by Kristy Tate
“Nah. Things will calm down soon.” At least, he hoped so. Nick took the chair behind the desk.
Seb settled on the cracked leather sofa. “What if they don’t?”
“They will,” Nick said with more certainty than he felt.
“Not if Steph has anything to do with it.”
“Your sister,” Nick said, “is a godsend.”
“Is she a blessing or a plague?” Seb asked, grinning.
Nick beat his fingers on his desk, waiting for his cousin to get to the point of his visit.
“Have you heard from Adrienne?” Seb finally asked.
“No, why? Haven’t you?”
Seb frowned and looked out the rain-streaked window. “She’s gone to visit her sister.”
“Right.” Nick knew that.
“It’s been a few weeks…”
“Yeah.”
Seb leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Abuelo can’t know.”
Nerves tingled down Nick’s spine and the palms of his hands started to sweat. “That she’s gone to visit her sister?”
“That she’s gone.” Seb didn’t fill in any of the blanks, but Nick’s thoughts rushed to answer all his questions.
“She left you?” Nick tightened his grip on the pen he was holding, realized what he was doing, and set it down quickly in the hope that Seb wouldn’t pick up on his visceral reaction.
“Nah.” Seb stood and went to the window to stare out at Seattle’s busy sidewalks. “I mean, she’ll be back.”
Nick fought the urge to clamp his hand on his cousin’s shoulder, spin him around and pelt him with questions first and his fists second.
“How’s Tio Jose?” Seb asked.
Nick gripped the arms of his chair, feeling slightly dizzy and ill. The sudden change in topic didn’t help. “He’s good…aging, but…why?”
“Well, it’s just, you know Aubrey is in Buenos Aires on sabbatical, which means that Adrienne is also in Buenos Aires.” He paused as if waiting for Nick to connect the dots.
“You want Tio Jose to check in on her?”
“No.” Seb turned around and frowned at Nick. “I mean, it probably won’t come to this. She’ll be back…but I thought, maybe you could go and get her if Abuelo starts to ask questions. Maybe drop by and see Tio Jose, swing past Aubrey’s.”
Nick narrowed his eyes at Seb, trying to read him. They had been raised as brothers and had shared a room since Seb was thirteen and Nick ten. Instead of resenting a young, fresh-from-Uruguay cousin foisted on him, Seb had taken Nick under his wing, made him his protégé, introduced him to his friends, coached him in sports. Nick had adored him. But their relationship had changed the moment Seb brought Adrienne home.
“Come on, you know she loves you,” Seb said. “If you ask her to come back, she will.”
“Why would I do that?” Nick asked. “Why ask her to come back to an unhappy situation?”
“Who says the situation is unhappy?”
Nick folded his hands to keep him from strangling his cousin. “If she was so happy then why did she leave?”
“She wanted to see her sister.”
“And why would I need to persuade her to return?”
“Because I’m her husband.”
“That’s an argument that should be made by her husband. What are you not telling me?”
Seb pushed his fingers through his black hair, making it stand on end. “Abuelo can’t know.”
“Can’t know what?” Nick pressed.
Seb turned back to the window. “As soon as Abuelo dies, the company will be mine. But if he finds out… It’s in her best interest to stay married, you know, for the time being. I’ll be worth a lot more and the divorce settlement will—”
“Divorce?” Nick stood. “You’re talking divorce?”
“Well, not until Abuelo is gone.”
“You make it sound like he’s going to the grocery store. We’re talking about the end of his life. And that business and his family are his life!”
“Exactly. You know how he is. You understand his feelings on divorce.”
“You want to divorce Adrienne?” Nick tried to tamp down the incredulity and hope in his voice, but he still heard the rise of timbre. Thankfully, Seb, always so self-centered, didn’t pick up on it.
“Not while Abuelo is alive. It’s not even an option!”
Nick choked back his questions.
“Look, I’ll pay for the flights.”
