by Karina Halle
And, perhaps inappropriately, my heart squeezed a bit for him. It couldn’t have been easy to give up what you loved doing for something else that didn’t give you joy.
Ironically, though Mateo was always considerate and thoughtful, he didn’t show any of that on the field. He moved through people, bowling them over with no apologies, all so the ball could be at his feet again. And, as goalie, he showed zero compromise with me. He kicked that ball at me like he was trying to take my head off.
As such, I spent a lot of time leaping for the ball but making sure my timing was just a bit off, so the ball never collided with me. I looked like I was putting in an effort, but really I was just letting Mateo make every single goal on purpose. His smile was so blinding after each goal that it warmed me inside and out, and besides, there was no way I was going to get bruised up in exchange for that. I couldn’t stop him, even if I was trying.
Naturally, the Spaniards won the game (so much for a practice match) and Jerry promised us all that next week we could probably have the official match on the field of the school in Acantilado. At least the goal posts would be bigger.
I wanted to talk to Mateo when it was all over, but he had a crowd of people around him now. I wondered if it made him feel like he was back in the day, back in the glory.
It was just as well. The game did nothing to clear my head or get out my sexual ya-yas. I had a business session with Claudia next and I knew for sure we weren’t having any kind of meeting.
“Great game,” Claudia said, coming up to me with the binder in her hands. She had opted to sit and watch, which was the wiser choice. “Do you want to do the interview or the phone call?”
“I have a better idea,” I said. “Do you have any beer at your apartment? Or wine?”
She frowned. “I have wine.”
“That will do. Let’s go.”
Minutes later we were sitting on her couch, a glass of wine white each. She kept flipping through the binder until I told her to put it away, we wouldn’t be needing it.
“I just want to talk,” I said. “Not about business.”
“Okay, yes.” She looked a bit relieved—the sessions were the hardest parts of the day. “What about? Are you okay?”
I nodded and craned my head around to look at her roommate, Polly’s, door. It was open, room empty.
“She’s not here,” Claudia said. “What is wrong, Vera?”
I sighed and swirled the wine around in the glass. “Nothing really. I just need to talk to someone and you seem so open-minded, maybe you would understand.”
“I am not Lauren,” she said seriously.
“No, you aren’t.” I folded my leg under me, my thighs sticking to the couch. Each day here it was growing warmer and warmer, my skin more and more tanned. “I talked to Becca last week and she said that this place has a way of…making people fall in love. Or at least fall into bed together.”
A knowing smirk came across her face, her brown eyes dancing. “Oh, yes, I can see that is true.”
“Really?” I asked, intrigued. “Has this happened to you so far?”
Her face turned red and she smiled sheepishly, looking down. Oh, how very interesting.
“Who?” I goaded.
She bit her lip and shyly met my eyes. “Ricardo.”
“Ricardo!” I exclaimed. Ricardo was very tall, mid-twenties, with a large roman nose and a buzz cut, but he was very cute. Still, it surprised me. “I would have thought Eduardo,” I told her.
The color in her cheeks deepened. “It was Eduardo. The second night. We just kissed, so…But he is with Polly now.”
“I thought he’d go with Becca. Doesn’t Polly have a boyfriend?”
Claudia shrugged and pulled down at her yellow tee. “Not my problem. Eduardo is nice but Ricardo is really nice.”
“How did it happen?” I asked, kinda wanting the sordid details.
She was coy. “The way it usually happens.”
“Did you make the first move?”
Another shrug. “Why not?”
I swear, a shrug and a “why not?” were the Spaniard’s go-to answer for everything.
“Well, then I guess it seems safe—and a little boring now—to tell you that I have a crush on someone.”
Her brows quirked up. “Other than Mateo?”
“What?”
“You are sleeping with Mateo, no?”
“WHAT?!”
“No?”
“No!” I exclaimed, appalled. “Why does everyone keep thinking that?”
