by Elena Armas
“I hope we don’t get to that point.” The right side of his mouth tipped up. “What’s left then?”
“Well, Gabi saved the best for last.” I sighed. “Now comes the real competition.” I gestured with my hands, as if I were unveiling a huge surprise. “The star of the Wedding Cup: the soccer match.”
Aaron hummed, lost in thought for a short moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever played soccer.”
I perked up. “Never, ever?” I watched his head nod. A chance to win. “Like, not even once?”
“Not even once,” he answered. His mouth opened and then clamped down when Gabi hushed us in the distance.
Jesus, that woman needed to cool down. We straightened and faced away from each other.
Aaron lowered his voice, speaking from the side of his mouth, “You think that will be a problem? She seems … a little strict.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about her.” I waved my hand, keeping my eyes up front. “You, on the other hand? I’d worry about getting the hang of it in time.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Aaron glancing over at me quickly.
“And what happens if I don’t?”
My smile turned lopsided. “Then, Team Groom will lose. Miserably.”
I didn’t think that would happen, but Aaron had admitted to something he wasn’t amazing at. And that was new. I stole a quick glance in his direction; he had tilted his head and crossed his arms over his chest.
“If you end up sucking at soccer and messing up, everybody will blame you. But it’s okay; you can’t be good at everything.”
He didn’t move or say anything.
“And you couldn’t be scared of dancing with the rest of the guys, right?” Another quick look allowed me to see the word challenge written all over his face. I snickered. “Oh, maybe you are. I didn’t peg you for a chicken, but it kinda looks good on you. Maybe I should call you pollito instead of osito.”
His head turned very slowly. My gaze remained on him as I helplessly forgot about Gabi.
“Did you just call me a chicken?” he said, the blue in his eyes flaring. “In two different languages?”
“Oh, you bet I did. I would be scared too. Our team is strong.” It wasn’t. “And just so you know, I make for a wonderful central defender.” I didn’t. “But maybe you don’t know what that means. It’s okay. Just know that some used to call me Ruthless Lina.” Not exactly true either.
Of all sports involving balls, soccer was probably the one I sucked at the least. Although if I had ever been called ruthless, it wasn’t because I excelled at playing the game, but because I ruthlessly ate the floor.
“Central defender, huh?”
I nodded. He didn’t need to know the truth.
Aaron dipped his head, his voice dropping too. “Are you trying to impress me with sports lingo, Catalina?”
The way he had said my name was new. I couldn’t explain how, but it had been different from any other time he had voiced those four syllables. And it sent a shiver dancing down my arms.
“It’s sexy, but don’t ever feel like you need to impress me. I already am.”
My lips parted. I thought my breath had hitched too. Sexy. Had he really said that out loud? My eyes searched his face for any trace of sarcasm or evidence that it had been a joke. But before I could find anything, a commotion broke behind us.
Turning, I discovered the newcomer responsible for it. The moment I got a glimpse of the head of dark blond hair I knew—or had known—so well, a heavy weight dropped to the pit of my stomach.
My ex was here. Daniel. Or at least, an older version of the man I remembered. Back when we had dated, he could have been mistaken for a guy my age. But that had changed. In the time we had not seen each other, the way he looked had caught up with his age. And he had aged well. Time had treated him kindly. The Daniel who was striding in my direction was an attractive forty-year-old man, one who moved with the confidence only someone who walked in front of a class filled with college students every day would have.
Although he had always had that confidence, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that exactly what had led me to crush on my professor in the first place? It was during that very first lecture I attended. He walked in, cleared his throat, and flashed that dimple. It didn’t take more than that. I had been a goner.
A lame, pathetic goner, crushing on her Physics professor. Or so I had thought, but then, by some magical turn of events, he had reciprocated my attention. He did more than that. And I had believed we had something real. Something lasting, just how Gonzalo and Isabel did.
And then everything had blown up in my face. Not in our faces, no. Daniel had been spared the nightmare.
“Is that Daniel?” Aaron’s low and hushed question returned me back to the present.
I turned to him briefly, not finding my words so I just nodded.
My attention jumped back to where my ex—and the best man—was, and as I watched how he hugged and clapped his brother’s back, I felt Aaron stepping closer to me. I didn’t move. I was rooted to the floor.
Aaron closed some more of the distance between us, positioning himself to my side, right behind me. And I was shocked at the warmth that his body radiated on my back and how his side quashed some of the uneasiness. It reassured me. He did. And I didn’t understand how or why, but I didn’t have the time to pick that apart. Not with Daniel and everybody else there. So, I just held on to it.
I inhaled deeply and watched how the best man started the round of greeting everyone with kisses and hugs. Around the group he went, and I swore there was something suspended in the air as he did. As if every single person around me was holding their breath until the moment Daniel reached me.
Hating how the atmosphere seemed to thicken with every pair of eyes that turned to me, I reminded myself that I had already been expecting that kind of reaction. Everybody knew what had happened between Daniel and me. How ugly it got and how hard it was for me. And most had pitied me back then. I knew most of them did in this moment, and some always would.
