“Poor bastard,” Maddie sighs into her wine glass. “He doesn’t stand a chance with Laura.”
“You think?” I say. “He’s decent looking. And he gives us free wine.”
“True,” Maddie says. “But I heard a rumor that Laura is dating some super hot fútbol player.”
I pull back. “Like, one of the guys who plays for Madrid? The dudes on TV who make fifty million dollars?”
“Apparently it’s the guy with the man bun she loved to masturbate to,” Maddie says with a shrug. “No idea how that happened, but I bet he is ridiculous in bed. The bodies those guys have…sheesh.”
I bet Rafa is ridiculous in bed. Too bad I’ll never know how ridiculous, exactly. How delicious and dirty and devoted he would be to making my first time the best time.
Silence settles between us again. It’s been…awkward between us ever since our fight on Sunday. I apologized a hundred times, Maddie forgave me a hundred more. I thought—I hoped—it was over.
But I know it’s not—how could it be, considering that I had an orgasm in a public bathroom with the guy she really likes? Maddie’s snapped at me a couple times this week over stupid shit—finishing the last jar of peanut butter, accidentally using her towel—and I find myself thinking resentful things (please see the “I’ll never know how ridiculous Rafa is in bed” comment above). I could be imagining it, but the air seems to tighten whenever Maddie and I are together; a painful, tangible stretch that makes me feel sick to my stomach. Even though I did everything I thought I was supposed to do, something isn’t right.
Weirdly, I wish I could call Rafa and tell him everything that’s going on between Maddie and me. It’s only been two days since I saw him last, but I miss him. I know he would make me laugh, he would make me feel better. He would understand. He’d get it. I didn’t realize how close we’d become as friends until we weren’t friends anymore.
I check my phone, discreetly, under the table. Nothing. No texts or missed calls from Justin Timberlake. My heart falls, just like it fell this afternoon, this morning, yesterday when I checked to see if he’d tried to contact me. I need to get over it already.
I look up to see Maddie checking her phone, too. Is she hoping for a text from Rafa, like me? I feel a stab of jealousy at the thought that they exchanged numbers. It’s silly, I know, especially after Rafa assured me in no uncertain terms that he isn’t interested in her.
Still. It only makes this strange, off-kilter feeling between Maddie and me worse.
Katie is the first to arrive, followed by Rachel and Laura, who stroll through the restaurant arm in arm.
“Hey,” Katie says, glancing from Maddie to me and back again. “Everything all right here?”
“Of course!” Maddie and I say in unison, a bit too brightly.
“It’s just been a long week,” I say.
“Yeah,” Maddie says, “I had a big assignment due today and I’m beat.”
Katie looks at us a long moment, her gaze lingering on me before she finally turns to her wine. “Whatever y’all say,” she murmurs.
Laura holds up her glass. “To my Madrileñas—my Madrid girls. I’m so glad we started this tradition.”
“Madrileñas,” Maddie says, mulling over the word. “I dig it. Can we call ourselves that from now on?”
“Absolutely,” Katie replies. “I’ll start this time. Arriba…”
Giggling like twelve-year-olds, we perform the toast our waiter with the wandering eye taught us. Arriba, abajo, al centro, al dentrooooo! The people around us stare; a few of the old men smile; we’re smiling, too, and I feel a surge of affection for these lovely girls I’ve gotten to know over the past month.
It’s a relief, frankly, to be with the other girls. They form a sort of buffer between me and Maddie; we can talk with them, and even with each other, without having to really talk.
“I’m finally getting into this red wine thing,” Rachel says, waving down our waiter to order her second glass. “I think a red wine drunk is my favorite drunk of all time.”
“Ditto,” I say. “It’s the only drunk I feel in my knees. It’s like my bones are laughing. Nothing quite like a red wine buzz.”
“So we’re getting into vino tinto de la casa,” Laura says. “I think we’re getting into Madrid, too. It’s finally starting to feel less terrifying. For me, at least.”
