by Tamara Lush
“No. I didn’t know that.” I smile. See? I can be enlightened and mindful, I want to say to Amber. Mindful of not snarling at Diego. I look around for Amber.
“Come,” Diego says, holding his hand out for me. “I’ll show you.”
I don’t budge as I scan the faces of Liam, the blondes, and Man Bun. They’re all chatting like old friends. I see that Amber’s slipped away to talk with the guitar player.
Diego clamps his hand around my arm.
“It’s not polite to leave your date,” I say to him.
“Stop it, Cata. I’m not here on a date. Come on.” His grin almost melts my icy heart.
Almost, but not quite.
Chapter Fifteen
DIEGO
“Brittany’s going to be upset that you left her alone,” Cata says in an accusing tone.
We’re walking along a low, wooden boardwalk to the seawall. We pass under a palm tree, and a hot breeze wafts in from the Gulf of Mexico. “Who?”
Cata stops, then whirls around. “Brittany. Your date from Tinder. The one with the pink bikini top. Isn't that her name?”
I laugh and break into Spanish, which I sometimes do if I’m feeling awkward or want to make a sarcastic joke. “Claro que si. Of course. I get it. So that’s what this is about. You’re jealous.”
Cata walks off, her ballet shoes making little padding noises on the wood. I watch her legs in those sexy black stockings, and her hips sway in the short skirt. I catch up with her.
“She wasn’t my date.”
“Whatever.”
We walk in tandem, fast. We’re moving away from the bars and condos on the beach and into a dark section, landscaped with big white flowers and illuminated by the full moon.
“I brought Liam with me to the bar. We were alone. I came to find you. He ran into those girls when we walked in. He’d hooked up with both of them a few months ago.”
She rolled her eyes and sighs.
“I know, I know. He’s a pig,” I respond.
“Like you’re any different?” she shoots back. “I read what everyone online said about you. Your dating habits. How you pick up girls on Tinder. Tinderellas. Disgusting.”
I sigh. We’re at the end of the boardwalk, where the wood meets the sand. It’s a few hundred feet to the seawall. She stops and I can see her shaking, she's so angry.
“Cata, I need to explain.”
“What’s there to explain? I thought you were different. I thought you weren’t like all the other guys. When I saw you again, when I kissed you, I thought maybe you were still noble. You used to be kind of guy who wanted a real connection with a girl, not one who taps and swipes at his phone so he can fuck.”
I run a hand through my hair, then count to five to dial down the tension between us. “I’ve gone out with two girls from Tinder.”
“What we had was amazing, Diego. I don’t want us to hook up and cheapen that memory. Well, any more than we already cheapened it with the photos. That’s what I’m afraid of – doing more damage. Wait. Two?”
“Yep. Two. One was six months ago. The other a year ago.”
“But those gamers online made it seem like-”
“I know what they made it seem like. But it’s not true. Sawyer and Liam talked shit online; then the fans started thinking I was looking for girls on Tinder every night. And then the Wired article, the reporter made it seem like I was a veritable online Casanova. I’m not proud of this, Cata, but I didn’t try to tell them otherwise. It’s part of the persona. It's the brand.”
She shakes her head, and the moonlight illuminates the bitterness on her face. I step closer to her, ready to take her in my arms. She’s standing near the tall hedge, and I reach around her and pluck a big flower off the bush.
“Peace?” I say, extending my hand with the flower.
“It’s a hibiscus,” she murmurs, taking it from me. “Thanks.”
“I’ve only been with two girls since you. In six years. I didn’t even sleep with one of the Tinder dates. You know how shy I am,” I say softly. “And I do want a real connection. With you.”
With those big eyes, she looks up into my face. “Right. Whatever.”
“God, let's just get this out in the open. I never wanted to break up with you. I thought I was doing the right thing by telling you to move on after the photos. By telling you to go to New York and to school, to forget about everything. Forget about me. I wanted you to stop feeling ashamed after the photos. Obviously, that was the wrong thing to do, since it just pissed you off and made you not talk to me for six years.”