“You should go,” Nick said. “You said she loves me, but she loves you more. You’re her husband.”
Seb opened his mouth just as the floor rolled under their feet. His face filled with astonishment.
Nick braced his feet and held onto the shaking desk. “Earthquake,” he murmured.
Commotion came from the next room—a woman screaming, a child crying, a dog barking.
“Did someone bring a dog in here?” Nick asked, astonished.
Jon ran in. “You okay, boss?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “I better go and make sure everything is—” He cut his sentence short as another tremor rolled through.
“The Cascadia Subduction Zone.” Seb laughed, but still sounded nervous. “They say everything west of I-5 is supposed to break off into the ocean.”
“I’m good,” Nick said with a grin because his shop and home were on the Eastside.
“But I’m screwed.”
“Yeah, you are,” Nick said, and he wasn’t thinking about earthquakes.
One Week Later
Adrienne sat at a waterfront café nursing a cup of hot cocoa while she watched an artist paint the sunset. “We’re in the same sort of field, you know,” she told the old man wielding a paintbrush and wearing a straw hat. “We probably took the same classes in college.”
“I didn’t go to college,” the man told her.
“Oh. Well, you’re very good,” she told him. “I was in graphic design.”
“But now you’re not?” He didn’t look at her, but kept his attention flicking between his canvas and the fading sun. His long beard was spattered with paint.
“I’m an attorney.”
The man chuckled. “I didn’t go to law school either.”
“I wish I hadn’t.”
The man didn’t say anything but lifted his eyebrow.
“Have you ever wanted to change everything about your life?”
“No,” he said. “What do you want to change?”
“I just said: everything.”
“You cannot mean that. There must be people that you love.”
“Of course, but…not everyone I love loves me back.”
“Claro. It’s unreasonable to expect them to.”
“Is it?”
“It’s not only an unrealistic expectation, it’s also unfair.”
Adrienne blew out a sigh. “But if you’ve pledged your life to someone…”
“Ah, but that is different.”
#
Nick stood on the embankment near the Río de la Plata watching the fading sun. He had lost both his parents to the river. The memories, long faded, were nothing more than a dull, gray ache. Of the actual accident itself he had little recollection, and for this he was glad. Everyone had told him his survival had been a miracle. Why had the freak storm that had capsized their boat not taken him as well as his parents?
Familiar laughter cut through Nick’s painful memories. He turned, searching the crowded plaza, then spotted her bright yellow hair. Adrienne sat at a bistro-style table, her chin propped on her cupped hands as she gazed out at the dying sun. The light breeze ruffled the hem of her cherry-strewn sundress. She appeared to be chatting with an elderly man who was painting the sunset. The sound of her voice reeled Nick closer.
“But you still love your husband?” the man asked.
“Of course. Just because he no longer loves me doesn’t mean I can just turn off my feelings.”
Nick froze, unsure how to approach her.
“I mean, it’s not like
my emotions come with an on or off button,” Adrienne told the man.
“But you’re happy here, now, without him.”
“Absolutely. But this isn’t real life. This is a vacation.”
“A vacation.” The man dipped his brush into a smear of blue paint on his palette and carefully drew a streak along the upper edge of his canvas. “But why must life be more or less than a vacation? Should we not be happy all the time?”
Adrienne blinked at him. “We have to work.”
“Is that why you went to law school instead of pursuing art?”
Adrienne made a noise that coming from anyone else would be a snort. Nick edged closer and a twig snapped beneath his shoe.
Adrienne lifted her gaze and met his. Her cornflower blue eyes widened with surprise. “Nick!” She stood and launched herself into his arms.
He caught her and inhaled her vanilla-scented shampoo. But there was something different about her, too. She was thinner, brittle, breakable.
She pulled away to look into his face. “Oh my gosh, what are you doing here?”
“My Tio Jose,” he began.
The worry lines around her eyes faded. “Of course. How is he?”