Maddie leans back, allowing our waiter to set a couple tapas on the table—gambas (shrimp), some tortilla with potatoes, manchego cheese. “I’m getting into a good routine. It’s so nice that things happen at a slower pace here. Life is, like, manageable.”
“And fun,” Rachel adds. “A walk to school isn’t just a walk. You pass a palace, you see a friend, you grab a coffee, you see a cute little restaurant and make plans to have dinner there that night. Living in a big city like Madrid can be exhausting, but there are some definite perks.”
I nod, swallowing my cheese. “Like the shopping. It’s so damn good. Maddie’s practically had to drag me out of every store we’ve gone into.”
“You do love your clothes,” she says. The way she says it—I don’t know, I guess she’s just trying to make conversation, but it rubs me the wrong way.
“You were very patient,” I say. “And you helped me pick out some great stuff.”
“Yeah,” she replies, focusing on her wine glass. “Like that ridiculous little skirt you wore to Ático.”
Katie is looking at us again. I drink my wine and do my best to ignore the hurt that churns in my stomach. Hurt that’s tinged with anger. I didn’t deserve that. Did I?
On the walk home, Maddie loops her arm through Katie’s, leaving me and Laura a few steps behind.
“How are things with Mads?” she asks, her voice low as she glances at the girl in question.
“Not great,” I say. “Some shit went down this weekend, and now Rafa and I are…well. Also not great.”
“I’m sorry, Viv. I’ve been in that situation before, and it totally sucks.”
“You have?”
“Don’t act so surprised! It’s more common than you think—you and your best friend liking the same guy. I mean. You wouldn’t be best friends if you didn’t like some of the same things.”
“How did you handle it?” I ask.
Laura’s pretty-girl hair glides over her shoulder as she shrugs. “Time. Honesty. Mostly time, though. It hurts, I know.”
“Did your friend ever forgive you?”
“For what?”
“For getting the guy, obviously.”
Laura turns her head and grins at me. “I didn’t get the guy. She did.”
Wait. Laura—gorgeous, gloriously tan Laura—didn’t get the guy? I certainly didn’t expect that. It kinda blows my mind, actually.
But Laura, I’m learning, is not at all the girl I thought she was when I first met her.
“I heard an interesting rumor about you and a certain man-bunned soccer player,” I say. “Is your picture in the Spanish tabloids yet or what?”
Laura bites her lip, looking away.
“Ohmigod,” I say. “It’s true. You really are hooking up with a man-bunned footballer. Holy shit, Laura”
“It’s nothing serious,” she says. “Just fun. I saw him at a bar, and I was drunk enough to say hello. Hello turned into a drink, and a drink turned into me waking up naked in his sick apartment the next morning.”
It’s my turn to grin. “You woke up naked there this morning, too, didn’t you?”
“Maybe,” she says. “And maybe I’m headed over there now to do it again tomorrow.”
What I would give to wake up naked with Rafa.
I push the image of us, tangled in his blue sheets (for some reason I picture them being blue), from my thoughts.
It’s not meant to be.
I look up at Maddie, laughing at something Katie says.
I have to get over Rafa.
Chapter 18
Next Monday
I close my notebook with a heavy si
gh of relief. Not only am I done with the first draft of an Economics essay, I’m also done with my first tutoring session with Rafa since we had our soul-crushing talk at that bar by the Prado Museum last week.
We’ve traded our beers for huge, shallow mugs of cappuccino. But even with the jolt of caffeine, I feel exhausted—wrung out—after tamping down my decidedly unplatonic feelings for Rafa for the past hour and a half. It’s impossible not to be charmed by him. His smile, his Spanish, his patience with my (slowly) improving language skills.
I watch him tip back his mug, finishing off the dregs of his coffee. I’m entranced by the sinewy working of his throat as he swallows. I swallow, too, resisting the urge to sink my teeth into that throat; to run the pads of my fingers over the flawless skin there, darkly tanned. After not seeing or speaking to him for a week, my desire for him is as overwhelming as ever. I can’t shake it. And trust me, I’ve tried everything. Cold showers. Economics homework. Hitting on other guys in terrible, halting Spanish.
