by Zoey Castile
“Good morning!” a pretty hostess with several nose piercings greets us. She grins at me, her dark-brown skin like polished stone. “Two?”
“Yes, please.”
When the hostess’s eyes fall to Faith standing behind me, they widen. Faith smiles but gives the girl a small shake of her head.
“Do you two know each other?” I ask.
The girl’s eyes ping-pong between Faith and me. But whatever girl-code is going on, the girl only smiles a wide white smile and leads us to a small corner table in the back.
The crowd here is mostly tourists with lobster-burnt skin. Though, I feel like I wouldn’t be able to recognize what a local from New Orleans would look like.
“Are you some sort of celebrity?” I ask Faith. “You seem to know everyone.”
She laughs. “Please.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s part of an answer.”
A waitress rolls around and sets down two giant mimosas with the fattest strawberries I’ve ever seen. “On the house.”
“Thank you,” Faith says, and gives the girl a small squeeze on her arm.
I pretend to gasp. “Are you local mafia? Am I on a date with a mafia princess?”
Faith rolls her eyes and playfully bats my shoulder with her gloved hand. It stays here. Why does one touch from her ignite something in me I didn’t think I was capable of? It’s like I can feel her, through the fabric of my shirt and that of her gloves. She looks at her hand and removes it.
“It’s nothing like that.”
I rest my chin on my knuckles and watch her. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Not yet. We just met.”
I grab hold of my drink and smirk. I lean into her, my nose and lips inches from her ear. “I know you well enough to remember the way you taste.”
She swallows hard and lifts her drink to mine. “What should we toast to?”
“To mafia royalty,” I say. “And generous waitresses.”
Speaking of, the young waitress swings back around. “Miss Charles. What’re you having?”
Faith Charles.
I could google her. I could go behind her back and go into a deep dive of an Internet wormhole and never come out because I want to know everything about her.
But I won’t. Because I can’t see her after today. Shouldn’t see her . . .
“I’ll have the Seafood Benedict.” Faith looks at me. “How do you feel about pancakes for the table?”
“I feel like it’s everything I’ve been missing all my life.” I hand the waitress the menu back. “I’ll have the Big Easy Breakfast.”
She jots it down with a wink. “What flavor pancakes?”
“Banana chocolate chip,” we say at the exact same time. The waitress grins because we’re probably ridiculous.
“Faith Charles,” I say. It’s like learning a new language. The language of her.
“Aiden Peñaflor,” she says.
It’s cute the way she pronounces it. Pen-ya-floor. But after a moment, the name sends a red flag up in my head because I haven’t gone by that name since I was eighteen.
“I’m sorry, I saw your ID. Remember?”
“It’s nice to meet you, Miss Charles.” I lean back and admire the way she smiles when I say her name. “Now, will you please tell me why everyone seems to know you?”
She folds her hands in front of her. She could be a local model. But her beauty is not small town. “Angie and I have this game where we guess who people are and what they do whenever we go out. She spoiled you for me, though.”
I envy the straw that gets to rest in her clever mouth. “I’ll play. But I’ll have you know that I’m coming up with all sorts of ideas.”
“Let’s hear one.”
Telling her I think she’s a model sounds cheesy as fuck. She’s so witty that I do think she’s some sort of law professional. Her teeth are perfectly straight. “Dentist.”
She shivers. “You mean mouth torturer? Wrong. You get two more guesses.”
“We didn’t agree to that.” I cross my arms over my chest.
“I make the rules.”
God, I want her to say that to me while we’re both naked. “Hotel owner.”
She sighs, and I almost feel like she’s disappointed. “Not even close.”
What’s the opposite of hotels? Or cities? I remember she said her dad was in environmental law. And then it hits me, I’m trying to figure out why everyone knows her, but what I should be doing is guessing who she is—deep inside. I go with the wildest, most random thing a classy, sexy woman like her might be. “Park ranger?”
She laughs, the stiffness from before melting away. I love making her laugh. I shouldn’t love this the way I do. “Close, but no.”
“You have to give me another shot.”
Her chin juts out in the most adorable way, a playful turn to her lips. “I think this already is your second shot.”
I palm my chest to my heart, like she landed an arrow there. “Solid burn. I was hoping you didn’t remember that part.”
She lowers her eyes and edges close to me. Her voice drops an octave as she whispers, “I liked knowing I made you feel that way.”
I lick my lips and my eyes flick to the bulge straining against my thigh. “You still do.”
Maybe that was too much, because she clears her throat, signaling a subject change. “Your weekend in NOLA is coming to an end. Where are you off to next? Ibiza? Santa Monica?”
I adjust my seat to give my hands something to do. “Actually, I’m here until Friday. Then I’m out. Not sure where yet.”
My contract with Ginny will be up. She made it clear that it was the last time she could ever see me. It was a little strange, actually, but lots of my clients are.
As long as I get paid, it shouldn’t matter.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. Is every drink in this city just strong? Because I can’t seem to stop the words flowing out of my mouth. “A part of me wants to go back to Vegas. Beg my friends to take me back. But I messed up so badly and then instead of being an adult, I just split.”