“Because you are always together,” she said simply. She took a sip of wine. “The attraction is very obvious. So, I figure you must be sleeping together.”
“He’s married!”
“Yes, but you are not.”
I shook my head adamantly. “It’s wrong. I don’t want to be the other woman. I’ve seen my dad go for the other woman, I can’t put his daughter through that,” I said. “Or his wife,” I quickly added.
“That doesn’t mean that you can’t have feelings for anyone else.”
“Yes, it does mean that.”
“Maybe you are meant to be together.”
“We’re not! There isn’t even a together. We’re just friends. I haven’t done anything about it and so far my feelings are totally one-sided.”
Claudia got up off the couch and brought a pack of cigarettes out of her front jean pocket. “If you think it is on the one-side, you have not seen the way that he looks at you.”
She walked over to her small patio and pulled up a chair. I got up and stormed after her, my nerves dancing excitedly.
“What do you mean, the way he looks at me?” I asked, lowering my voice in case there were people around, listening. I felt like bouncing off the walls.
She slid the ashtray toward her as I sat down. “You do not see it. But I do. I think everyone does. He looks at you like…like you’re his favorite food.”
“Favorite food?”
She lit her cigarette. “Yes. You’re like his favorite food in the whole world. He wants to have you, eat you, devour you. He thinks about you all the time, craves you. But, he cannot have you for one reason or another. Perhaps you upset his stomach. Maybe he is on a diet, yes? All he wants is a taste but he cannot even have that. That is how he looks at you.”
I sat there, stunned, as some of her smoke blew in my face. That’s how Mateo looked at me? Like he wanted to eat me? I was pretty sure that’s how I looked at him. Just last night I was contemplating nibbling on his ear lobes.
“And yes,” she said, leaning closer to me, a small smile on her lips, “that is also how you look at him.” Great, a mind reader. “But you are more subtle about it. You try not to let everyone know. But, we know.”
“There is nothing to know,” I reminded her, poking the table with my finger for emphasis. “We are not sleeping together. He is married. I have a crush. That is it. The end of the story.”
“A crush?” she questioned. “Vera, I think you’re in love with him.”
No fucking way. Not love. That did not happen with me, not ever and not now.
“You can’t fall in love in a week,” I told her heatedly.
“You can fall in love in a second,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “The heart has no regard for time.”
With that sobering thought, Claudia told me about her ex-boyfriend and how they fell in love at first sight then took the conversation back onto Ricardo and their exploits. I envied her so badly right there and then. She could fawn over Ricardo, kiss him, fuck him and no one would ever bat an eye. It was okay for them to be together. It wasn’t forbidden.
I gulped the rest of the wine and left her apartment, heading back to reception to meet Cristina for my next one-on-one, my mind and heart and hormones all over the place. Lo and behold, Mateo was walking up the path toward me.
He was on the phone, smiling.
His shirt was off and slung over his shoulder, exposing his bare chest, abs and arms.
Holy fuck.
For a moment, I was sure that time had stopped. Or maybe ever single nerve, cell, vein, bone, muscle in my body just slowed as I took him all in.
From his thick-veined forearms to his sculpted shoulders, broad chest peppered with neatly-trimmed chest hair, to his six-pack abs, he had, by far, the best body I’d ever seen on a man. He kept himself in fine ass shape, looking more like a young athlete than anything else. Like, he and David Beckham had more in common than I thought, although David’s skin tone wasn’t as mesmerizing. Mateo’s color was amazing, just beautiful, this dark golden bronze tan that covered him everywhere. I wanted so badly to just touch him, to lick the sheen of sweat of his skin. I bet he tasted like victory.
And to think, this was the man that Claudia said wanted to taste me.
I really, really wanted to believe her.
Meanwhile, I was just standing there like I was melting into a puddle of myself. I clamped my mouth shut as he walked past and I heard him say into the phone, “No, mi tesorito, it was easy, I didn’t injure myself.” He was beaming, talking about the game, to his wife. To his tesorito. And he called their relationship complicated? This was complicated.