Daniel took that one last step in my direction, causing a churning sensation to twist my stomach in knots.
“Lina.”
It had been ages since I had heard my name from Daniel’s mouth. It brought everything right back, the good moments we had shared—and there had been really amazing moments—all that joy that came hand in hand with a first love you foolishly thought was going to last forever, but also all the pain at having that turned into an ocean of hurt. Because, sure, Daniel had been the one to break my heart, but the real damage had been done by everybody else. By everyone who had learned of our relationship and tarnished it with stupid and poisonous rumors that—
No. Not the time to think of that.
Daniel placed a hand on my upper arm and planted a kiss on my cheek. If it hadn’t been for Aaron’s warm palm, which had somehow landed on the small of my back, I would have stumbled backward. That was how off guard that friendly kiss had caught me.
My gaze roamed around the group, confirming that every person present had their eyeballs turned on us.
Daniel seemed oblivious to all the gawking, smiling at me like we were old friends being reunited after years of not seeing each other. Which was the exact opposite of how I felt.
He looked me up and down. “Dios, Lina. Cuánto tiempo. Mírate. Estás—”
“Daniel,” I cut him off. “This is Aaron,” I blurted out, pulling away from him and nestling myself a step further into my fake boyfriend and personal human-sized shield.
Daniel’s furrowed eyebrows signaled his confusion. Probably because I had switched to English more than because I was introducing him to someone I was supposedly dating.
“Hi. I’m her boyfriend,” Aaron said politely, stretching his hand in front of him. “Su novio,” he clarified in Spanish for Daniel’s sake. Which was completely unnecessary and kind of cocky, and in some parallel reality, it would have pulled a snicker out of me. But my lips remained pressed into
a tense line. “It’s nice to meet you, Daniel.”
My ex and sister’s fiancé’s best friend stared at Aaron for a brief moment and then broke into a wary but amiable smile. “Sí, claro. Nice to meet you, Aaron.” Daniel finally took Aaron’s hand and shook it. “I’m an old friend of Lina.”
Something pulled tight in my stomach at Daniel’s definition of what we had once been.
As soon as both men retrieved their arms, Daniel returned his attention to me, and Aaron’s palm returned to my back.
“How have you been, Lina? You look so … different.” Daniel’s smile widened. “Different, but good. You look amazing actually.”
His eyes kept assessing me, as if he couldn’t believe that it was me. And I wasn’t really sure how I felt about that, so I forced my lips to curl up.
“Thanks, Daniel. I have been fine, busy with work and … life.”
“That’s right.” My ex nodded his head. “You are living the life in New York City. I always knew you had the potential to do great things, to get very far in your career.”
He had been my professor for a whole year before we started properly dating, and during that time, I had been a highly motivated student. An overachiever. Things had changed after that.
“And you did.”
“Thanks,” I muttered. My mind filing away all kinds of complaints. “It’s not that big of a deal.”
Aaron cleared his throat lightly. “It is,” he said softly. So much that I thought he had said it just for me. But then he kept going, “Lina leads a considerably large team of people in one of the most successful engineering consulting companies in New York. That is, by all standards, a big deal.”
“Wow.” Daniel smiled tightly. “That’s amazing, Lina. It is.” His lips turned somewhat more relaxed. “Congratulations.”
I muttered my thanks, still feeling flushed over Aaron’s words.
There was a long and awkward moment of silence, and then Daniel’s eyes bounced quickly between Aaron and me. “So, this is him, huh? The American boyfriend.”
My head reared back, shocked by Daniel’s word choice. With my shoulders tensing, my mouth opened with the intention of asking what that had been, but I felt Aaron’s hand trailing up my back, stopping at the nook between my shoulder and my neck. His thumb brushed the skin there very gently. That touch—that thumb caressing the side of my neck—almost made me forget about who was in front of me and what he had said or if he had talked at all. His finger swiped right and left one more time, making a shiver run down my spine.
Closing my eyes briefly, I pulled myself back into the conversation and decided to ignore Daniel’s last comment. “Congratulations on the engagement.” I made my lips tug up. “I’m very happy for you, Daniel.”
Daniel’s eyes, which had been somewhere where Aaron’s palm was, met mine. He nodded and flashed that dimple I had been so familiar with in the past. “Thank you, Lina. I’m extremely grateful she said yes. It’s not that easy to deal with me sometimes. I get lost in my head a lot when I’m working,” he said, slipping his hands in his pockets. “Well, no need to explain that to you. You know that already.”
Yes, I did. Everybody here knew I did too. He hadn’t needed to point that out. Not after downgrading our past to old friends.
My fake boyfriend’s palm spread and shifted down my shoulder, his fingers trailing down my arm and reaching my hand. It was so very distracting, the way he touched me. And yet, he managed to keep me grounded, all at once. Every time my head had threatened to roam away, Aaron had pulled me right back before my feet could lift off the floor. Those gentle brushes against my skin had that power, I realized. And judging by the way my voice came out when I spoke next—breathy, weak—they also came at a price.
“Well, I wish you two the best.” And despite myself, I meant that. “Will she be joining us today?”