“Why would I ever want to forget you?” she whispers.
In one swift motion, I hoist her into my arms and carry her over the sand to the seawall, and we sit, our back to the water. She yelps then leans into me and sighs my name. When we get to the stone ledge, I sit and maneuver her onto my lap, so she’s sitting sideways. One hand is on her knee, and it’s itching to inch up her thigh to where her stocking meets her bare leg. With my other hand, I take the flower from her and tuck it in her ear.
She squirms on my lap. “Are you comfortable?” I ask.
Shaking her head, she rearranges herself, so she’s straddling me. My dick gets rock hard. I’d wanted just to talk with her, but I can’t control that part of my body when she’s so close. I look down and see the tops of her thighs punctuated by the stockings and the little skirt. Fighting back a growl, I stare at her. She’s like a Goth princess in the moonlight, with her outfit and the flower and her long, nearly white-blonde hair.
“Now, what is it that you want me to say? Do you want me to apologize again? Because I will. I’ll apologize for the rest of my life. I’ve beat myself up for accidentally leaving that phone behind and causing all the problems.”
She places her hands on my chest and sighs. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, Diego. Our past is so complicated.”
I arrange her long hair behind her shoulders. “Is it, though? Why does everything have to be complicated? I still feel the same way about you as I did six years ago. Why can’t we be together? At least try.”
“It’s not that simple. God, Diego, things are always so black and white for you. Sometimes you’re so dense. And I’m working for you.”
“So?” I truly don’t understand her hesitation.
Her voice is exasperated, but she sighs, and her tone drops lower and becomes sexier. “It’s actually kind of scary how much I still care about you. But I want you to prove to me that you’re looking for something meaningful.”
“Okay, how’s this?” I take her face in my hands and pull her toward me. I claim her mouth in a blazing kiss. It starts off hard and almost angry, but quickly dissolves into a sensual, slow rhythm. She scissors her hands through my hair, tilts my head back and kisses me deeper, biting my bottom lip. The flower tumbles onto the sand.
Our tongues meet, and I feel like my heart is splitting open, pouring out, offering itself in a sacrifice to Cata. I groan and stroke the sides of her body, my thumbs brushing against the roundness of her breasts.
She pulls away and sucks in a breath, but keeps grinding into me, a smile spreading across her face when she realizes how hard I am.
“Am I proving how much I want you? You and only you?” I whisper.
She caresses my face with her hands and nods slowly. “It’s a definite start.”
Then she leans in, and I feel her body soften into mine. She wraps her arms around me and hugs, tight. Her need is turning me on. She smells so good, like coconut and grass. For all of her black clothes and dark-rimmed blue eyes, she smells like nature and light. I inhale deep, wanting to bathe in her scent and remember it forever.
It’s only after a few minutes that I realize her body is trembling and that she’s crying.
I unwrap her arms from around my neck and shift so I can look at her.
“Shhhh,” I whisper. “Hey. It’s okay.”
She wipes wet from her cheeks and sniffles. The moonlight and her tears
make her face look ethereal, gorgeous, and my breath is taken away by how intensely beautiful she is, like a little, sad doll.
“I’m … I’m sorry,” she says.
I kiss her cheeks and her nose. She flashes a wan smile, and my heart shatters.
“Don’t be,” I say. “But … why are you crying?”
She shrugs. “Everything, I guess. Seeing you. Kissing you. My mom leaving. My dad being gone. Being home and the fact I’ll be living alone in the house. Losing my job. Nothing is how I planned it.”
“Maybe your life is about to be a whole lot better than you had planned. Have you considered that, Catalina?”
Her shoulders lift in a shrug. “I’m not so sure.”
I lean in and kiss her softly. I want to make everything okay with this one kiss, but I know she needs so much more. She needs time. She needs me.