He winked at me in acknowledgement, his smile becoming broader. I tried to smile back but it wouldn’t come. I just stared at him, feeling stupid, foolish and strangely rejected. In a perfect world I may have been his favorite food, but it still wasn’t what he got served every day. I turned around and walked down the hill, my heart feeling like a pin cushion.
“Vera!” I heard him call out from behind. I stopped and nervously glanced over my shoulder. He was holding the phone’s receiver to his chest, grinning at me. “I need to ask you your question.”
“What?” I answered, hoping it was quick.
“Who is your favorite Spaniard here?”
Seriously?
And yet I couldn’t lie to him.
“You,” I said, more to myself than to him. Then I turned around and walked away as quickly as I could.
Chapter Eleven
The verbal attacks from Lauren, my conversation with Claudia and my encounter with shirtless Mateo did a total number on my head and my heart. The next four days passed by like a blender, shaking me up, changing my feelings from moment to moment. It didn’t help that a heat wave had suddenly gripped the region and the sweat diluted my thoughts.
The thing was, I didn’t do love. That wasn’t my thing. That was the reason why I didn’t date, I only got laid when I needed to blow some steam or have some fun. I didn’t have time to put up with complicated relationships or put my heart and soul out there for someone to step on. Love was scarier than deep space.
So that’s why I knew I couldn’t be in love. I was just in lust with Mateo, and that was usually fine, totally normal. But now, everything seemed so jumbled. I couldn’t keep my head on straight and every time I tried to pick a new strategy to get through this, such as “from now on, I will not be attracted to him” or “from now on, I will not speak to him”, something came along and shook things loose.
That something was usually Mateo. Avoiding him was really hard when you were forced to interact nearly every day and especially hard when he still sought you out for his daily question.
It was also hard because every time he asked me to go for a walk with him, to eat breakfast with him, to look through an English gossip magazine together with him, I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to. I wanted to be around him as much as I could, even though I knew I shouldn’t.
Really, I was just fucked. And not in the right way.
Like when he asked me to try napping with him again after we finished lunch. The temperature was sweltering, even with the fans inside going full blast, and everyone looked like they’d been hit by a truck carrying a flatbed of sweat. I hadn’t been sleeping very well thanks to the heat and was extra tired. So, taking a nap felt like the smart thing to do even though it might have not been.
We walked outside onto the patio where he once again grabbed a few extra seat cushions and went over to the tree where we last had our siesta. Because of the heat, he was wearing his worn-in jeans, Keds and a fitted black t-shirt with faded vintage designs, pretty much his uniform for the last few days. I wasn’t complaining. I loved Mateo in his slick business suits but I also loved Mateo in his dressed down, rough style. I had a feeling that deep down, that was the style closer to him.
I loved Mateo in everything.
Except, I wasn’t in love with him.
Of course.
“Ready for another siesta?” he asked as he got down on the ground, propping one of the cushions up under his head.
I looked around me to see if anyone was watching. There were a few people at the tables—Polly and Eduardo, Sara, Manuel and Nerea. The slut-shamer and the Brony were nowhere to be seen.
“You going to join me?”
I stared down at him, at his long body lying beneath me. What I really wanted to do was straddle him and put my hands down those jeans. But I shoved those lewd thoughts in a box somewhere.
I got down to the ground and made myself comfortable. We were lying closer to each other than we had been the first time. I felt like if I moved my arm even the slightest little bit, my hand would brush against his. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a coincidence or not.
“Are you going to the party tonight?” he asked casually.
“Why wouldn’t I?” Tonight was the weekly party and this time we were supposed to get a flamenco dancing show, put on by Sara and Nerea, with Manuel playing classical guitar.
“You seem tired,” he explained. “But so am I. It usually doesn’t get this hot until August.”
