She fights a smile. “Not yet.”
“Fair enough.” I slowly pull out of her, my cock glistening with her cum and mine. I lay on my back next to her and watch her as she stares up at the ceiling.
“I told my mom about us,” she says in a low voice.
That, I’m shocked to hear. “You did?”
“Yeah. She wasn’t too happy to hear about it, but she said she trusts me.” Her head turns and her eyes land on mine. “She said all men do stupid things.”
I laugh at that. “There may be some truth to that.”
“Why did you disappear like that?” she asks, and her expression becomes confused and pained, as if she’s remembering all the times she sent a message and didn’t get an answer.
I work hard to swallow as I hold her gaze. “Because I wanted better for you, Amber.”
“But what’s better than this? Than us?” she asks, sitting up.
“There’s so much out there.” I sit up with her. “There is more to life than you being with me, Amber, and…I don’t know. I guess I just wanted you to see that.”
“But I don’t want anyone else but you, Joaquin. The day you resigned, you told me you loved me. If you loved me, you should have at least spoken to me about creating the distance before doing it.”
“I knew you wouldn’t have listened, Amber. You can be stubborn, and the last thing I wanted was to break it to you like that—not while our emotions were so high.”
She sighs. “I’ll be twenty in a month. I know that’s young, and it seems like I don’t know much about relationships or men, but what I do know is that I love you and the last thing I wanted was distance from you. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“I couldn’t stop thinking about you either,” I murmur.
She brings her head forward and rests her forehead on mine. “Just promise me no more ignoring. I know you don’t do well with people’s feelings, but promise me that.”
“I promise, Lakes.”
She smiles when I call her that, then she lays on her back again. “I’ll miss not having you as a coach, even though you were an ass sometimes.”
I laugh. Nothing more. The last thing I want to talk about is coaching right now.
“Have you eaten?”
“Yes. My mom cooked for me before she went to work.”
“Does she know you’re here?”
“Hell no,” she laughs. “I told her I went to visit an old teammate.”
I smile as I watch her play with a strand of her hair. She looks at me, her brows dipping, and a wary smile sweeping across her lips. “What?” she asks.
“Nothing.” My head shakes, but I don’t stop studying her every feature. “I just really missed the hell out of you, Lakes.”
With a smile, she sits up and drapes her arms over my shoulders. We’re face-to-face. Nose-to-nose. “I missed you, Torres. Way more than I should have,” she says, and then she kisses me, and before I know it, she’s on top of me and I’m inside her again, and we’re starting round two.
FIFTY-THREE
For the first time, I wake up before Torres does. I watch him as he sleeps, a hand on his chest, and his face peaceful. I slip out of bed quietly, going for my bag in the corner. I’m dressed in minutes, and I pick up the room key on the counter before leaving.
I stop by the café they have in the lobby and get a little bit of everything, from croissants and jellies and fruit, to scrambled eggs and bacon. I pay for it myself, then go back up the elevator with the food in a bag and smile.
When I’m back in the hotel room, I make my way to the table and take everything out, placing it all on the table as quietly as I can. As I dig through the bag for the plastic cutlery, I hear a phone chime.
I glance at the counter and Torres’ phone is there. Normally I’d ignore it. It’s not like me to check his phone, but then I start thinking about how he ignored me for weeks, and then the worst thought possible comes to mind: that maybe there was someone else and it didn’t work out with her.
I place the cutlery down and go to the phone. I tap the screen, glancing over at the bed. Torres is still sound asleep. I tap the screen and it illuminates. There is no lock on his phone, which I find surprising. I swipe it open, and there is an email notification.
My heart beats hard and loud. I shouldn’t do this. This is an invasion of his privacy. I start to turn my back to it and forget it—whatever I may find—but then the phone chimes again.
I turn and pick it up.
Congrats, man!
I knew you’d get it! It was only a matter of time. Told you not to stress. Florida has way more girls too. Girls in bikinis, girls in clubs in short dresses. I’ll have to come visit you when you get down there!
No, but seriously. Big congrats. This is huge!
Mills
What? Florida? I frown as I read the email. There is another email below it from Florida State University. It was sent yesterday at 10:45 a.m. A few hours prior to when I sent him a text.
I read it:
Dear Joaquin Torres,
Congratulations! We are delighted to welcome you to our men’s track and field coaching staff! This is certainly a time to celebrate. Soon, the head coach will contact you with all information needed to get your coaching position in effect…
Is this real? Florida State? I read over the email too many times to count. Torres groans and I gasp, looking back as he rolls onto his back. I mark the emails as unread and place the phone back on the counter, then hurry to the dining table, straightening a few of the containers.
“Why are you not in this bed?” Torres’ voice is a deep, husky growl. He has that sexy morning voice and I’m sure I’d love it a whole lot if I hadn’t read those emails.
“I got you breakfast,” I say as he looks at me.
“I can smell it.” He sits up and scratches his chest. “Smells good.”
“Come eat,” I insist, taking a seat myself. “I don’t want it to get cold.”
He rises, shuffling across the room in only his boxers and sitting in the chair opposite mine. He’s smiling and warm and open. I look down, picking up some fruit.