Faith’s eyes are so full of patience as I speak. Something inside of me feels like it’s been cracked, like a fissure in glass. I think it’s going to keep spreading the more I’m with her.
Tell her you can’t see her again.
“Faith, I—”
“Pancakes for the table!” the waitress says, dropping the massive stack in front of us.
“Yes?” Faith asks once we’re alone. Or as alone as two people in a restaurant can ever be.
“I—I’m glad you brought me here. I haven’t had pancakes in forever.”
“Don’t tell me you’re one of those no-carb people,” she teases, cutting a triangle out of the stack.
“I guess now that I’m not in the show anymore I can eat whatever I want.”
I stuff pancake into my mouth. I don’t like this oversharing I do with Faith. It’s too vulnerable. Too much like letting someone inside your house and begging them to look into your closet. Not like regular closets, either. The closets where you keep your sex toys and dirty magazines.
“Well, I’m glad you feel like you can finally have pancakes. My daddy used to say that life isn’t worth living without good food. Of course, he grew up comfortable, so he could say that.”
“If you could eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would you eat?”
She thinks on this for a little while. “Mangos.”
I joke-smash the table. “Mangos? You could go with pizza or triple-bacon cheeseburgers and you go with fruit? I don’t think you get the point of this game.”
“Mangos are delicious. Plus you can eat them sweet or salty. When I was in college I went to Mexico for the first time.”
“Spring break?”
She gives me a little shove, and I have to resist the urge to take that hand and hold it.
“Studying the effects of marine po
llution in the Yucatán.”
“So, no wet T-shirt contests and margaritas.”
“I mean, you’ve never been around a bunch of science nerds. Things get pretty wild.” She takes a drink of her mimosa. “Anyway. This might sound ridiculous but up until that point I couldn’t remember ever having, like, a whole mango. It’s always in concentrate or mango flavored or in juice. And across the street from where we were staying this lady had a tiny cart where she peeled them and put them in a bag with salt and hot sauce. I ate that every day. Pretty sure that’s why I can’t have spicy foods anymore. But it was worth it.”
“In Colombia we had a mango tree.” I don’t talk about Colombia this much. Not to my friends, not even when my tía Ceci wants to go to dinner and catch up. But I’m talking about it with Faith and I know that I should stop but I can’t. “My mom used to cut it up for me and squeeze a whole lemon over it and a little bit of salt. But when she wasn’t looking, I’d add so much salt my mouth would be like prunes when I was done.”
Faith laughs and sets her hand down. “You can’t choose mangos for yours, too.”
I brush my finger across hers. My heart is racing because she doesn’t pull away. She hooks her index finger around mine.
“Banana chocolate chip pancakes,” I say.
FAITH
Do you ever feel happy watching someone eat? Not in a sexual way. It’s more of a “wow, you love my city” kind of way. Aiden enjoys life’s pleasures. Does he enjoy them too much? Does it matter?
“I’ve never had a shot for breakfast,” he comments on the bourbon that comes with the breakfast special. “It’s not as bad as the stuff my friend Fallon likes. Want to taste?”
It’s early, but it’s Saturday and we’re in the best city in the world. So I take a sip, pressing my lips right where his just were. The bourbon burns smoky and sweet.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks me.
“I’m thinking that I’ve never met someone who enjoys things the way you do.”
Aiden arches a thick black brow, a sensual smirk on that heavenly face of his. “There’s so much to love in this life. Food. Sunshine. Drinks. Sex. I’ve always done what I wanted. Now I realize things can backfire, though.”
When he says sex, his eyes are intense on me. “That’s a very long way of saying YOLO.”
He leans close to me. “No one says that anymore. But basically. My mom didn’t have a lot to give me, but she always made sure that what we did have—food, books, whatever—that I appreciated it. I wish she were here now so I could give her everything we didn’t have.”
I suck in a tiny breath. Pieces of Aiden start to come together. The way he always speaks about his mother in the past tense. The sadness in his eyes when he was sitting at the bar alone on his birthday. It wasn’t just the birthday. It couldn’t have been.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him.
“I don’t know why I said that.” His jaw clenches like he’s trying to not cry, so he frowns instead.
I rest my hand on top of his and I feel him ease. “Thanks for letting me be the one.”
He shakes his head and tries to smile, tries to be the guy that loves life and does whatever he wants. I glance at the time on my watch and realize I have about fifteen minutes to get to church.
“Shit,” I mutter. “I have to go.”
He nods, understandingly, a smile tugging on his lips. Then, he finishes his morning whiskey and grimaces.
“Thanks for having breakfast with me, Faith,” he says.
I watch him for a moment—this fascinating, lovely, sexy man. Even the thought of walking out of this restaurant without him pulls at my heartstrings in a painful way. “Have you ever been to a swamp?”
He chuckles, then realizes I’m serious. “I can’t say I have.”
“I’m visiting a friend tomorrow. Would you like to come with me?”
“To the swamp?”
“It’s a national wildlife refuge, but yes, the swamp.”
Without hesitation he says, “Yes.”
Before I throw myself on top of him in front of a restaurant full of brunchgoers, I ask for the check. He tries to pay, like really tries to take the bill from me, but I don’t let him.