“I bet you wish you lived on the coast,” I said. In Vancouver, it rarely got hot—or cold—because we were by the ocean.
“Yes,” he said. “But I have an apartment in Barcelona, so I try to go on the weekends.”
Wow. Now that would be cool. I bet it was a beautiful place too. My mind immediately began to envision a butter-colored Dali-esque exterior overlooking a wide expanse of golden beach. Mateo was there, standing by a balcony, the transparent curtains blowing past him. In my mind, he was wearing only boxer briefs, with a plush robe half-hanging off of him, the ocean breeze moving his hair.
“You should come see it one day,” he said, still a casual tone to his voice. It entered my dream and suddenly I was in the picture too.
I let out an uneasy laugh and the image vanished. “Yeah, I wish.”
Silence hummed between us. I could feel that Mateo wanted to say something more but I didn’t want him to say it.
“So,” I said, sliding over it. “In the last however many days, you’ve asked me who my favorite Spaniard is, my first pet as a child, my favorite childhood memory, what my thoughts are on global warming and why Justin Beiber exists.”
He raised his hand in the air and started ticking off his fingers. “And you’ve told me it was me, naturally, a hamster named Chubb-Chubb, a sailing trip on your parent’s friends boat when you were nine, you think the planet is angry and we are all fucked, and that Justin Beiber exists because he is the anti-Christ and no one would ever suspect the anti-Christ came from Canada. Correct?”
“Sounds right. So what is today’s question?”
“Hmmm,” he mused. He put his hand back down beside him and his pinky finger lay directly across my pinky finger. I held my breath, afraid to move, the sensation of his skin on mine felt heavier than lead. It was all I could think about. His finger on mine. Was he going to move it? Should I move mine? Were we going to just lie there, touching like that?
Oh my god, I was going insane.
“Vera?” he asked.
I swallowed. “Yes.”
“What are you thinking about?”
You, you, you, always you, I screamed inside.
“Sorry,” I quickly said. “I was thinking about Justin Beiber.”
“Is that so?”
“What were you saying?” I prod
ded, hoping he wouldn’t pry.
“I was saying I was hoping to ask you tonight.”
“Why tonight?”
“Because you would be drunk.”
My heart thudded in my chest. What did that mean?
I took in a careful breath. “How come you can’t ask me when I’m sober?”
He shrugged but his finger was still on mine, trapping me. “People speak the truth when they are drunk. More or less.”
“Well,” I said bravely. “Then ask me tonight when I am drunk.”
“I will.”
We didn’t say anything for a few moments. All I kept thinking about what he was going to ask me, why did he need me to be drunk and truthful? My mind started going fast, the hamster wheel spinning, as my heart sprinkled it with hope. Was he going to ask me to have an affair with him?
No. No, it was such a long shot. Despite what Claudia said, he didn’t see me as his favorite food and even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t take a bite.
Oh, god I hoped he wouldn’t because I didn’t think I’d be able to resist.
And then what?
Suddenly it felt like I choked up with fear, like it reached a hand in and took a good hold of my chest. I couldn’t go to the party tonight. I couldn’t be put in those circumstances. I didn’t trust myself this time, I didn’t trust that I wouldn’t do something that I would regret and I didn’t trust that I wouldn’t get hurt.
If the heart had no regard for time, mine wouldn’t have any for pain.
“Tell me about the stars, Estrella,” he said abruptly, clearing his throat, clearing my panicked thoughts from my head.
I stared up at the sky, at the sun that was trying to push through the clouds, clouds that pressed down the oppressive heat like an angry fist. “Uh, you can’t see the stars right now.”
“But let us pretend you can,” he said. “I know you are very good at pretending.”
I frowned and rolled my head to the side to look at him. He was facing the sky, his aviator shades on his eyes, the clouds reflected in them. I loved the slight bump on the bridge of his nose, like he’d gotten it head-butting someone in soccer. He probably did.