“So…want to go out somewhere today?” he asks.
“No…we can stay here. I like being alone with you.”
He grins after taking a bite of bacon. I force a smile and I think he notices.
“You okay?” he inquires, cocking a brow. He slows his chewing as I nod.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re acting a little strange.”
I wave a dismissive hand. “Oh, I’m great.”
He frowns and I look away to shuffle the eggs around in my takeout box. “Amber,” he calls, but I avoid his eyes.
“Yes?”
“What’s going on?” I can hear the seriousness seeping into his tone. He’s no longer taking things lightly. I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions. I’m pissed about something and he knows it.
I finally drop my fork and fold my arms to look him in the eye. “Why did you really come to Raleigh, Joaquin?” I demand.
He seems confused by the question. “I wanted to see you, Amber. What kind of question is that?”
“No other reason?”
“What other reason could there possibly be?” he counters.
“Oh—I don’t know. Maybe the fact that you’re leaving to go to Florida!” I snap, and his face collapses. “That’s why you really came here, isn’t it? This is your official goodbye to me!” The tears immediately attack me.
“What? Amber—no! I didn’t come here to say goodbye—I mean, yes, I’m going to Florida for a job, but this isn’t goodbye! How do you even know about that?”
“I saw an email on your phone, but that doesn’t matter! What is this then, huh? You’ll be further away and I’ll still be here! I’ll never see you again, and you know it, so this has to be some form of goodbye, right?”
“Amber, this job is a great opportunity for me, and just because I’ll be there doesn’t mean
I won’t visit. You forget my mother still lives in Fayetteville.”
“Yes, but…” I run a hand over the top of my head. I can’t believe this. “Why Florida?” I ask, and damn my voice for breaking. “W-why can’t you find a job here? Somewhere close?”
Torres sighs and smashes his lips together. He pushes up from the table and stands in middle of the hotel room, looking at me as I look at him. We don’t speak for a long, long time.
Defeated, I leave the table to sit on the edge of the bed with my back to him. I feel ridiculous—selfish, even—but Florida? He was gone for a month and that shattered my heart, and now that some of the pieces have been collected and pieced back together, I find out he’s leaving North Carolina altogether.
“You wouldn’t have to leave if it weren’t for me,” I whisper. “All of this is my fault, whether you say so or not.”
I hear him sigh behind me and then he’s beside me, sitting on the edge of the bed too. “You can say this is your fault all you want, but I don’t see it that way and neither should you. Shit happens, Amber. That’s the way life is.” He reaches for my hand and places it on his lap. “You’re worried I’ll forget about you—that things won’t be the same.”
“Yeah because they won’t, Torres! We’ll be living two very different lives in very different places!”
“Yes, but we will always talk to each other. That won’t change, Amber. This job? It’s a big opportunity for me—even bigger than Bennett. They had an opening and I went for it. It’s not Ivy League but it’s D-1, and it pays really, really well, and not only that, but Hamilton gave them a recommendation letter when I requested one. She did me a favor. I would be stupid not to take it.”
I nod because I do understand, I’m just so devastated to know this. He’s going to be even more miles away from me and I don’t know how that will work between us. Maybe this isn’t goodbye, but it’s a see you again one day kind of thing, which is much, much worse.
“It’s a men’s track team,” Torres adds, squeezing my hand, and when I look up, he’s smiling.
I roll my eyes playfully. “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“I know.” He kisses my temple.
I wrap an arm around him, drawing in a breath and then exhaling. “I know you have to go. You have to do this. It will be good for you. I just hate that you’ll be so far away.”
He’s quiet.
I go on. “I don’t want you to leave, but like you said, this is big and coaching is what you’re meant to do. I’m not going to hold you back from that. The same way you sacrificed your job by resigning so I could stay on the team and out of trouble, I’m okay sacrificing some distance for you to fulfill your dreams.”
He releases my hand to tip my chin up. “I appreciate that, Lakes.”
I smile. “I’ll miss you though. A lot.”
He reels me in for a hug. “And I’ll miss the hell out of you, but I want you to focus on school. You said you wanted to become a therapist? Well, take advantage of that Ivy League schooling and get your degree and become that. Run your heart out at the track meets. Do your damn thing. You deserve to be where you are, Amber. As badly as we want to be with each other, we have to do what’s right, and what’s right for you is to finish school and focus on your future. And I suppose what’s right for me is taking this job, coaching, and doing everything I can to make sure my life serves some kind of purpose.”
My eyes prickle with hot tears. “I understand.”
“Let’s make a promise to each other right now,” he says with a joy in his eyes I’ve never seen before, and I sit up to face him. “Promise me that you’ll do your best, and that you’ll graduate from BU. And when you graduate, I will be there—hell, I’ll drop everything to fly up and see you walk across that stage. But you have to give me your word that you won’t worry yourself crazy over a pendejo Mexicano like me.”
I giggle as he reveals a toothy smile. “Okay. I promise.”
