I grumbled under my breath but stayed quiet as Patrice relayed my woes to Nesto. As he talked, Jude, Nesto’s partner, came into the room, put his head on his shoulder and joined the conversation.
By the time Patrice finished, Jude’s pretty face had broken into a grin and his bright blue eyes were looking in my direction.
“Camilo, this guy sounds great.” He gave me a sympathetic look, an adorable pout forming on his lips. “And like he’ll keep you on your toes. I can’t wait to hear how you guys get on.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and huffed. “I’m not dating this guy, people! He’s a donor for the agency.”
Nesto shot me some side-eye before chiming in with his hot take on the matter. “First of all, it feels amazing to be giving you relationship advice. Second, bitch, please. This man asked to meet with you every week so he can get a random update you could send him in a two line email, and you don’t think it’s because he’s looking for an excuse to see you? Come on, Milo.”
“Fine. Okay,” I answered a little wildly. “But it’s really not that deep.”
Various protests resulted from my very obvious lie, and I finally conceded.
“Okay, maybe he does want more, but I really don’t want to go there, because I’m really attracted to him and so far, he’s been very much sticking to business.” I sighed feeling like I needed to let this out. If only to admit it to myself, and if I couldn’t say it to these people, then who could I say it to?
“And I’m kind of freaked, because he’s amazing, not just because he’s gorgeous, and rich and really does have a magnificent cock.” That broke the tension a bit at least. “He’s nice and down to earth. He talked about his family in DR when we met today, and about the aunt he’s honoring with the shelter renovation.”
I pressed my fingers to my eyes as I talked. “I get carried away when I like someone this much, and then ruin everything by running my mouth or acting jealous. I just don’t want to get my hopes up, that’s all. I don’t want to end up brokenhearted and jobless over this. I mean that seriously too, my boss will not be okay with me fucking around with a donor. Hell, I’m not okay with it. It’s inappropriate and...fuck it’s just not a good idea,” I said, feeling miserable.
When I stopped talking I saw they were all looking at me with worried faces. Patrice put his arms around my shoulder.
“Camilo, you’re not going to lose your job. You’re amazing at it, and you will run that renovation like the pro you are. As far as Tom is concerned, just see where things go. You’re being too hard on yourself right now, nothing has happened yet.” He tugged on my ear then, like we usually did to each other when one of us was being particularly dense. “And for the record, whether it’s with Tom or anyone else, just let go a bit. Be yourself, don’t try to be who you think you should be. The person you are.” He gently tapped my chest with his finger. “The guy we get all the time is wonderful. No one who gets to see the real you would ever walk away.”
I looked around at my friends and their faces were so full of affection, so certain I deserved to be happy I felt the tightness in my chest loosen a bit. Maybe if I could not trust myself, I could trust what my friends believed about me and what I deserved.
“Thank you, but now we have to stop talking about this. Please?” I pleaded then turned my attention to Patrice. “Nesto, give us the real report on what Patrice is up to with Easton. Are they fucking or what?”
Juanpa muttered, “Dayum, you’re just gonna drag him like that, huh? Ruthless little fucker.”
I preened at what was clearly a compliment, and let the conversation steer off me and onto Patrice’s new job.
As I sat there hearing my friends chatter, I thought about Tom, and wondered if he was thinking about our talk today. If like me, he was anxious and eager for next Wednesday.
Chapter Nine
Camilo
“Hola, Camilo.” Tom’s voice was like a caress in my ear, and I had to squeeze my eyes to focus and not do something ludicrous like sigh, or whimper.
This was a professional call. Tom was not my lover.
“Hi. So, I hate to do this so last minute, but could we move our meeting tomorrow to 4:00 p.m.? I have something I can’t get out of and need time to get back to Harlem.”
He made a rumbling sound, and it was like thunder crackling through my nerves. It’d been a week since our first meeting, and I really wanted to see him again.
“Sure, no problem.” His voice was lower when he spoke again. “I thought you were going to have to cancel. Like I said before, my schedule is fairly flexible. Do you need more time? I can meet later than that.”
The way Tom spoke to me, like he cared about my needs, or like making things easier for me was a priority to him, was intoxicating. It was most likely because he was a decent person and didn’t act like a diva because he had money, but deep down in a little corner of my heart where no one else was invited, I imagined this was only for me.
“No, 4:00 p.m. should work, I just need to drop my mom off—”
I stopped talking, horrified that I’d shared information about a personal appointment with Tom. My lack of professional boundaries were going to get me in a serious bind before this renovation even got off the ground.
I sighed internally and tried again. “I need to get back to Harlem from the Bronx. I shouldn’t need more than an hour.”
The silence on Tom’s end was making me squirm. I felt exposed and weirded out by the possibility that he’d ask what I was doing.
“Camilo.” The way he said my name, in that perfect inflection, like it was supposed to sound, got me every time. “If you need to take care of your mom, we can reschedule. Your family is the priority.”