“He’s good. Aging…”
The man behind the easel pointed his paintbrush at Nick. “This man is not your husband.”
“No. This is his cousin, Nicolas.”
“Ah,” the man said as if he could see what Adrienne could not. That Nick was, and always had been, completely in love with her.
CHAPTER 2
Adrienne laced her fingers through Nick’s, abandoned her cup of cocoa, and gazed into his eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been getting bored and lonely. When she isn’t cooped up in her lab, Aubrey spends all her time talking to her plants.”
Nick squeezed her hands, knowing that this was his opening—where he needed to say, why not come home? But he couldn’t make himself say the words.
As if she had read his thoughts, Adrienne asked, “How is everyone at home?”
Her everyone, he knew, meant Seb. “Hmm, good.”
“And the shop?” Adrienne pressed. She had helped him navigate all the legal documentation and permits when he’d first opened Bar de Música, so she had a vested interest in it. She hadn’t let him pay her, so unbeknownst to her, he deposited a small percentage of his monthly earnings into an account Seb had set up for her for just this purpose.
Nick ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s…crazy.”
“Crazy, huh?”
So she hadn’t seen the YouTube videos. He swallowed, debating whether to show them to her.
Concern flashed in her eyes. “Is something wrong?”
“Define wrong.”
“Nick, what’s going on?” Panic tinged her voice. “Did you really come here just to visit your uncle, or is—”
“Business is booming.”
She breathed out a small laugh. “Good.”
He made a decision and dug his phone out of his pocket. “In fact, I have to show you something.” After pulling up the video of him and Lester, he scooted his chair so close that his shoulder brushed against Adrienne’s.
She watched, clearly enchanted.
“Almost a million views,” Nick said.
She laid her head on his shoulder. “I always forget how talented you are.”
Nick bit his lip to curb the urge to kiss her hair. “There’s more.”
“More?”
“It seems that Steph has been secretly recording videos of me performing for a while.”
“Whoa,” Adrienne breathed.
Nick sniffed and scrolled to the next video. “Not only did she record me, but she had the videos professionally edited.” He swallowed. “They’re actually pretty good.” He handed the phone back to her and watched her face. The sound of his songs filled the air.
She squeezed his arm and blinked back tears after the second video ended. “That was beautiful,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “There’s more?”
He nodded. “Quite a few more.” He cleared his throat. “To quote Steph, I am an ‘internet sensation.’ I had to leave.”
“Leave?” She twisted so she could see his face. Her nearness took his breath. “Why would you need to leave?”
“The tavern is…as I said, crazy. Standing room only even during the mid-day when we should have a lull. I need some guidance from my uncle. He doesn’t know I’m here. I’m going to surprise him tomorrow. Would you like to go with me?”
“I would love to, but if your business is as busy as you say, how can you afford to be gone?”
“I hired three more people. Steph and Jon can run it as well as I can.”
“So you’re hiding?”
He had come to seek advice from his uncle and to see Adrienne but he didn’t feel the need to share the latter of those things. He decided to turn the tables on her. “Are you?”
“Ah.” She pulled away from him as if he’d stung her, and then changed the subject. “How is the family ?”
Should he tell her about his conversation with Sebastian? No. “Abuelo is as crazy as ever. Tia Maria’s Sofia died.”
“I always hated that cat, but Tia Maria must be sad.”
“You would think, but within a week she replaced Sofia with a really mean chihuahua she picked up at the shelter.”
Adrienne wrinkled her eyebrows. “Why does she like mean animals?”
Nick shrugged. “Why do we love who we love? Who can say?”
The man with the paintbrush raised his eyebrows and met Nick’s gaze. Nick looked away, afraid to let his feelings show.
#
Tio Jose still lived in the apartment behind his beachfront music café. Every evening, guitarists, bands, and solo vocalists gathered for their chance to perform on his makeshift stage, but the afternoons—especially during the siesta hours—were quiet. Nick was counting on this.
