“This doesn’t fix things,” she says defiantly, but she’s wrapping her legs around me as she says it, tugging me toward her. The table wobbles.
“How do you know?” I whisper, and simultaneously guide my cock toward her while laying my lips and teeth on the side of her neck. At the moment, I feel like it might fix things for me. I feel like I could drive all other men out of her, make myself permanent in her temporary world. We are outside, within earshot of neighbors who just need to peek around the partition to see us; we are in plain view of any apartments across the street.
I wish the photographer was there, taking a photo of this. I’d show them who she really belonged with. I’d show them I am up to the task.
I push myself into her. She gasps, her face laced with pain. She is not wet enough for me, and though the pleasure that radiates through me from my balls to my neck feels like nothing else, I hesitate, about to pull out. I want this rough and fast and hard, but I will not make her suffer.
But she tightens her legs around my hips and holds me to her possessively. I go in slower this time, my lips back at her neck, wanting to make a mark. I bite and nibble and suck the blood to the surface. My thrusts now are sharp and deliberate. The table rocks noisily, and her breathless gasps turn to breathless moans.
It feels impossible to shed the fire burning inside me yet I try, faster, harder, more desperate, more angry, more lost. In the heat of day, I am wet to the touch, and she is tight around me, and the air feels like a damp wool blanket; it only fuels the madness.
She is mine, she is mine, she is mine.
I am hers.
Even in this simmering frustration, I remember to be a gentleman. I slide my fingers between her legs with one hand while I hold the back of her neck with the other. The minute that I feel her tense, her breath catching in her throat, I let myself go inside her. I am straining, holding on to her, not caring that my own cries are soaring over the busy street below.
We are both breathing heavily, and I pull back to look at her. She’s drowsy with sex, but there is something still rebellious in her eyes. Though my body is relieved from coming, my heart is not. I pull out of her, zip up my fly, and help her off the edge of the table. Then I turn away, confused. She was right—it didn’t fix anything.
I leave her there on the balcony and walk into the house. Out of habit, I check to make sure my wallet is in my pants, and grab my keys.
“Where are you going?” she asks after me. She sounds hardened but slightly panicked.
“I need to clear my head,” I tell her, and leave, shutting the door behind me.
Of course, there is no place for me to go. Vera has Claudia and the people she works with. I don’t have anyone. Maybe my parents, my sister. Every other friend I had I lost when I left Isabel. Even the great friends turned out not to be so great, and subtly distanced themselves from me, perhaps afraid of being sucked into a scandal, perhaps worried that my behavior would rub off on them. I’m sure many of their wives had been behind it, threatening their husbands that if they should ever hang out with a man who would toss aside his wife for a younger girl, they might do the same.
I had so many friends that I’d lost just because they didn’t want to understand what it was like to fall in love with someone you’re not supposed to. So many friends who chose to judge me than to love me.
I go out into the streets instead, walking and walking until the sun sets, and I find a small, quiet bar to have a drink at. I order a gin and tonic to deal with the heat, extra gin to deal with my heart. Everything weighs so heavy right now, I can feel it pressing down on my shoulders. There is Vera, and then there is loneliness. Sometimes I have both but now it only feels like I have the latter.
I want so badly to read over my letter, but that is back at the apartment with her, and I am here. She hasn’t texted me—there are no “where are yous?” and “when are you coming backs?” or “we need to talks,” or even “chauvinistic assholes”—so I feel no urge to return. I want to stay out on the streets of Madrid until the sun comes up. I want to drink and walk down narrow streets filled with dubious people until I feel like I have an answer to the buried question that is plaguing me.
Can you adapt to something without changing? Can you give without losing all of yourself?
I am not sure.
Eventually though, my feet hurt—my work shoes are brand new and not meant to broken in in one go—and my bones are tired. It must come with old age.
I trek back to the apartment and enter as quietly as possible. It is dark and silent excerpt for the hum of the fridge.
Vera is in bed but she is not asleep. She is sitting up, her shoulders slumped forward, and wearing one of my t-shirts. The curtain is open and the light spills in, illuminating one side of her and leaving the rest in shadow. Her cheeks glisten. She has been crying.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers as I stand in the doorway. All at once, my anger is gone, replaced with nothing but love for this scared little girl.
I come over to the bed and pull her into my arms. I kiss the top of her head as hard as I can. “I am sorry.”
“I’m just being stubborn,” she sniffles into me. “I don’t know why. I guess I’m afraid, and I’m frustrated, and I feel so, so trapped.”
I stiffen. “Trapped?”
“Not by you,” she says adamantly. “Never you. It’s . . . I don’t know my place here yet and I feel like everywhere I turn there is just something trying to push me away. I don’t belong in Vancouver, and yet I don’t feel like I belong here either.”
“You belong with me,” I tell her, my voice raw with passion, with longing.
“I know,” she says, nodding, “I know I do. But sometimes that isn’t enough. I need more than just you, Mateo. I need you, and I need a life of my own that I feel secure in. I need a place to plant my roots.”
“Can’t that be here?”
“I hope so. I’m just afraid that Spain doesn’t want me to stay.”
I run my hand down the back of her head. “I will talk to your boss. You will be able to stay.”
“Mateo, that’s okay.” She says even though it’s not, even though I will do whatever I can.
Yet as I kiss her, bury myself inside her, fall asleep with her, I’m only left with more questions.
Chapter Five
By the end of the week, I’ve settled nicely into my new position. Not being a coach at this point, just an observer, comes easily. The players are elated with me, which will make things smoother in the long run. At least, it will be smoother until I actually step up to the plate in January. I am sure once I am bossing them around, their attitudes will change. I already knew before I even went into this gig who was going to need the most work and who was going to be the most trouble. Thankfully, they aren’t the same player.