“Wild?”
She smirked. “Oh yes. Our players are known for being a little wild and crazy. Lots of sex and fights and drinking. Mateo was no different than the rest. And Isabel, with her Duchess grandmother and her socialite status, she didn’t want that. The team called her Yoko Ono, for stealing Mateo away from them.”
I had forgotten that Beatriz was a sports reporter, no wonder she knew so much. I looked down at my hands. “But he went along with it. He married her.”
“I know. Everyone found that to be a surprise. I think Mateo lost himself a little after the injury and didn’t know what to do. She showed up at the right time and told him what to do. Soon they were married, and then they had a child. She helped in investing the restaurants. Her brother is chef, so I feel like she had something to do with that.”
It all made sense with what Mateo had said, that he’d just been oblivious to the whole thing. Eight years of oblivion. No wonder that soccer match, his injury, had evoked such a response from him. I had just assumed that he was reliving the pain and humiliation of the injury, not the moment his whole life had changed and he had become something that he wasn’t.
I suddenly wanted nothing more than to go find him. I don’t know exactly what I would have said or done once I did so—I certainly wouldn’t have told him what Beatriz had told me. But I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. That I knew who he was and that was more than okay. I liked the real Mateo with his jeans and boots, the businessman Mateo with his slick suits, the soccer star Mateo in his jersey and shorts. I liked the calm Mateo, the witty Mateo, the lusty Mateo, and the hot-tempered Mateo.
I liked all of him.
No. I loved all of him.
I loved Mateo Casalles.
With my eyes now brimming with tears, I slowly looked up at Beatriz, Claudia, and Polly, who had been watching me lapse into silence, their faces bunched with concern.
I didn’t have to say anything.
Claudia soothed, “Oh, honey,” and came over to my side, embracing me in a hug while the other two girls did the same. I let a few tears fall in anticipation of losing a love, an opportunity that never had a chance to be realized, while Claudia and Polly both cried knowing that they’d have to say goodbye to Ricardo and Eduardo too.
The clock started ticking louder. The countdown to the end had begun.
“I don’t want to go home,” I wailed into the phone.
“You say that now, but you’ll change your mind when you get back here,” Josh said, apparently munching on an extra crinkly bag of chips. “Besides, if you don’t come back soon, you’ll sound even more stupid. I thought you were teaching English over there, not losing it.”
“They warned us that would happen,” I said, conscious of how I’d started pronouncing words since I started talking to him.
I took the phone away from my ear and checked the time. I was sitting in my bedroom and talking to Josh while wearing the nicest dress I had packed, which happened to be the boobalicious maxi dress with the smocked waist. It was the night after the gossip magazine incident and corresponding tears, and all of the Anglos and Spaniards were being treated to a dinner at a restaurant in Acantilado. I only meant to check in with my brother quickly since I hadn’t all week and hadn’t planned on the phone call going on for so long. I guess I had a lot to say. I wasn’t even saying the half of it.
“When you come back,” he said, “I’ll pick you up at the airport.”
“When you say pick me up, you mean I’m sitting on the handlebars of your bike, don’t you?”
“Nope,” he said proudly. “I’ll pick you up in a three-year-old Volkswagen Golf.”
“And where did you get that? Stealing cars on the east side?”
“Nope again. I bought it. I have a car now.”
“What?” My brother had always wanted a car—sometimes it was crucial for our city—but he never managed to save up enough with his job. “How did that happen?”
“That contest I entered?” he said smugly. “I won it.”
“Holy shit!’ I cried out. “That’s amazing. And fast! And what the fuck, how much money did they give you?”
“One thousand dollars. And I had been saving some money, so I used that too.”
My smile faltered a bit at that. I knew he had some saved up, but I was about to suggest to him that he use that money to travel. I knew Josh felt as trapped and listless as I did, or at least close. I wanted to tell him to come here, do the program, or just backpack. Find life, inspiration. Even love, since all the picky, yoga pants-wearing girls in Vancouver didn’t seem to be impressed with his tattoos.
“Well I’m very happy for you,” I said. “This means I get a car too.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“Because I don’t want to go home!”
“Aw, Vera…”
“I don’t! And you can’t make me!”
“You have no money.”
“I can turn tricks. Spanish men seem to like me.”
“Nasty. I don’t want to hear it.”
“I’m serious, Josh. I don’t want to go home. It will kill me to leave here.”
“You’re such a girl,” he chided me.
“I mean it.” I sighed and peered out my window at the glowing sunset. People had started to gather in front of reception. My heart twinged a bit at the sight of them all, my friends. “This place changes the way you think, the way you look at life, the way you look at people. It teaches you…that we’re all the same deep down. It doesn’t matter your age or where you’re from. We’re all human, suffering from the human condition.”
“I’m going to be honest with you, you sound like a loon right now. Who is this and what have you done with my sister?”
“I know I sound loony. A girl here, Becca, you’d like her—she told me the same thing during the first week and I didn’t believe her, not really. But everything she said would happen did. You bond with people here, like you never would otherwise. They become your life, your…universe.” I shivered over my last words.
“Okaaaaay,” he said slowly. “I think I’m going to hang up now.”
