But my ass was fine.”
“I see. But, must be weird to have your ass in someone’s face, yes?”
I gave him a cheeky grin. “Not really. I have a nice as
s.”
He stared at me for a few beats, then smiled and looked away. “As I said before, you are fascinating.”
I started peeling the label off my beer bottle. I knew what that meant—that I had sexual frustration—but I didn’t stop until the label was sticking to my fingers. I rolled it up and then flicked it off onto the grass. “I wish more people found me as fascinating as you do,” I said quietly.
“I am sure they do,” he said thickly. “It would be impossible to not be…enamoured with you.”
My heart seemed to pause, mid-beat. I wanted so badly to ask him point blank if he was enamoured with me. But I was afraid of the answer. It would be bad if he said yes and bad if he said no.
“You said I could ask you a question,” I reminded him gently.
He nodded. “Yes, I did. I am—how you say—all ears.”
I listened to the crickets for a few seconds. “Do you miss your family?”
His chin jerked down slightly and he gave me a funny look. “Do I miss my family? Of course I do. Why you ask?”
“I’m just curious,” I said. “Because I don’t miss mine. I don’t know what’s normal.”
“You miss your brother,” he assumed.
I nodded. “I do. I wish he was here with me, though.”
“You can miss people without wanting to be home. I wish my daughter was here.”
My face softened. “Oh yeah? Chloe Ann?”
“Yes,” he said warmly. “She would love it here very much. She loves animals. She would love the fields and the fat pigs and the horses down the road there. You would like her very much. And she would like you. You have the same sense of adventure.”
And now came the time for the question I could have ignored. “What about your wife. Do you miss her? Do you wish she was here?”
A hesitant look came into his eyes and he chewed on his lip. Finally he put the beer bottle down beside him and stared at his hands, blankly. “I could give you the good answer and tell you yes. But I would be lying and I don’t wish to lie to you, Vera.” He sighed while I was left wondering if it was he didn’t miss her or didn’t want her here…or if they were both the same thing. “As I said to before, women are complicated. My relationship with Isabel is…complicated.”
Keep This Promise Page 61