I stop kissing so I can wrap my arms around her. Her small body is warm and soothing. I want to hold her tight and never, ever, let go. This is my chance to prove that she means more to me than a casual hookup.
She rests her head on my shoulder and sighs into my neck. “I think it might have been a mistake to kiss you the other day. It’s complicated my life even more.”
“Look at me, Cata.”
She raises her head, and I trace her mouth with my fingertip. Just like when we were teens, Cata looks vulnerable right when I’m about to kiss her. That look has always slain me. She shivers under my touch, and I seize her jaw in my hand. Not forcefully, but with enough pressure that she knows I’m serious.
I put my lips an inch from hers so I can murmur into her mouth.
“Some mistakes are too good to never happen again.”
We kiss more, an intense, hard collision. She pushes my lips apart with her tongue, and I can feel her excitement merging with mine. My hands skim her thighs, slip under her skirt and stop at the top of her stockings when my palms reach bare skin. My fingers are inches from her panties.
Right when I feel like I’m about to go further, explore between her legs, I summon some self-control. Removing my hands and breaking from her kiss, I look down. I’m breathing hard, and I smooth her skirt over her legs as if to remind myself that this isn’t the time or place for sex.
“What?” she breathes. She puts her forehead to mine, and I can feel that her skin is hot.
“I want you,” I say. “But not here. Not like this. Not tonight. Not on a night when you’re crying, and your emotions are all over the place. You deserve better.”
She sighs again and melts into me.
“That’s the Diego I once knew,” she whispers. “And I wanted to tell you something.”
“What’s that?” I rub her back.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
She presses her lips to my cheek. “For helping my family. I didn’t thank you before because I didn’t know how I felt about it. I still don’t, but it means a lot. It means everything. Thank you.”
I don’t say anything. Instead, I hold her. I could stay like this, right here, all night long.
Chapter Sixteen
CATALINA
I think Diego’s teasing me.
Ever since that night on the beach, he hasn’t kissed me.
And it’s been two long weeks.
He hasn’t touched me.
And he's driving me insane.
Sure, he’s been flirtatious, kind, attentive. At first, I thought his interest in me had evaporated, and I’d worried that he was looking for dates online. But after a couple of days, it became apparent that he wasn’t. He hangs around me all the time when I’m at the house, and when I’m not, he’s texting and calling and Face Timing. The other night we stayed up talking over video chat until three in the morning. We were each in our own beds, and it felt a little like high school again because we talked until our voices were hoarse and until our eyes grew heavy. I thought our conversation would turn sexy, but to my surprise, it didn’t. And that was better, actually. We talked about adult things like politics and news and stuff we read online.
“We have a lot in common,” I said sleepily, at the end of our conversation.
“I never doubted that. Sweet dreams, baby girl,” he said in a low voice that made me melt.
Still, it’s troubling that he hasn’t made a move. He is a guy, and I know for a fact he has a huge sexual appetite. And at this point, I do, too. It’s now exactly fifteen days since our incredible kiss on the beach.
I haven’t stopped thinking about that night and the way his hands felt on me. Although I’m trying to concentrate on my new job, all I can fantasize about is us, in various sexual poses and situations. It’s distracting, and frankly, becoming a bit annoying.
Of course, I’m also playing out all the other conceivable options. Like the possibility that Diego wants me, but doesn’t want a relationship. And after my little outburst of tears on his lap, while were making out on the beach, I wonder if he’s hesitant. Maybe he knows that I can’t handle something casual, and that’s why he’s not trying anything more.
Him wanting something casual is my biggest fear.
It’s Thursday morning, and I’m at his house. I stopped to get my favorite lavender latte coffee – thanks to this job I can now afford such luxuries – and I turn on my computer to check my email. I have a Google Alert set up for Gamerhouse, for each of the guys’ names and for me. A stab of dread goes through my stomach when I see a headline from an online tech site.