I grumbled, feeling like I was a foreigner speaking a strange language. “Fine. Love you.”
“Yeah. See you Tuesday. I’ll be the hot guy in the fucktastic car.”
“Ew.”
I hung up, shoved my phone in my purse, and went running out the door.
This time instead of taking three vans, we all piled into a charter bus similar to the one that brought us here from Madrid. It couldn’t go all the way into the town, but the restaurant was supposed to be on the outskirts anyway. The lucky Spaniards (sans Mateo) were brought there last week for their football victory dinner and apparently the food had been very good.
I hadn’t gotten a chance to sit with Mateo on the bus because Mark or Marty was with him (I guess they’d grown closer since the whole injury thing), so I sat with Becca and endured the raucous atmosphere. I felt like I was going on a pub crawl and everyone else seemed to have a head start at drinking. Regardless, everyone was in an excellent mood, eager to get out of Las Palabras for the night and celebrate the program coming to a close. We only had two nights left after this.
I guess Mateo and I didn’t really get a good look at each other until he was slowly coming off the bus, being extra careful with his knee. I hadn’t really seen him all day, with the way things had panned out.
He looked…amazing.
For the occasion, he was back in one of his suits. Black, sleek, sharply cut. White shirt with first two buttons undone, no tie. Messy, wavy black hair and a neatly trimmed beard that bordered on stubble. I wanted to run my fingers down his face, down his chest, down his stomach until I was undoing his fly. I wanted to drop to my knees and give him something sweet to remember me by.
Of course, at that salacious thought, he looked up and saw me. My cheeks burned and I gave him a quick, giddy wave.
“Vera,” he said throatily, his face brightened i
n awe. “You look beautiful.”
He came toward me with his arms out, and for the first time ever, he grabbed me by the shoulders and leaned in, planting a kiss on each cheek. I was overcome by desire and lust and gilded happiness just from his body being so close. His rough cheek pressed against mine, his scent making me weak, his lips so warm and soft on my skin that I closed my eyes and took it all in.
This wasn’t like the greeting I got from the other Spaniards. This one lingered.
When he finally pulled away, I knew I was totally blushing. He squinted his eyes at me, smiling gracefully. He took his fingers and brushed my hair off my shoulders. “With the sunset, you look like you are on fire.”
I pressed my legs together, squirming a bit. He had no idea.
It was then that I noticed Becca and Sammy were hanging around at the back of the crowd waiting for us. I cleared my throat and we quickly went to join them. Sammy, dressed in a too-tight purple bodycon dress that put my cleavage to shame, was watching us with a dazed smile on her face.
“Look at you two,” she cooed. “What a lovely couple.”
I gave her the stink-eye. “Hey, how are things with you and Peter the Everything Man?” I warned.
She drew her lips in a thin line and nodded, getting the point. We weren’t a couple, and to even suggest it in front of Mateo wasn’t really the best idea. However, I snuck a peek at his face and he was just staring at me, eyes lit up from the waning light and still kind. Maybe even more than kind…
We made our way through a block of the town, enjoying the look of it in the evening, the lanterns all lit and casting romantic shadows across the narrow streets. When we finally came to the restaurant, I felt that perhaps we were all a bit overdressed. The storefront looked like nothing special, and the name of the restaurant—Horno de Leña—was hanging from the neck of a creepy mannequin. Sammy immediately started giggling at the name and Becca told her to grow up.
Once all of us piled inside, however, my opinion changed. We were led down a staircase that seemed to be carved right out of the wall until we were underground in what appeared to be a dungeon, or at least a cellar. The whole area was just one room, with another staircase on the opposite wall. From floor to ceiling it was old stone, even the supporting arches were made from the same grey rock. At one end I could see what looked like an oven of sorts built right into the stone, and at the other was a bar. The tables were all laid out in a square, with chairs on either side, tastefully decorated with white tablecloths and candelabra centerpieces.
Jerry, who was looking absurd tonight in a powder blue suit, told us that the other staircase led to the back patio if you needed air or wanted a cigarette. We were free to sit wherever we wanted.
At that I saw Claudia and Ricardo and a few other smokers make a beeline to the tables closest to the patio. She immediately started waving me over, gesturing that she saved some seats.
I looked up at Mateo. “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”
He grinned. “Can we pretend I’m paying?”
“Of course. And I’ll pretend I’m paying.”
We went and sat down with Sammy, Becca, Polly, Eduardo, Nerea, Manuel, Jorge, and Ed. I had Mateo on one side of me and Becca on the other, which was better than Sammy who I was sure would have kept badgering me.
The dinner was three courses and by the time we were on the second course—mouth-watering paella—I was brimming with emotion. I kept looking around at most of the Anglos and all of the Spaniards, and my chest just ached for the sort of affection I felt for them. I never in a million years thought I would have made all these friends, friends who felt real, genuine and true. And here they all were, my family for the last month. I wasn’t exaggerating much when I told Josh that it would kill me to have to leave. I just couldn’t fathom life without them. I couldn’t fathom the life I was living before.