Aaron’s fingers wrapped around mine, awakening in me something that urged me to turn around to look at him. I suppressed it, keeping my gaze on Daniel.
“Unfortunately, Marta won’t be able to make it. A last-minute work thing. She’s also a professor, and she was called to a conference to cover for a colleague.” Daniel shrugged his shoulders.
And I made a note to talk to my sister later. I was under the impression the bride would know if someone had canceled.
“It’s all good though.” Daniel’s eyes jumped to Aaron’s hand one more time, his expression distracted. “Attending a wedding alone is not all that dramatic. Plus, I wouldn’t want to make it about me.” My ex pinned me with a look.
And was that … accusation that I saw in his eyes?
“I …” I trailed off, second-guessing myself. My cheeks burned, and I couldn’t do much else but gape.
“Then, why waste more time talking about it?” Aaron managed to flatten his voice, about enough to sound bored. But I knew better. “I’m excited to see what comes next,” he surprised me by saying. Then, his fingers squeezed mine. “Lina was telling me that Gabi saved the best for last. Right, baby?”
He leaned and brushed his lips over my shoulder. Very softly. Impossibly lightly. But it made my body come alive.
“Right,” I breathed out. Urging the shock out of my expression.
God, I could still feel the imprint of his lips on my shoulder. The touch somehow spreading out across my skin.
“Oh, and what’s that?” Daniel asked. Or at least, I guessed he had because my mind was somewhere else.
Aaron kissed me. On my shoulder.
The temperature of my whole body had probably risen a couple—or ten—degrees.
It’s good. This is what couples do. They kiss each other. On multiple body parts. Like shoulders.
“The soccer match. We’ll be starting in a few minutes, I think,” I heard Aaron explain. “Lina has promised me to show me all her moves. I won’t lie; I’m equal parts intrigued and terrified.”
Trying to look the part, I leaned my head on Aaron’s chest. And I almost slipped to the floor when I felt him brush another kiss on my hair.
“Yeah.” I said, my breath getting stuck somewhere in my throat. “Ruthless Lina is about to make an appearance.”
Aaron chuckled, and I felt his chest vibrating under my temple. The hand that wasn’t holding mine came to rest on my hip, sending electrical shocks through all nerve endings in my body.
Breathe, Lina. He’s supposed to act like this.
I forced myself to remain still when, in reality, I wanted to do everything else but that. Like forgetting about Daniel and asking Aaron what in the world he was doing. Why had he kissed my shoulder? Or the top of my head? Could he please do that again just so I could check if my reaction had been a one-time occurrence or if that was the way my body reacted to his touch?
Daniel’s mouth opened and closed, as he was probably feeling uncomfortable at our display of affection.
Of fake affection, I reminded myself.
My ex and former professor looked up, someplace where Aaron’s head towered over mine. Something flashed across his face, too quickly for me to grasp its meaning. Then, he nodded and directed a small smile at me.
Not really understanding what had just gone down before the two men, I finally allowed myself to look up at Aaron.
And … nothing. Just one of his blank expressions in place.
Someone called Daniel’s name in the distance. My head fell just in time to watch my ex walk away, all the way to where Gonzalo was standing. He took his place beside his brother.
Still feeling the weird tension in the air, I drew a shallow breath.
Ugh, that had been really awkward. I felt like I wanted to shake myself, so I could get rid of the yucky sensation that stuck to my skin. But that would have ridden me of all the tingles I was still feeling too. That would also mean that I had to disentangle myself from Aaron’s arm and chest and body, and … I didn’t know if I wanted to do that.
You do, dumbass. This is not real.
And I needed to remember that bef
ore I did something really stupid.
If the chaos around me was anything to go by, I’d say we had a little situation in our hands.
“No me lo puedo creer,” my cousin cried in the middle of a less than perfect circle of people, throwing her arms in the air like the world was coming to an end. “No podemos jugar así. Se cancela todo. Esto un desastre. No, no, no, no.”
She grabbed a few of the T-shirts from the open box at her feet and hurled them at the floor.
Whoa.
“Esos malnacidos—”
“Cálmate, prima,” Isabel interrupted, telling her to calm down. “Qué importa. Son solo unas camisetas.”
Our cousin gasped and then hissed something really nasty at my sister, who barked right back at her.
Aaron leaned to his side and then lowered his voice. “What is going on? Should we run?”
I stifled a snicker. I didn’t want to anger Gabi any more. She was either about to cry or turn full-on She-Hulk, and no matter what, we’d have to deal with the fallout.
“There’s been a mix-up with the T-shirts for the soccer match.” I sighed. “Apparently, they sent the ones for the Team Groom in the smallest size instead of the largest.”
“Can’t we play with what we are wearing?” the poor soul that was my fake boyfriend asked.
Gabi’s head spun toward us. “Qué ha dicho?” she screeched.
“Nada.” I held my hands in the air. Then, I turned to Aaron. “Keep your voice down. Didn’t you see how she got when my cousin Matías asked why she hadn’t thought of handing out the shirts earlier today? Or when Adrián said it would have been smart to double check the sizes before today?”