“Former NewsNow Writer Is Gamerhouse Social Media Manager”
With anxiety coursing through my body, I look around. I haven’t yet seen Diego this morning, and assume he’s in the gym. Part of me wants him around, as a soothing presence, when I open this email. I consider whether to wait to open the email, but then I click. I can’t be a baby about this. Just because I was fired doesn’t mean I have anything to be ashamed about. It wasn’t my fault that the congressman sent me unsolicited photos of his dick. Or that the editor told me to write that story.
My eyes scan the story and my muscles instantly relax. It’s not a bad write-up. It’s kind, even. Factual. I release all the air that I’ve been holding in my lungs and lean back. Close my eyes.
“Good morning. You okay?” Diego’s voice rumbles through me.
I open my eyes to look at him. He’s sweaty, panting and shirtless. I grin. God, he's beautiful.
“I’m great.” My eyes travel down his chest, which ripples with muscles.
“Nice tattoo.” I point to the black tribal pattern that covers his muscular right shoulder. My heart speeds up just looking at it. I held my breath as I stared at his half-naked body.
His skin is smooth except for a little trail of black hair near his bellybutton. Then I spot something dangling from his neck: a dog tag chain and a pendant. I rise and walk over to him, then take the silver disc in between my fingers and inspect it. A lump forms in my throat, and I want to speak but am afraid I’ll cry.
I gave him the silver pendant that long-ago summer, back before the scandal.
There’s something written on the pendant:
01001100
01001111
01010110
01000101
It’s binary code for I love you.
“Are you wearing this because I’m here?”
He shakes his head bites his lip. His eyes meet mine, and they’re sad, hesitant.
“I’ve worn it every day since you left.”
Standing on my tiptoes, I brush my lips over his. I can't control myself anymore. I want to wrap myself around him and never let go but hear someone, probably Sawyer or Liam, walking up the stairs.
“Go shower, sweet boy,” I tell him. “We need to talk about some ideas for the blog.”
He starts to walk away, then turns to look at me.
“Cata.”
“Yeah?”
He smiles. “It’s awesome to hear you call me that again.”
It's a couple of days later, the weekend’s c
oming up. I know that Diego’s asked Jake, uh, Ghost, to fill in for him Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I’m dying to know why. From what Liam and Sawyer told me this afternoon, Diego never takes Fridays off.
I’m at my desk, editing some video clips I shot of Sawyer. I’m creating an homage to a 1980s music video, and I dressed him in clothes from that decade. Sawyer has the potential to be quite the heartthrob and has already gotten some notice online, so I’m going to promote this on that side and see if I can boost his presence among preteen girls. I laugh as I watch the finished product.
“What’s so funny?” Diego’s in the office, sitting across the room from my desk on a black leather sofa, typing away on his laptop. He’s freshly showered, and his hair is rumpled and damp. An unmistakable citrus-caramel scent hits my senses and my mind’s returned to its dirty fantasies. He looks so sexy and casual in his thin, black cotton track pants and his white t-shirt and I imagine sitting in his lap.
Like every other room in the house, there’s a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall tuned to our online gaming channel. There’s always a running soundtrack of gamer talk, explosions, gunfire. It doesn’t bother me in the least.
We’ve got a little while before Diego’s shift begins, and Sawyer is deep into a World of Warcraft raid. I email the video to my phone, then walk over to Diego and sit next to him. He rests his laptop on an end table.
“This,” I say, tapping the little triangle in the middle of the screen, holding the phone so he can see. Diego slips his arm around me, which gives me all the incentive I need to get closer. I sling my leg over his so I’m practically in his lap. I can almost feel the waves of need surge through my body, and I wonder if he can feel them, too.
Not even twenty seconds into the video, Diego’s looking at me and not the screen. My heart speeds up when he works his hand that’s around my shoulders into my hair. Without taking his eyes off me, he takes my phone and sets it on the armrest of the sofa, then cups my face.