Nothing has helped me stop thinking about Rafa Montoya. It’s like a sickness.
“Como estás?” I ask. How are you?
He meets my eyes. It’s like a sock to the gut. “Así así,” he says. All right. “And you?”
I miss you, I want to say. I miss seeing you, and laughing with you, and telling you about my study abroad misadventures. I miss you as a friend. I miss you as more than that.
“The same,” I say. “Así así.”
“And you and Maddie? Things okay there?”
I shrug. “I guess. I hope. It’s a little weird still, but it’ll get better.”
I really, really hope it gets better.
Rafa settles his mug into the ring inside its saucer. “The drop/add period ended last week. What did you decide about the art class?”
“You’ll be happy to know I kept it,” I say, brightening at the change in subject. “I absolutely love it. I think it was our impromptu trip to the Prado that really convinced me, though. I dropped one of my Econ classes so I’d have the time.”
He grins, a lopsided thing that gives me all the feels. Like, all of them. “That does make me very happy. I knew you would love it.”
“How did you know?” I ask. “That I would love an art class, I mean. When you and I sat down with Elena, we’d only just met.”
Rafa shrugs, his blue eyes boring a hole through whatever resolve I had. “I pay attention, Vivian. Most people, they do not talk about the art outside of a bar on a Saturday night. But you did, the very first time we met. I remember very clearly how your face changed, and your eyes, they went—” He flashes his fingers in a burst. “I always think you are beautiful, but you are the most beautiful when you talk about the things you love. And you love art.”
I’m squeezing my mug so hard I worry it’s going to break. How did this—Rafa knowing me in ways I didn’t know myself, me wanting him in ways I didn’t know I could want a guy—happen so fast?
“More than I love Econ, that’s for sure,” I scoff. “But thank you. For convincing me to give that class a chance. And for paying attention.”
Attention that I’ve craved, attention that I’ve never gotten from a guy before.
“Elena asked me to go to Sevilla and Grenada with your program next week,” Rafa says quietly. “I wanted to ask you first. I don’t want things to be, ehm…weird, yes? Between you and Maddie if I am there.”
I swallow the last of my cappuccino. My heart races. I want Rafa to come with us next week. Being with him makes any experience—art, a bathroom makeout sesh, even Econ—ten times better. I would experience everything with him if I could.
Only I can’t.
“Up to you,” I say. “It wouldn’t bother me, and I’m pretty sure Maddie would be cool with it. I mean, there’s fifty of us in the program, so it’s not like you’ll be hanging out with just us.”
“Vale.” Rafa turns back to my notebook. “Art history next?”
I grin. “Yes please.”
***
“How was tutoring?” Maddie takes the earbuds out of her ears. She’s propped up on the bed against the pillows, her legs bent. A psychology textbook rests on the slope of her thighs, the light from the lamp reflecting off its shiny pages.
I toss my bag on the desk beside our bed, the candy wrappers strewn across its surface crunching under its weight. “All right. Hard not to spend all our time on art history. How was class?”
“Fine. The usual.”
Maddie looks me up and down, like she’s searching for some clue that I’m lying, that I boned Rafa instead of doing my homework. A used condom dangling from my leg, or some hickies on my neck. It sets my teeth on edge.
“That’s cool,” I say. “Did you get my text? The girls are getting together tonight instead of Wednesday, because we’ll be on our trip.”
Maddie turns back to her book, highlighting some text. “Yeah, I did. I’m not feeling so hot today, so…yeah. Plus I have a lot of work to do.”
I toe off my sneakers. The silence stretching between us makes me sweat. Is Maddie mad at me?
“Are you okay?” I ask, unable to keep it in any longer.
“Yeah. Just tired,” she says. “So how is Rafa?”
She says it nonchalantly, but we both know her question is a loaded one.
“He’s good,” I say. “My grades are definitely improving, so he’s doing something right.”
“Good for you,” Maddie says.
I look at her for a long moment. Something’s up.