I hesitated before I spoke, but soon I was saying more than I probably should. “It’s fine. I’m just going with her to an appointment.” To do an intake for a domestic violence support group, which she’s finally agreed to do after years of trying to convince her and I don’t want to miss the chance to get her there. “The place is right by Fordham Plaza. We should be done by three. I can take the Metro-North from there, it won’t even take thirty minutes. I just want to give myself enough time, so you don’t have to end up waiting for me if I get delayed.”
Again his response took some time and when he spoke, he was the hesitant one. “Why don’t I meet you up there?” I actually had to suppress a gasp at the question. “We can have our meeting at the botanical garden.” His voice suddenly rose with excitement. “I’ve been wanting to see the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibit, and it’s supposed to be beautiful out tomorrow.”
There went my pulse again, threatening to jump out of my chest. This was not a good idea. This was the opposite of sensible. The botanical garden was not a place for business meetings, it was a place for dates. I could not date Thomas Hughes.
I opened my mouth to put a brake on this course of action, but when I spoke I heard my stupid mouth say, “I’ve been wanting to see that too.”
This time there was no pause and I got a firsthand glimpse of the tenacious businessman Tom was rumored to be. “Excellent. I’ll meet you at the conservatory. I’ll leave a ticket for you at the front.”
“Tom, you don’t have to do that,” I protested, feeling already like this was getting closer and closer to a date by the second.
“Of course I do, I keep changing meeting locations and it’s the least I could do given how easygoing you’ve been.” I wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. I was the one who’d changed the time of the appointment and he had come up with the gardens because I was going to be in the Bronx. Somehow Tom had made me feel like I was making his day easier by changing our entire plan for the meeting.
I wanted to be contrary, to tell him that he was changing the rules and making it harder for me to keep myself at bay, but I also wanted to see him. I wanted to see the exhibit with him. I wanted.
I heard the sound of his throat clearing and I wondered if he was as fucked up about the pull between us as I was, but when I spoke I could do nothing to mask the anticipation in my voice. “All right. I’ll see you then.”
“Until tomorrow, Camilo.”
I ended the call and sat there wondering if there was any chance I could realistically stick to my “stay off Tom’s dick” plan for much longer, until Ayako’s voice mercifully yanked me out of my fretting.
“Yoooooo... Is all that frowning about Mr. BDE?”
Ayako thought she was fucking hilarious.
“I’m not frowning and calling a major donor ‘Mr. Big Dick Energy’ is super unprofessional,” I said primly.
She laughed at my very weak attempt at outrage and planted her ass on my desk. “I have sources who can confirm that the dick is indeed big.” She widened her eyes and put a finger over her lips, then aimed it at me.
The smile threatening to break out of my face was very hard to hold back. “I’m sorry. I can’t confirm or deny any knowledge concerning Mr. Hughes’s dick, or any other body parts.”
She twisted her bright red lips to the side as she rolled her eyes. “Uh huh, so what’s the deal, why are you sitting here looking spooked? Did he cancel on you?”
I sighed as I tried to extract what was appropriate to say about everything I was feeling at the moment. “No, I just called to let him know that I needed to push back the meeting an hour.”
A spark of cautious optimism warmed my chest as I thought of the reason for the time change. “I finally convinced my mom to do the intake for that support group for Spanish speakers the DV center from the Bronx is doing.” Ayako’s face lit up at that. She was well aware how much I’d struggled to get my mom to do anything related to her trauma history.
“I’m so happy to hear that. It’ll be so good for her to talk to other women.” She sounded genuinely excited. Ayako knew how long I’d been trying to cajole my mom to do a group.
I nodded, still not wanting to call this development with my mom a victory. “I’m a little bit worried that she seemed to say yes too easily. Maybe she’s doing worse than she’s letting on.”
Ayako leaned and smiled in that way she did when I was getting “too pessimistic.”
“Maybe she’s just ready. We talk about meeting people where they’re at until our tongues fall out around here. If it’s good enough for our clients, it should be good enough for us.”
I exhaled, conceding her point. “You’re right. I just worry.”
“Take this as a win, friend. This a good step toward Dinorah starting to believe that what happened to her isn’t who she is. I’ve heard really great things about that program, they use a good model.”
I dipped my head in agreement. “I will take it as a win, and yes, I’ve only heard positive things.” I glanced at my office door, as if checking for eavesdroppers. “I ended up blabbing to Tom about it and by the time we were done talking, we’d arranged to meet at the botanical garden tomorrow.” Ayako widened her eyes at this development. “These meetings sound more and more like dates, and I’m pretty sure I do not have the self-control it takes to resist Tom Hughes if he even hints at a repeat from the night at the gala.”
I stared up at Ayako, hoping she would give me the talking to I needed. Instead she got up and walked over to the door, shut it and walked back to my desk.
“I’m not going to tell you to have a torrid affair with a donor, because that would be terrible advice.”
Awesome I was about to get another “just go with the flow” pep talk. I needed a fucking reckoning, before I ruined my career and this project, not one more person telling me this was not a terrible idea.