He met Adrienne at her sister’s apartment the next morning. “The ferry crossing to Colonia del Sacramento is less than an hour,” he told her. “And it should be calm, given the weather. Do you get seasick?” He would rather die than admit to his own weakness in that area.
“I don’t think so.” Adrienne cast a glance at the cloudless blue sky.
Nick’s thoughts skittered back to Seattle, where it would be gray and drizzly. “Do you want to bring a sweater, just in case?”
She shook her head and wrapped her hand around his arm. “I’m loving this weather. It’s like I was so cold and lonely in Seattle, but here…I’m finally beginning to thaw.”
He put his hand over hers. “I’m glad. Come on,” he urged her to move faster down the sidewalk, “we need to be at the dock an hour before our boat leaves.”
She wore a pair of espadrilles and an embroidered sundress that skimmed the tops of her knees. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail that bounced when she walked, she looked like a different creature than the black-suited attorney she’d morphed into after she’d graduated from law school.
Nick didn’t want to talk about their life in Seattle, but curiosity drove him to it. “What’s happening at Crenshaw and Meeks?”
“I had just finished up a big case and told Crenshaw I needed a leave of absence.”
“And he just let you go?” That didn’t sound like the Crenshaw Nick knew.
“I think he knows about Seb and Therese.” She skated him a glance. “Do you know about Seb and Therese?”
Nick stopped at a flower cart and without saying a word, he purchased a bouquet of wildflowers and handed them to her.
“I don’t want your pity!” She pushed the blooms away.
“Well, if you won’t accept these, will you please just hold them?”
“Why should I?”
“Well, for one thing, they match your dress, and for another, I feel it’s a slight to my manhood to carry a floral bouquet.”
“That’s silly.” But she took the flowers while he paid the florista.
�
��Not as silly as Seb having an affair.” Nick draped his arm around Adrienne’s shoulders. He was wading into dangerous waters by trying to comfort her without exposing his heart. “Any man who would choose another over you would be…silly to the extreme…like Mr. Bean.” Adrienne loved British comedy, but Seb hated it. “Right now, I’m so mad at Seb, I can’t even say his name without feeling incredible rage, so I have a suggestion.”
She slid him a glance. “What’s that?” she asked, her voice full of suspicion.
“We will not say the name of…your husband, my cousin. From now on, his code name will be Mr. Bean.”
A smile tugged at Adrienne’s lips. “He would hate it if he knew.”
“Then we have to tell him!” He dug his phone out of his pocket.
Adrienne took his phone from his hand. “Hmm, not yet. Maybe when the thought of him no longer hurts.”
“Do you think you’ll get there?”
They arrived at the dock. A cluster of people crowded around the gangplank. Nick pulled his wallet from his pocket and went to purchase the tickets.
“You’re helping ,” she told him as soon as he returned. “Before you showed up, I was just hanging out at Aubrey’s watering the plants—not with my tears, but a watering can—okay, sometimes with my tears… I was beginning to hate myself. No, stop. If I’m honest, I’ll admit that I’ve been hating myself for a while.”
As if to argue, the ferry blew its horn. The sound struck a chord in Nick’s chest. He wanted to help Adrienne, but he also didn’t want to get seasick. “I can’t imagine anyone, even or especially you, hating you.”
The crowd surged up the gangplank and Nick and Adrienne moved with the tide of people.
“You’re sweet,” Adrienne said. “And you’re only saying that because you’re such a good person you can’t hate anyone.”
“Right now, I’m hating S—Mr. Bean for making you feel that way.”
She lifted a shoulder in a defeated shrug. “He fell in love with Therese.”
Everything that sprang to Nick’s mind couldn’t be said. “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I can only think of profanities right now.”
They made their way to the deck and Adrienne pressed against the railing. “Would it be wrong if I just shouted out a whole bunch of naughty words at Mr. Bean?”