“I’m gonna grab a quick shower,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, and puts the earbuds back in her ears.
My hand shakes as I close the bathroom door behind me. I’m angry. Angry at myself. Angry at Maddie. Angry that I can’t be with Rafa. It’s not Maddie’s fault, I know it isn’t—it’s my fault—but still I feel resentful toward her.
This was not how I pictured things playing out. For the first time, I wonder how it would be if I told Rafa yes, and we were together now. I know it would hurt Maddie, at least at first. But would she eventually be happy for me? Would I be happy with the choice I made?
Chapter 19
Next Tuesday
Maddie wasn’t lying when she said she didn’t feel well. Her headache turned into a sore throat, the sore throat turned into a fever. The diagnosis: a bad case of the flu.
Which totally sucks, because that means she’s going to miss our program’s trip to southern Spain. I promise Maddie I’ll take plenty of pictures of Sevilla and Grenada, and that yes, of course I’ll fill her in on any info we get about the upcoming exam in our experience class.
“Viv,” she says as I’m about to head out the door. “Have fun, okay? Really. I mean it. I want you to have a good time on this trip.”
“Thanks,” I say, giving her hand a good squeeze. “Don’t worry, I’ll puke in the bushes twice. Once for me and once for you.”
“I can’t wait until my puke is booze induced,” she replies with a weak smile. She looks at me for a long moment. I get the feeling she is trying to tell me something, but as she tries to speak she winces. The hand that was in mine goes to her throat.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” I ask. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I told you a million times.” She clears her throat, a grating, gasping sound. “No fucking way are you missing this awesome trip because of me. Now go before I infect you with this Ebola disease I have. Go!”
I leave her wrapped up in bed with a month’s supply of what we think is Spanish cough medicine and a few deliciously naughty romances I downloaded on my eReader. I feel bad for Maddie—really, the flu is awful—and she’s had such a tough semester already.
But as I head for the Metro, I feel like I can breathe a little easier despite the backpack that weighs down my shoulders. I think a break might be a good thing. Maybe after spending a few days apart, we can finally get back to being good friends to one another. Maybe we can forget Rafa, and re
member the laughter and the love that made us such good friends in the first place.
Only Rafa isn’t so easy to forget.
Especially when I bump into him at the train station, and he hands me a coffee—in a to-go cup!—with a grin that could slay all the ladies in the land.
“Cappuccino with one sugar,” he says. “That is how you like it, yes?”
“Yes. Wow. Thank you,” I say, folding back the plastic lid. “Where in the world did you find a place that sells coffee to go? I’ve been looking for one for, like, ever, but I haven’t had any luck.”
Rafa nods to a cafè across the station, the pale morning sun that streams through the skylights above silvering his hair. “There is a little place inside, just over there. I know how very hard you have been looking.”
Stop being so excellent, I silently say as I sip at my coffee. It’s just right.
Of course it’s just right.
“How is Maddie feeling?” he asks. “El gripe is not of the joke.”
“She’s all right,” I say. “Pretty bummed she’s missing this trip. I told her I’d bring her something fun back, like a flamenco dancer.”
He glances at my backpack. “I think we can fit one of those in there. You know we are taking a flamenco dancing lesson this afternoon?”
“I didn’t,” I say. “That sounds kinda fun, actually.”
“I was hoping to see your white girl again,” he says. “It has been too long.”
I take another sip of coffee. Two minutes and already our conversation is going someplace it shouldn’t. Just the thought of flamenco dancing with Rafa makes my heart beat a little faster. I want to do everything with him. Most of all press his body against mine under the guise of cultural edification.
“Our train is leaving soon,” I say, blinking away the image of him swaying his hips in time to the rousing tune of a gypsy guitar. Think about Maddie, your friendship, I tell myself. Think about keeping it in your pants.
***
Seville
That Afternoon
We stand in a loose circle around the perimeter of the dance studio. The fans that purr from the windows do little to keep us cool. It may be October, but it’s hot as hell; summer’s last sigh in Spain.
Spanish Lessons (Study Abroad Book 1) Page 17