“Don’t think I don’t know you’re internally rolling your eyes at me.” She leaned over to smack my shoulder playfully. “Camilo, I know that despite your insistence that you have terrible judgment and can’t be trusted to be sensible when you have feelings for someone.” She leaned in close, so she was looking straight at me. “You are an excellent judge of character—” she held up her finger and waved it in the air “—and you have very good self-preservation instincts. I also know that your mother has always been sacred ground for you. If your gut is telling you this guy is trustworthy, then fucking go with it, babe. I’ve seen shit go down in flames between you and some of the clueless assholes you’ve dated.”
She hooked her thumb over her shoulder as she talked. “But that was on them, not you.”
After a moment of me just staring at her, she threw her arms up as if recalling a particularly compelling piece of evidence. “Fuck, I don’t think you ever even told that dickbag Paul Dinorah’s name, and you dated for almost two years. Yet from one meeting Tom already knows how she came to the States. It took you three years to tell me, motherfucker!”
I broke as soon as dickbag came out of her mouth. “Fine,” I said, too amused by her to keep arguing. “But if I end up getting fired for this shit, I’m moving in with you.”
She laughed and got up from the spot on my desk where she’d perched. “I would not mind splitting Astoria rent prices, but I don’t think you’re going anywhere. Just chill out and go on your meeting/date with the Dominican billionaire with the BDE.”
“Stop,” I pleaded as she back walked out of my office with a huge grin on her face.
Why did I think I could go to Ayako for sensible advice?
I was completely sure that doing this with Tom was the road to perdition, but it seemed like I’d at least have some friends with me when I got there.
Tom
I sensed him before I saw him coming up the path to the conservatory.
He had his hair in a bun again, but this time he was wearing dark red slacks and a gray sweater under a leather bomber jacket. A messenger bag slung across his chest. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the outfit, but to me he looked perfect.
He glanced up as he started walking towards the steps where I was standing. As soon as he saw me, his face broke into an easy smile, and he lifted a hand in greeting. Before I knew what I was doing I started walking to meet him halfway.
“Hi,” I said holding myself back. The need to kiss him felt like a gravitational force, every part of my body wanted to get closer, to touch him.
Camilo looked up at me, and I could see just a slight tremor go through him. I wondered if he was having the same reaction. After a moment he blinked and pointed to the glass doors of the conservatory.
“Shall we?”
I realized that we were standing in the middle of the steps and people were having to walk around us. I felt a little embarrassed but nodded and turned toward the glass doors.
Once inside, Camilo stopped to look around. “I haven’t been here in ages,” he said, inspecting the glass-encased building. “My mom used to love to come see the orchid show in the spring.” His smile faded a bit then. “We haven’t come in a while.”
I stepped closer to him, looking up at the glass dome above us. “It’s quite a building. I didn’t come here until I’d been in New York for a few years and was pretty blown away by it when I did.”
We looked at the tropical plants as we talked. “And a little homesick.”
Camilo lifted and eyebrow at that. “Homesick?”
I gestured towards the doors that led to another greenhouse. “They have a lot of trees that are indigenous to the DR here.”
He perked up at that, nodding at all the plants I was pointing to. “That makes sense, my mom loved tearing off pieces of the Bay Rum leaves whenever we came here. She said it reminded her of her mom.”
I smiled at that, because that smell also brought up memories for me. “My grandma always had a bottle of rubbing alcohol with Bay Rum leaves in it. Anytime any of us fell down, she would soak a cloth with it and make us press it to the bruise.”
Cam
ilo sighed wistfully at my memory. He curled into himself a little bit as if he was getting chilled, and the impulse to put my arm around him had me almost vibrating. We walked a bit more, looking around the trees and plants of my childhood, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to be here with him.
“How did it go with your mom?” I asked while he inspected a cacao tree.
His shoulders tensed at the question, but after a moment he answered in a low voice. “It was fine. It wasn’t anything major, she just didn’t want to go alone.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” I didn’t want to pry or ask for more details, since it was clear to me this was not an easy topic for him. I was going to leave it there, when Camilo spoke again.
“My mom has depression and anxiety. She knows she needs help with it, but the stigma around mental illness she grew up with is still an issue. She feels embarrassed to seek out help.” His face was a study in frustration, his lush full lips flattened as we started walking again. “I mean if it were me, she’d be begging me to do whatever it took to feel okay, but since it’s for her, she finds every reason not to do it.”
I nodded in understanding. “My dad struggled with depression a lot.”
“From the war?” Camilo’s voice was gentle and so understanding. In the last ten years my life had changed so much that I rarely met anyone new who I didn’t approach with caution. The men that came into my life were usually the ones doing the pursuing and I rarely ever took them up on it. And yet here I was with this man who I barely knew, but could feel already getting into my blood.
I wanted to tell Camilo all my secrets.
When I spoke he turned from what he’d been looking at and focused completely on me. “Yeah. My mom talked my dad into seeing someone and taking what he needed in order to feel better. He has his ups and downs, but he’s been able to cope. Going to a therapist isn’t exactly considered ‘normal’ in the DR, but my mom has always been a bit counterculture.”
American Fairytale (Dreamers) Page 9
