by Elena Armas
“You stressed how important it is that Charo doesn’t suspect us. Our deal.”
Barely listening to what he was saying, I watched his hand lift in the air again. Then, his thumb was brushing the commissure of my lips one more time. This time, feeling twice as intensely. His touch twice as gentle. My eyes fluttered closed for an instant.
“I think you got all the chocolate.” My voice was so breathy that I barely recognized it. “Thanks.”
“Just wanted to be thorough,” he answered quietly as his gaze bounced from that goddamn spot close to the corner of my lips to my eyes. “Next question?”
“Best man?”
I squirmed in my seat, uneasiness replacing all the earlier tingly warmth. Perhaps because that was a topic that didn’t wake up the fuzziest of feelings in me. Or maybe because of how unsettled I was by what had just happened. I couldn’t be sure, but I held my breath as I waited for his answer.
“Daniel.” Aaron’s gaze held mine, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “He’s your ex and the groom’s brother.”
I nodded my head once, unable to do much more than that.
Aaron rearranged himself in the seat, dipping his head so we were at eye-level. “You haven’t said much else about him. Is there anything besides that, that I should know?”
He regarded me quietly, almost expectantly, and I could really tell I had all his undivided attention. Just how he had said earlier. Although this time, it wasn’t a trick. The need to open up to him and tell him everything manifested itself, making me doubt myself.
“No. That’s all.” I shifted in my seat, lowering my gaze to his hands, which were resting on his lap. “He’s my ex and Gonzalo’s older brother by a few years. Isabel and him met through us, when we started dating. And … that’s about it.”
If I were smarter, I’d tell Aaron the whole story.
But as of lately, I’d seemed to excel at making only stupid decisions. So, that was all I gave him.
In my defense, facing the catalyst of my current predicament was going to be hard enough. I did not want to spend my time talking about Daniel because that meant going back down memory lane, which had consisted of bad decisions and heartbreak.
So, no, it wasn’t something I was happy to casually chat about regardless of how crucial it was for the show we were about to put on. Even if a part of me refused to acknowledge just how small I would feel, showing Aaron that piece of myself, and even when I knew that I was lying to him. Lying again. It was a lie by omission, sure, but it had the potential to bite me in the ass later. Just like any lie would.
“You can trust me,” he said softly.
Maybe I could. But that didn’t mean trusting Aaron with that would ever come easy to me. That fragment of my life had been locked up for a long time—perhaps so long that chances were, the lock had grown rusty and withered and there was no working it back open. That would explain how I had gotten here. Somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean, sitting next to a man I usually struggled to share the same air with without wanting to throw something at his hard head, but who had somehow happened to be the one man in New York City in the position to fill in as my made-up boyfriend.
“What’s my abuela’s name?” I kept my gaze low, anywhere but on his face. I didn’t think I wanted to get a single clue as to what he was feeling at that moment. I didn’t think it would make me feel good.
“Catalina,” Aaron said my name with something that sounded a lot like pity.
I hated it. “Incorrect,” I snapped. “My abuela’s name is not Catalina, Aaron. You need to know the name of my only living grandmother.”
I was deflecting, but that didn’t change the facts. He really had to know the name of my abuela.
“So?” I pressed. “What’s my abuela’s name?”
Aaron dropped his head on the plush headrest, closing his eyes for a second. “Your abuela’s name is María, and she doesn’t speak one word of English, which shouldn’t trick me into thinking that she is harmless. If by any chance she shoves food in my direction, I’m to keep my mouth shut and eat.” Aaron’s words rolled off his tongue, as if he had been practicing this speech for weeks.
“Impressive.” I nodded my head.
He took a deep breath and looked at me, pleading. “We have gone through this a thousand times, and you are giving me a headache.” His eyebrows knit. “You need to relax. I need to rest. Let’s do that. Do you think you can be quiet for a few hours?”
“First of all, it was only three times.” I showed him with my fingers, just to be thorough. “And we are not even done with the last round of questions. And secondly, I am completely and absolutely relaxed. I am cooler than a cucumber, Blackford. I just want to be sure that you don’t screw up and mix up basic info. You are my boyfriend—” I stopped myself, hearing what had just left my mouth. “That is the part you will play in this whole Spanish love deception. My made-up boyfriend. So, you should at least know the names of my immediate family, so no one can sniff that you and I are not a real thing. And trust me, they’ll know if you so much as hesitate.”
That earned me a scowl.
“Yes. Do not look at me like that,” I told him, pointing my finger at his frown. “In Spain, cousins and second cousins are immediate family too, okay? Same goes for uncles, aunts, and great-uncles and great-aunts. Sometimes, neighbors too.” I paused in thought. “Oh, maybe we should go over the physical descriptions again—”
“No,” Aaron cut off my suggestion, his voice sounding more frustrated by the second. “What we need to do is rest. And if you don’t want to do that, then you should let me rest. Do you want me to be all grumpy when we land?”
“You are always grumpy.”
His scowl deepened. “Do you want me to be so tired that I’ll be extra grumpy and make a bad impression?”
“Is that a threat?” A gasp left my lips.