From the looks of everyone else, their smiles on their lips but the sentimental sadness in their eyes, I knew they felt the same. This was one of the last nights to just enjoy each other before we all had to say goodbye.
I felt like I needed to start with the man next to me. We were sitting close to each, closer than we normally did at Las Palabras, and I could feel the heat coming off of him in the damp chill of the underground. Though we made conversation with everyone, whenever I had a chance I was looking at him, talking to him, soaking up his face like I’d never see it again.
I was also drinking quite a bit. Instead of Heineken, this place had Colombian beer—Aguila—which tasted like a rainbow. Mateo laughed when I told him that, telling me it tasted like piss and that my taste buds had been compromised. Then we moved on to the wine, which the ever-so-picky Mateo admitted was a million times better than the wine we’d been drinking all month long back at the resort.
I couldn’t tell you how many times I wanted to do more than just lightly touch my hand on his knee or whisper in his ear. I wanted to put my hand on his inner thigh and squeeze, I wanted to suck on his earlobe. I wanted to bring his face around to mine and kiss him with abandon like Ricardo and Claudia and Polly and Eduardo and so many other people were doing.
It was as if some alarm inside of me was going off, blaring, “You’re running out of time, you’re running out of time!” and I kept hitting snooze, over and over and over again. I started fidgeting in my seat, running the napkin through my hands, playing with my hair, trying to keep my thoughts distracted and my digits occupied.
It was a losing game. Eventually, after the dessert was finished and everyone was just drinking and talking, Mateo noticed.
He had been deep in a conversation with Jorge about something or other when he leaned in close and whispered in my ear, hot breath on my neck, “Are you okay?”
I swallowed the brick in my throat and nodded.
The next thing came out of nowhere.
“Are you afraid to be with me?” he asked softly, his lips now brushing my earlobes. Perhaps by accident. Perhaps not.
I stiffened. I knew what to say. I would say, “No” and leave it at that. But there was so much in his voice, so much want, sincerity, and emotion that I knew I couldn’t lie to him.
“Right now I am,” I admitted just loud enough for him to hear. But we were in a room full of people, their laughter and words bouncing off the stone grey walls, and that’s all I was going to say.
I had to get some air.
I quickly got to my feet and pushed my chair back and went for the staircase. I breathed a giant sigh of relief when I pushed the door open at the top and saw that the patio was completely empty. It was also totally beautiful.
It was a brick courtyard with a tall wall around it lit up by fairy lights and covered in flowering vines. A small fountain with a cherub was in the center while in the corners there were giant terra-cotta pots filled with purple and blue flowers. There were a few tables and ashtrays, empty beer bottles stacked on the end of one, as if someone was going to bring them all downstairs but just forgot.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the air. Though we were in the town, the air was pure and wonderful, balmy compared to the cellar. After all those days of rain, the warmth invigorated me, brought some clarity into my alcohol-infused, heart-frazzled, hormone-frenzied veins.
The clarity didn’t last for long. I heard the patio screen door close and I immediately knew who was behind me.
“Vera,” Mateo said hoarsely.
I slowly turned my head to glance at him over my shoulder. “Yeah?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
What was I supposed to say to that? He knew how I felt; he had to. Everyone else knew how I felt, why couldn’t he?
I sat down at the nearest picnic table and wished I had brought something with me to drink.
At that thought, the patio door opened again. I looked up to see Jorge holding Mateo’s half-finished beer.
“Jerry is going to start giving out awards for the program soon,” he said cautiously, knowing he wasn’t wa
nted. “He wants everyone to be present.”
I thought Mateo would have said something to that, but he didn’t. He was still staring at me, waiting for an answer to his question. He ignored Jorge, and instead pulled up a chair, sitting his large frame down across from me.
The silence crackled above our heads like a live wire. I could feel Jorge’s eyes on us as he reluctantly placed Mateo’s drink on the table and walked away. Part of me wished for him to come back, to break up the tension and the startling intensity in Mateo’s eyes. The other part was selfishly glad Jorge was leaving us in peace. Alone.
I broke away from Mateo, focusing instead on his bottle of Aguila and the condensation that ran down the sides, looking blissfully cool in the sticky night air. Through all the weeks of joking, talking, the innocent physical contact, now I was astutely nervous about being alone with him. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid of him—I was afraid of me. Especially since that remark at dinner, I’d been afraid of what I’d do to him, how I’d break that moral code I promised for myself.
He’s married, he’s married, he’s married, I told myself, watching a drop of water race down the beer to the table. His wife is beautiful and lovely, his daughter is sweet, and you aren’t either of those things.
But I could only tell myself that so many times.
“Vera,” he said thickly. “Vera, look at me.” His voice was commanding, reaching a depth I hadn’t heard before.
My eyes slowly slid over to him. I tried to speak but could only suck in my lip, probably taking all my lipstick off.
“Show me the stars again,” he said. His eyes speared me like nothing else, his face becoming dangerously handsome.
I looked up to the clear sky to see the stars, but he came over to me, reached out, and grabbed my hand. His touch was hot, like his fingers were searing into my skin, that feeling of entering a hot tub on a cold night. I couldn’t help the shiver that ran gently down my spine.
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