“And in exchange, I promise to call you every night, no matter how busy I am. I promise to show up when you graduate, and after you graduate, I’ll have you fly down to Florida with me, and we’ll have a vacation together. Just you and me. You’ll be older than twenty-one by then, we’ll have drinks and go out and have so much fun.”
“Okay.” Tears slide down my cheeks, but I keep my head up.
He swipes the tears away with his thumb, still smiling down at me. “I love you so much, Amber. Everything is going to be okay between us. I promise.”
I nod over and over again, eventually dropping my head to press my cheek to his chest and wrapping my arms around his torso.
He hugs me tight, holding me for a long time and then stroking my hair. I listen to his heart beat a steady rhythm, and eventually my tears come to a stop because I realize he’s right.
It hurts now to have to create this distance, but we will be okay in the end. We have our promises. Our bond. A few miles between us shouldn’t change that.
When he’s gone again, I will miss him. He’s the man I think about day and night—the man who drives me crazy one minute and makes me feel whole and completely in love the next.
Torres means everything to me and he wants this job. He’s excited for it and happy for the opportunity, and before even attending BU, I was happy as hell to have the scholarship and to be at a school that was amongst the best. Happiness is all we’ve ever been after.
What we’re doing now? It’s only temporary.
But our future? That’s where the shine will happen.
Our future has already been paved for us. Three more years and nothing will be able to separate us. No distance will come between us because we will be together. Holding one another just like we are now. Whispering how much we love each other. Looking into each other’s eyes, eager for our futures to collide again.
We are meant to be, and one day we will be, and that gives me so, so much to look forward to.
FIFTY-FOUR
“Is that the last box?” I ask as Torres makes his way toward the U-Haul. I’m at his apartment in Fayetteville, helping him pack his things so he can move.
He was staying with his mom for a while, I suppose to cope with everything that happened, but he came back to the apartment to pack up since his lease is over in two days. He also has to be in Florida in three days, so the timing adds up just right.
“Yep. Last one,” he grunts as he places the box in the back of the truck and dusts his hands off.
I stand on the sidewalk, one hand shielding my eyes from the blazing sun.
He closes the back of the truck and then walks to me with a warm smile. “I was dreading putting that last box on there,” he murmurs when he’s next to me.
“Why?” I ask as he takes my hand in his.
“Because the last box means less time with you.” He clasps my chin between his fingers, a gentle smile on his lips as he studies mine. “Thank you for driving all this way to help me.”
“Wouldn’t have missed it.”
He brings his mouth down to mine to kiss me and I sigh, lacing my arms around the back of his neck.
“You know what I was thinking?” he asks when our lips part.
“What?”
“Today would be a really good day for ice cream. My treat. You want some?”
I bite back a smile. “I’d love some.”
Torres makes his way to the apartment to lock the door, then walks with me to his car. I climb inside and he starts it up, the AC blasting on our faces. He drives a short distance, pulling up to a small ice cream shop.
I go for chocolate ice cream with a waffle cone and he gets cookies and cream. After he pays, we sit at a table beneath an umbrella, looking out at the passing traffic on the road.
I feel eyes on me as I eat my ice cream and look over at Torres. He’s looking right at me with a boyish smirk.
“What?” I ask, narrowing my eyes playfully.
“You’re giving me too many ideas with that tongue of yours right now,�
�� he says.
I laugh. “Oh, really? What kind of ideas?”
“You know what kind of ideas I’m talking about.”
I can’t fight my laugh as I go back to eating my ice cream. He reaches across the table to grab my hand. “Think you can stay with me tonight? I don’t leave until morning.”
“Uh…sure. But where will we sleep?” I ask. “You packed everything up.”
“I have blankets I can pull out…that is if you don’t mind laying on the floor. Won’t be the most comfortable thing, but if it means more time with you…”
I feel heat rise to my cheeks and lower my gaze. “I’ll be happy to stay with you. Just need to let my mom know.”
He smiles and then licks his ice cream. “Let’s finish these on the way back,” he says, releasing my hand, and pushing to a stand.
I stand with him, heading back to his car. We drive back, eating our ice cream with one hand, hand-in-hand with the other. I finish mine just as we arrive at his apartment complex and as he parks and climbs out the car, he scarfs the rest of his down.
“Come on,” he says, rounding the car, and taking my hand. He leads the way back to the apartment, a pep in his step.
“What are you doing?” I giggle as he tugs on my hand.
As soon as we set foot inside the empty apartment, he shuts and locks the door and then turns to me, cupping my face in his hands and bumping me backwards until my lower back reaches the kitchen counter.
I sigh as he picks me up and places me on the countertop, taking in the taste of cookies and vanilla on his lips. He drags his lips down to the hollow of my throat and I hold him tight, savoring this moment like it is my last. Technically, this will be our last time together before he visits again.
I lean back so he can bring my shorts and panties down and when they are discarded, I reach down to shove his shorts and boxers lower down his hips. He adjusts me by the hips, angling them perfectly, and then he’s inside me. I gasp, holding onto him, and panting raggedly.
He catches my ragged breaths, his lips claiming mine all over again, devouring me whole as he thrusts into me.
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