“No,” he said, taken aback by my accusation. “But it’s a possible outcome if you don’t let me sleep.”
“But it will be just one more time. It can be quick. Just first cousins?” I bargained with a pout.
Aaron sighed dramatically.
“Or maybe we should go over basic stuff, like my favorite color, the movie that makes me cry, or what I’m most afraid of.”
Aaron deflated in his seat.
I opened my mouth, but Aaron cut the air with his hand, stopping me. “Coral. P.S. I Love You. And snakes or anything that looks remotely like one.”
Well, that … was one hundred percent correct.
Then, he closed his eyes, shutting off the world. And me.
Rendered speechless, I rested my head on the seat, imitating him, as I told myself I didn’t want to think about how he had been right. On all of those three things. But the silence only turned every other thought and worry in my head louder and louder.
That earlier emotion was back, making me feel squirmy and nervous and causing me to lose control of the little restraint I usually tried to keep up around Aaron.
“I just want to make sure everything goes perfectly.” My voice came out weak. “I’m sorry if I am giving you a headache.”
Aaron must have heard something in my confession even if I wasn’t sure my words had been loud enough to reach him over the buzz filling the cabin.
His eyes snapped open, and his head turned in my direction. “Why are you so sure I will mess up?”
That question seemed sincere. And that only made the knot in my chest grow.
Did he think all I worried about was him failing at remembering my tía-abuela’s name?
The real impostor was me, not him. “It’s not that.” I shook my head, unable to find the right words. “I … I want them to believe I am happy.”
“Are you not happy, Catalina?” His gaze searched mine with that intensity of his that I was slowly starting to believe would eventually expose all my secrets.
“I guess I am,” I exhaled, sounding more somber than I wanted to give away. “I think I’m happy. I just want eve
ryone else back at home to believe that I am. Even if the only way to accomplish that is this way”—I waved my hand between the two of us—“if you look the part. If we do. Only if everyone back home believes that I’m not lonely and single because I’m broken.” I could see him piecing something together, so I filled in the silence. “We need to make them—all of them—believe that we are deeply, utterly, and completely in love. If they find out about our arrangement, they won’t let me live it down. It will be humiliating. Probably a million times worse than attending the wedding alone and having them pity me until the end of my days.”
If they discovered that I had convinced someone to act as my boyfriend, someone who wasn’t even a friend, I would only manage to confirm what they’d already believed about me. That I was the broken, stuck, and pathetic Lina they saw.
Aaron’s eyes sparked with what looked like understanding. As if something had finally clicked together. The truth behind my motivation perhaps? I hoped not. But whatever it was, it was short-lived because we were interrupted.
His attention shifted to the flight attendant hovering right above our heads.
She directed a radiant smile at him. One he didn’t reciprocate. “Would you like something to drink, Mr. Blackford? Miss Martín?”
“Two gin and tonics, please,” he said without so much as a second glance to the flight attendant. “That okay, baby?”
My head reared back at that last word. Baby. “Yes, sure,” I whispered, feeling my cheeks heat immediately.
Okay, that had … that had been … I had never been baby to anyone. And judging by the quick flutter in my stomach, I had kind of liked it. Oh boy. I had actually liked hearing that. Even if it had been fake.
“Thank you, erm …” I stole a glance at the flight attendant, who was eyeing Aaron in an appreciative way. “Thank you, boyfriend.”
The woman nodded at us with a tight-lipped smile. “I’ll be back with your drinks.”
“You know,” Aaron started in a hushed voice once she was gone, “you are worried about me messing up and mixing up dozens of Spanish names that I’ve heard for the first time today, and yet you overlook that calling me boyfriend will probably give it all away rather quickly.”
“Dozens of names?” I hissed. “More like a dozen.”
Aaron cut me a look.
“A couple dozen, tops. But you might be right,” I admitted, earning a shocked look from him. “What pet name would you like me to call you?”
“Whatever makes you the happiest. Just pick one.”
In that moment, the effect of the baby came back with a vengeance. “I don’t know,” I said, kicking that one out of my head. “I guess one in Spanish makes sense. Bollito? Cuchi cuchi? Pocholito?”
“Bollito?”
“It’s little bun.” I smiled. “Like those bread buns that are spongey and shiny and so cute that—"
“Okay, no.” He frowned. “I think it’s better if we stick to our names,” he said, taking both drinks from the attendant who had just reappeared and placing mine in front of me. “I don’t think I can trust you to pick one in Spanish without knowing what it means.”
“I’m very trustworthy—you should know that by now.” I brought a finger to my chin, tapping it a few times. “How about conejito? That’s little bunny.”
With a long sigh, Aaron let his massive body fall deeper into the seat.
“You are right; you are not a bunny.” I paused. “Osito?” I made a show of looking him up and down, as if I were testing the name on him. “Yeah, that one is way more fitting. You are more of a bear.”
What was very close to a groan got stuck in Aaron’s throat. He lifted his glass to his lips and almost downed half of it. “Just drink and try to get some sleep, Catalina.”
“Okay.” I turned away, snuggling in my seat and taking a sip of my drink. “If you insist, osito.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Aaron finishing up the rest of his gin and tonic.