“I’ll pick you up at nine in the morning,” I say as we step out of the restaurant.
“See you—” I watch him reach for me, then a body mass comes out of nowhere. He collides into someone. She yelps, losing her balance, but Aiden is fast and grabs hold of her.
My body runs cold when I realize who it is. Dread pools into the pit of my stomach, and I know I can’t run in these heels.
“Faith!” Maribelle says, brushing her curls out of her face.
“Maribelle,” I say with a guilty smile.
Aiden looks back and forth between us, trying to sense the tone. He tries to hang back but Maribelle’s wide brown eyes look him up and down. I wonder what kind of stories she’s making up in the painfully long seconds we stand staring at each other.
“We missed you this morning,” Maribelle says, always one to fill in awkward silences with chitchat. She’s holding a stack of pamphlets about my mother’s campaign, which she’s probably papering the town with. “Your mother’s worried because you weren’t answering our messages.”
“I’m sure I’ll hear about it in a few minutes.”
Aiden is just standing there. I know I should introduce him, but I don’t want to because he’s been mine since yesterday and I don’t want to expose him to the circus of the campaign. I know he’s not mine-mine, but he’s the only space that I have that isn’t part of politics. I don’t want to let that go just yet.
“Hi, I’m Maribelle Suarez,” she says, holding her hand out to Aiden.
“Aiden Peñaflor,” he says.
“Peñaflor?” Maribelle smiles wide. She even pronounces his name better than I can. “My roommate at LSU was a Peñaflor.”
Aiden’s so good at meeting new people. How does he do it? Maribelle’s usual hyper energy seems tapered down. “No relation. I’m the first generation to live in the States.”
“Oh cool,” Maribelle says. “Me too. My parents moved to Florida from Puerto Rico, but I’ve always wanted to live in New Orleans. It’s been my dream for forever.”
I didn’t know that about her. A voice that sounds strangely like my dad’s says, You never asked.
“Faith has been trying to sell me on New Orleans hard,” he chuckles. “But New York has Colombian food.”
A tiny bolt of jealousy strikes my thoughts. It’s not that I think that Aiden is trying to get with Maribelle. It’s that he’s sharing things about himself that I want for me. Ridiculous, I know. Selfish. Bratty.
“Yeah, when I’m older I want to open a Latin restaurant somewhere here. Right now I’m concentrating on politics. Of course, you know all about it.”
And there it is. The thing that I’ve been trying to keep out of this thing—whatever it is—that Aiden and I have. It’s gone.
Aiden looks to me to fill in the blanks.
“I have to go,” I tell Maribelle. “And I’m sure Aiden is busy, so—”
“It was nice to meet you,” Aiden says, and because he’s himself, he hugs her and kisses her on the cheek.
“Maybe I’ll see you around?” she asks, with a shy, significant look at me.
I can practically feel the machinations in Maribelle’s mind working. She’s going to tell my mother that she saw me with a guy on the street before church. A man she has never heard about or seen.
Self-preservation. That’s what I’m going with. That’s what’s making me wrap my arm around Aiden’s. Because for some reason this is safer, easier than trying to lie to my mother about who this man is.
“You will,” I say. “He’s my date to the masquerade ball.”
“I am?” he asks for a moment. Then he repeats, but confidently, “I am.”
Maribelle’s shock lasts until she waves good-bye and continues down the shops.
“M
asquerade ball?” Aiden says, but he doesn’t seem upset.
“It’s in two weeks. I know you’re leaving so you can’t come. Maribelle’s just going to run off and tell my mom she saw me with you and I panicked.”
“Could be fun,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “What’s it for?”
I take a deep breath. “It’s an election fund-raiser. Both candidates host and raise money for the city.”
“Mafia princess.” Aiden smiles and cocks his head to the side. “You know the candidates?”
I hand him the pamphlet. Vote Charles for Change.
“My mother is a mayoral candidate.”
7
Up Around the Bend
AIDEN
“Holy fuck,” Fallon says.
Back in my hotel, I pace on the balcony of the suite.
“Holy fuck,” Fallon repeats.
“I know. Say something else. Because right now I don’t know what I should do. I mean, I don’t think she would have said anything if we didn’t bump into that girl Maribelle after brunch.”
Fallon, my supposed best friend, laughs. He’s fucking laughing at me. “You went to brunch?”
“I had a bourbon.”
“Really? Fine, but first you tell me that you let her take you to brunch, which in your words is yuppie bullshit, and now she’s taking you to a swamp.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
He’s almost done laughing, but he’s practically wheezing. “Okay, I can be serious. But you have to answer something honestly.”
“What?”
“After all you said this morning, why are you going to keep spending time with Faith?”
I sit down on the deck chair. From here I can see people swimming in the rooftop pool, and below that, the foot traffic coming and going. Somewhere out there is Faith Charles, daughter of a mayoral candidate. Before today she was Faith, a girl who makes me spill my secrets within ten seconds of being around her. Before that she was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen.
“I like her.”
“You like her?” Fallon repeats. “Sweet summer child. The last long-term relationship you had was in elementary school.”