Not that I blamed him. We were definitely in need of some liquid courage if we wanted to survive this.
Chapter Fifteen
Going through the motions of disembarking the aircraft, getting through customs, and picking up our luggage felt a little bit like one of those strange dreams where everything around you felt fuzzy and unreal, but there was a part of you, deep down in your consciousness, that knew it wasn’t real.
Only this time, it was. And the loud thump, thump, thump in my ears was evidence of just how much.
And yet, as much as that part of me kept repeating that I would wake up while my heart kept screaming that I already was and that this was really happening, the moment the Arrivals gate came into view, my whole body froze with realization.
My suitcase wheels screeched against the floor as my two feet became rooted to the floor. Breath stuck in my throat, I watched the gates opening and closing, letting out whoever had been walking ahead of us.
I glanced at Aaron, who had been walking beside me but was now a couple of steps ahead. My overpacked bag hung off his shoulder again.
“Aaron,” I croaked, that thump, thump, thump growing louder and louder. “I can’t do it.”
Feeling as if my lungs had been filled with cement, I brought a hand to my chest. “Ay Dios.” I heaved. “Ay Dios mío.”
How had I let this get so far?
What was I going to do if everything blew up in my face?
What if I made it all worse?
I was crazy. No, I was plain stupid. And I wanted to punch myself in the face. Maybe that would snap me out of it.
My gaze roamed around desperately, probably looking for an escape. A way to get out. But I couldn’t see anything past those gates that separated us from my parents and kept swallowing passenger after passenger.
“No puedo hacerlo,” I muttered, not recognizing my own voice. “I can’t do this. I just can’t go out there and lie to my whole family. I can’t. It won’t work out. They’ll know. I’ll make a fool of myself. The fool that I am because—”
Aaron’s fingers found my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. “Hey.” The blue in his eyes shone under the fluorescent light illuminating the terminal, snatching all my attention. “There you are.”
Not able to voice a single word more without completely losing my shit, I shook my head lightly. His fingers remained where they were.
“You are not a fool,” he told me as he kept staring into my eyes.
My lids fell closed for a moment, not wanting to see whatever he was looking at me with on top of everything I was barely keeping at bay. “I can’t do it,” I whispered, opening my eyes and meeting his gaze.
His voice hardened. “Catalina, stop being ridiculous.” Contrary to the gentle grip of his fingers, his command was blunt. Unsensitive, considering he was talking to a woman on the verge of flipping out.
But something in it forced me—enabled me, I realized—to take the first full breath in the last couple of minutes. So, I did exactly that. I breathed in, and then I breathed out. All the while, Aaron looked me straight in the eye with something that should have made my anxiety shoot back to the roof but that instead brought me slowly back.
“We’ve got this,” he said with confidence.
We.
That simple two-letter word somehow sounded a little louder than the rest.
And then, as if he had been waiting for me to be ready to hear it, he went for the killing blow. “You are not on your own anymore. It’s you and me now. We are in this together, and we’ve got this.”
And somehow, for a reason I knew I would never be able to explain, I believed him. I didn’t question or fight him.
Neither of us said anything else. My apprehensive brown eyes held his determined blue ones, and some kind of silent understanding passed between us.
Us. Because we, Aaron and I, had just become an us.
Aaron’s fingers dropped from my chin and wrapped around the hand that hadn’t been clutching my chest.
He squ
eezed gently.
Ready? he asked me without words.
I took one last deep breath, and we headed for the doors that opened to the Arrivals terminal of the small Spanish airport.
To my parents.
To this outrageously ludicrous farce we were about to embark on.
To this … what had I called it before? Oh yeah, to this whole Spanish love deception we had planned.
Because we, Aaron and I, got this.
He had said so. And I believed him.
I just hoped, for both our sakes, that he was right.
“Papá, for the last time, we are more than okay here.” My eyes searched the small room for my fake boyfriend, looking for backup.
The corner of his lips tipped up.
“Maybe if we move Abuela to your sister’s place,” Papá continued, “you two could take the big guest room in the house. Although I am not really sure if Tío José and Tía Inma will be sleeping there. Wait, let me call—”
“Papá,” I cut him off, reaching out to pat his arm. “It’s okay. This apartment is more than okay. You don’t need to move us to the house. Leave Abuela alone.”
A wave of nostalgia and familiarity hit me right in the gut. It had been so long since I had come home; all of it felt as familiar as breathing, and at the same time, it was like a memory I had not revisited in a long time. My dad and his good heart, always so accommodating. Caring too much. Trying to make everybody feel at home even if it meant going through the bedroom Hunger Games. I had been so preoccupied with dreading the moment that I had forgotten they were my family. My home. And, God, despite everything, I had missed them with all my heart.
My mom shifted from the entrance of the cramped bedroom, assessing the situation. “Ay, cariño, your father is right. No sé …” She hesitated, looking for the words. “Este hombre es tan alto y … grande.” Her gaze landed on Aaron, traveling from his head to his feet and back up again, while she shook her head with a mix of awe and skepticism.
I thought I had seen that start of a smirk on Aaron’s lips inching higher, which earned him a questioning look from me.